Consider the new proposed law in Congress called the School Building Improvement Act that intends to stimulate school building quality and school infrastructure investment. Under the bill, $7 billion per year would be provided in formula funds to states for local competitive grants for school repair, renovation, and construction. School equity would be made a priority as states would focus assistance on communities with the greatest financial needs and ensure equitable access for public charter schools.
The basic structure is as follows. School districts with higher percentages of lowincome children, school districts with very poor-quality school facilities, and school districts with very high financial needs are the school districts that are given first priority for these matching grants. The size of the matching grant will take into account the relative poverty of the population of the school district (i.e., lower income communities receive a higher matching rate than higher income communities).
a. Based on this structure, graphically explain how this matching grant program attempts to equalize the investment in capital expenditures across low-income (denoted Low in the graph) and high-income school districts (denoted High in the graph).
b. What would the education production function theory suggest about the effect of this program on student outcomes?
c. Based on the research of Neilson and Zimmerman (2014) and Conlin and Thompson (2015), explain what the research would suggest about the overall impacts of this program?