A comparison of the equity of funding within and between the Florida Minimum Foundation Program and the Florida Education Finance Program for selected years from 1971 to 1989

In 1948 the State of Florida adopted the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) and in 1973 it changed to the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) to fund public schools. The purpose of the change was to establish more flexibility in elementary and secondary funding and to better meet the education needs of students. The purpose of this study was to conduct an analysis of the equity of education funding among Florida elementary and secondary school districts. Measures of fiscal equity were used to evaluate the impact of state support on equalization for selected years before and after enactment of the Florida Education Finance Program. Four correlations were used to measure equal-education-opportunity for the MFP years of 1971 and 1973. The same four Pearson Product Moment Correlations, adjusted to the FEFP parallel variables of the MFP, were used to measure equal-education-opportunity for the FEFP years of 1977, 1979, 1987, and 1989. Comparisons of equal-education-opportunity under the two programs were made. Six statistical measures were used to measure horizontal-equity for the MFP years 1971 and 1973. The same six statistical measures were used for the FEFP years. The statistical measures were the Restricted Range, the Federal Range Ratio, the Variance, the Coefficient of Variation, the Gini Coefficient and the McLoone Index. Comparisons of horizontal-equity under the two programs were made. The conclusions were that each year of the FEFP offered greater equal-educational-opportunity than either MFP year. Also, each year of the FEFP studied had greater horizontal-equity than either year of the MFP. However, the last year of the FEFP, 1989, showed less equal-education-opportunity than the other three years. Likewise, the horizontal-equity in 1989 was lower than the horizontal-equity of the other three FEFP years