ABSTRACT
The previous chapter ended with a warning that there is a growing belief in the United States that public education’s performance is at least lackluster, if not suffering a crisis of confidence. Clearly, research on linkages between student achievement and school funding levels is mixed, but there is more to the issue than pure economics. At the same time, it is never as simple as a “bottom line,” because the whole discussion revolves around fiscal considerations in tandem with other important social and political principles that cannot be ignored if society is to sustain a civil democracy.
