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School quality and Massachusetts enrollment shifts in the context of tax limitations

Author

Listed:
  • Katharine L. Bradbury
  • Karl E. Case
  • Christopher J. Mayer
Abstract
Like most states, Massachusetts underwent a large shift in public school enrollment between the 1980s and 1990s, requiring a number of sizable fiscal and educational adjustments by individual school districts. Between 1980 and 1989, the number of students in kindergarten through grade 12 fell 21 percent, from 1.04 million to 825,000. As children of baby boomers reached school age, the picture changed and enrollments grew more than 90,000 over the next seven years. These aggregate trends gloss over even more marked shifts at the local level. This article investigates the degree to which the constraints of proposition 2 1/2, and other factors such as demographic and economic shifts and differences in school quality, affected the adjustments that both local governments and households made to demographically driven turnaround in enrollment growth. The authors report three major findings: (1) Net public school enrollment changes are positively related to differences across communities in school quality. (2) Shifts in enrollments were much more pronounced in the 1990s, when aggregate enrollments were rising and the economy was improving. (3) Proposition 2 1/2 appears to have significantly altered the pattern of enrollment changes, with families with students moving to districts less constrained by this property tax limit.

Suggested Citation

  • Katharine L. Bradbury & Karl E. Case & Christopher J. Mayer, 1998. "School quality and Massachusetts enrollment shifts in the context of tax limitations," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jul, pages 3-20.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1998:i:jul:p:3-20
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. T. A. Downes & D. N. Figlio, "undated". "School Finance Reforms, Tax Limits, and Student Performance: Do Reforms Level Up or Dumb Down?," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1142-97, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    2. Katharine L. Bradbury, 1997. "Property tax limits and local fiscal behavior: did Massachusetts cities and towns spend too little on town services under proposition 2 1/2?," Working Papers 97-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    3. Cutler, David M. & Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1999. "Restraining the Leviathan: property tax limitation in Massachusetts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 313-334, March.
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    9. Ross, Stephen & Yinger, John, 1999. "Sorting and voting: A review of the literature on urban public finance," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: P. C. Cheshire & E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 47, pages 2001-2060, Elsevier.
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniel R Mullins, 2010. "Fiscal Limitations on Local Choice: The Imposition and Effects of Local Government Tax and Expenditure Limitations," Chapters, in: Sally Wallace (ed.), State and Local Fiscal Policy, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Jeffrey Zabel, 2014. "Unintended Consequences: The Impact of Proposition 2½ Overrides on School Segregation in Massachusetts," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 9(4), pages 481-514, October.
    3. Ronald J. Shadbegian, 2003. "Did the Property Tax Revolt Affect Local Public Education? Evidence From Panel Data," Public Finance Review, , vol. 31(1), pages 91-121, January.
    4. Thomas Downes, 2016. "Why have revenue-strapped New England school districts been slow to turn to alternative funding sources?," Current Policy Perspectives 16-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    5. Thomas A. Downes, 2002. "Do state governments matter?: a review of the evidence on the impact on educational outcomes of the changing role of the states in the financing of public education," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 47(Jun), pages 143-180.
    6. Katharine L. Bradbury & Bo Zhao, 2007. "Measuring disparities in non-school costs and revenue capacity among Massachusetts cities and towns," Working Papers 06-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

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