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From Cashbox to Classroom:
The Struggle for Fiscal Reform and Educational Change in New Jersey
William A. Firestone, Margaret E. Goertz, and Gary Natriello
Pub Date: 1997, 192 pages
Paperback: $24.95, ISBN: 0807735558
 
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"This is the most extensive and intensive study of local impact of school finance reform in history. The authors will be able to advise future policymakers not only in New Jersey, but across the United States. There are no books like this. . . . The low-income urban vs. wealthy suburban comparison is an outstanding feature of the book. . . . The authors bring different strengths and perspectives to the complex data. The result is a much more robust analysis than the usual finance books."
—Michael W. Kirst, Stanford University"Extremely interesting and informative. The book provides a detailed analysis of both the possibilities and the limitations of school finance reform, as experienced in one state that has been struggling with school finance reform for more than 20 years. To my mind, the greatest contribution of the book is the rebuttal it provides to the view that increasing expenditures in urban school districts is simply a waste of taxpayers’ money. The book shows just what urban districts did with extra funds, and makes the case that in most urban districts the decisions about how to spend the money made sense."
—Richard J. Murnane, Harvard Graduate School of Education "This well-written and easy-to-read book provides one of the best ever assessments of a major school finance reform.... The book tells another story as well, a story of the broader politics of making the American dream a reality for all children, regardless of where they happen to be born and live, particularly if that happens to be in a poor city. From Cashbox to Classroom is a good read."
—Allan Odden, University of Wisconsin–Madison |
