Colorado Financial Adequacy Study

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Teenage girls cartwheeling outside Colorado school

Policymakers recommended that the Colorado Department of Education examine the costs necessary to adequately provide Colorado students with a thorough and uniform public education. The Department has contracted with AIR to conduct this research.

Updating Colorado’s public school finance formula to be student-centered is a bold step toward improving equity in school funding and delivering a high-quality education to every student in Colorado no matter where they reside.

- Speaker Julie McCluskie, CO General Assembly

AIR researchers conducted an analysis of Colorado’s education spending. The resulting report, Equity and Adequacy of Colorado School Funding: A Cost-Modeling Approach

  • Describes how funding is distributed across schools under the existing funding system; 
  • Determines the adequacy of current student outcomes and the relationship between student outcomes and student need characteristics;
  • Identifies the cost of achieving a target student outcome level for each school in the state, with costs varying based on levels of student need, school or district context, and geographic cost of living differences; and
  • Estimate components of a new funding formula (base funding and weights for additional funds to address specific needs).

The report also includes findings from a public survey and discussions in a series of virtual town halls.

Read the full report | Read the executive summary

Contact
Image of Jesse Levin
Principal Economic Researcher
Image of Drew Atchison
Principal Researcher
Stephanie Levin headshot
Senior Researcher