EPIC conducts research and designs academic tools to help determine whether schools are adequately funded to enable all students to succeed academically. These studies help policy makers determine the amount of money necessary for schools to achieve federal, state, and local goals and mandates.

PAST PROJECT view report

The purpose of the PAF study was to help determine the amount of funding necessary to enable all students to meet academic standards in Pennsylvania. EPIC presented a series of educational strategies or interventions to panelists who reviewed these strategies, decided whether or not they were necessary to ensure an adequate education, and rated the importance of each strategy.

The panelists completed an online simulation that presented cost information for each strategy and for each existing school component. This project is one component of a larger adequacy funding study conducted by Augenblick, Palaich & Associates. The results will be used to inform education finance and policy decisions in Pennsylvania.

PAST PROJECT view report

To determine whether the state of Washington is funding schools adequately and giving all Washington students the chance to succeed academically, EPIC's adequacy funding study assessed how well Washington school funding aligns with student achievement outcomes.

Four different methodologies were used to determine adequate school funding. The Professional Judgment approach relied on educators to determine the resources that students need to succeed academically and then estimated the cost of these resources. The Evidence Based Model used research to assess essential educational resources and then assigned costs to these resources. The Effective Schools Model used schools that succeed academically to find an average level of spending, which was set as the minimally adequate school funding level. The final approach was the Resource Cost Model, which used statistical equations to estimate the financial inputs necessary for students to meet the state academic benchmarks. Differences in cost of living and student demographics were taken into account by all four models. Each of these four methods was used to check and validate the other methods to ensure reliability.

The findings produced data-driven recommendations for how Washington school funding can better align with student achievement.