The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "school finance" ...
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Equity Not Enough in Edgewood
In 1968, 400 Edgewood High School students protested against administration, demanding that they be provided with better supplies and more qualified teachers. Their parents set off a legal battle with the school district to get their kids a better education. In 1984, the current school finance system was declared unconstitutional and a new "Robin Hood" system was implemented. The new system required 134 of the richer school districts to share their funding with some of the poorer ones. This investigation looks at the effectiveness of this equity funding system, as well as other problems the district faces.
Tags: Edgewood School District; school finance; funding system; equity funding; "Robin Hood"; standardized testing
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Roslyn public school embezzlement: a collection of stories
The discovery that a school finance chief had taken money from the district led to further discoveries of embezzlement throughout the school system and all the way up to the superintendent. Dummy companies, misuse of school district credit cards, funneling money for personal expenses and even an accounting firm preforming inadequate audits were all revealed during this series of stories.
Tags: embezzlement; accounting; larceny; audit; school district; public school; Long Island
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Paying for Schools
This series of stories takes an in-depth look at how schools are financed in California. The investigation found it to be an incredibly convoluted and inequitable system. The distribution of money from district to district is uneven, and politics often determine who gets the most money. A lot of the money is doled out based on outdated programs with little connection to modern day needs in schools. Much of the money is released to schools with little or no state monitoring of whether the programs are working or even happening, and some actually aren't.
Tags: spending; school programs; Governor Gray Davis; school budget; school funding; Gifted and Talented Education; Bilingual Teacher Training; Gang Risk Intervention; West Contra Costa Unified School District; Dropout Prevention Program; Anti-Defamation League; English Language Acquisition Program; Department of Education; Economic Impact Aid; California Legislature; Senate Rules Committee; public education
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Killed By Parolees; Did Cornejo & Sons Contribute Illegally?; BOE settlement hidden
City Hall: Mayoral candidate's hidden history of domestic violence complaints; fraud and abuse in publicly funded job training program; misuse of travel funds by city officials; City Hall contract tampering; improper donations by a major city contractor. Parollees: More than two dozen Kansans had died at the hands of parolles in the past four years. Nearly, two-thirds who were killed were on at least their second chance at parole; more than a third of the parollees had broken contact with their parole officers before their arrest; and the state made little effort to find parollees who disappeared. School District: the Wichita school district kept a teach on the payroll eight years after the first complaints about is conduct with young teenage girls, they cloaked its settlement of his rape victim's lawsuit in secrecy.
Tags: City Hall; Parolees; Board Of Education; Kansas Legislature; Department of Corrections; Ethics Commission; Sexual Harassment; Bill Warren; Campaign Finance
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Power of the Purse
Education Week reports on school-based budgeting.
Tags: schools; school finances; school budgets; school spending; school-based budgeting
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A Promise Broken: Failing Indiana's Schoolchildren
The Indianapolis Star produced two eight-page special sections looking at the financing of schools and revealed that the state has repeatedly asked local schools to do more but not provided the needed funding. "Many Indiana schoolchildren are still doing poorly, because, once again, Indiana has created a plan to spur better performance but not followed through with funding and other support to local schools."
Tags: schools; education; school reform; public schools; Indiana schools; state government; education spending; school finance; academic standards; local schools; database mapping project
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Edison Schools: An Education in Financial Deception
A Bloomberg News investigation shows how Edison Schools Inc. -- "the largest private manager of public schools in the U.S. -- artificially inflated its annual revenue by 41 percent in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission." Other findings are that Edison booked revenue from the Sherman, Texas, school district, and that budget problems prevented the company from providing textbooks for schools in Pennsylvania.
Tags: finances; overspending; SEC; accounting standards; privatization of education; stocks and bonds; business
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Collapse of control
The Star-Telegram reports on "construction irregularities, shoddy oversight and waste of taxpayer funds that have riddled the Fort Worth school district for five years." Some of the findings are that two of the school's contractors regularly overcharged for jobs; the district was paying twice for the same job, as its employees worked on projects that have already been awarded to contractors; at least ten projects skirted standard bidding practices; internal controls were not in place. To report the issue, the team built a database of invoices and purchase orders.
Tags: budget scandals; finances; building codes; Texas public Information Act; FBI
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Town and Country
Education Week reports on how "urban and rural communities across the country have gone to court in search of more help from their states in constructing and upgrading schools." The story looks at how Alaska's villages and New Jersey's cities have fared in their struggles for financial aid for education. The comparison is between Golovin, Alaska, and Newark, New Jersey. "They represent two sides of the same coin ... yet they have this in common: Compared with the facilities of other school districts in their own states, the schools in Golovin and Newark are at a significant disadvantage," the publication reports.
Tags: renovation; discipline; playgrounds; finances; Abbott v. Burke; lawsuits; education; students; teachers superintendents
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Partners in Crime
"They fell in love at Saltfeet District High School in Stoney Creek. Thirty years and $100 million later, they were on the run, the culprits behind one of the biggest financial scandals in Canadian history," reports Toronto Life. The article follows the story of Ron and Loren Koval, founders and rulers of King's, a medical facility in Toronto, as well as owners of a financing company called BACC Capital Corp. The investigation reveals that the latter company, "which was matching corporations and hospitals in need of costly equipment with lenders willing to finance" it, was falsifying the lease contracts for nonexistent equipment. The scam also involved transferring the money from the fraudulent contract to King's, and from King's to shell companies.
Tags: police; detectives; finance; health; medicine; crime; courts; forged endorsement; liability