Guest editor(s): Thomas Downes, Kieran Killeen
Submission deadline date: November 30, 2026
Synopsis
The following is a call for manuscripts to be included in a new book titled Changing Federal Role in Education Finance and Policy, as part of the ongoing books series by Emerald Publishing called Research in Education, Fiscal Policy and Practice, edited by Thomas Downes and Kieran Killeen. Abstracts for proposed chapters will be accepted until November 30, 2026. Potential topics and submission guidelines are detailed below.
Book Series Mission Statement
Education finance and policy issues in the United States reflect a durable tension between local, state, and federal interests in the governance and provision of educational services. At the core of this tension is the desire for local control and provision versus moral and constitutional obligations of the state and federal government to equalize opportunities for students. The resulting policy context creates an ongoing demand for rigorous, timely, and field-relevant research on how the design and implementation of school finance systems can ameliorate the tension and achieve the desired effects. This book series is intended to help meet this demand.
Specifically, the series provides a scholarly forum for interdisciplinary research on the financing of public, private, and higher education in the United States and abroad. The series is committed to disseminating high quality empirical studies, policy analyses, and literature reviews on contemporary issues in fiscal policy and practice. Each themed book is intended for a diversity of readers, including researchers, students, policy makers, and school practitioners.
Motivation and Organization of the Proposed Book
The federal role in financing elementary and secondary education has ebbed and flowed depending on the interests of the current administration, the underlying economic circumstances, and perennial tensions about the appropriate role of the federal government. While states have both a moral and constitutional obligation to equalize opportunities for students, the Rodriguez v. San Antonio established that the federal obligation is only moral, not constitutional. Over the last 25 years, accountability efforts and economic downturns have dramatically altered the federal role in education finance and policy. Recent efforts by the Trump administration to eliminate the Department of Education and to reduce federal spending on domestic programs also have the potential to dramatically alter federal involvement in K-12 education.
On earlier book in this series, High Stakes Accountability: Implications for Resources and Capacity (Rice & Roellke, 2008), examined the impact of the 2002 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known by the moniker No Child Left Behind (NCLB). That book included “a collection of studies examining the relationship between high stakes reform and school district staffing, the recruitment and distribution of high quality teachers, curriculum making, and the provision of supplemental educational services to children.” Now seems an apt time to assemble a new collection of studies that look at the effects of more recent changes in the federal role, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). While a number of authors, like Anglum, Shores, and Steinberg (2022) and Goldhaber, Falken, and Theobald (2024), have explored the effects of these federal policy changes, our goal in this book is to provide researchers, policy makers, and students a resource that collects work that provides a long-term perspective on the effects of the evolving federal role.
We welcome manuscripts that address important questions including but not limited to the following:
What are the some of the implications of the tension between local control and federal priorities? How has the devolution of federal responsibilities due to DOGE and to other devolution efforts altered the nature of K-12 school finance?
How have changes in federal student aid and loan programs altered the composition of college campuses?
What are the implications of the failure of the federal government to meet the commitment for financing special education that was established in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)?
Were the funds provided by the federal government under ARRA and ESSER targeted at the districts with the greatest needs? Were the funds sufficient to match the needs of recipient districts?
What are the implications of federal efforts to expand private school choice on the finances of traditional public school districts and of charter schools?
How have federal court decisions altered the ability of state and local governments to finance K-12 education?
How has the move from NCLB to ESSA altered the roles of states in the financing and provision of K-12 education?
What are the impacts of shifting programmatic responsibilities from the Department of Education to other federal departments? How would those impacts change if the Department of Education was closed?
How have limits on the deductibility of state and local taxes altered the ability of states and localities to generate revenue for schools?
How has the Impact Aid program that provides aid to tribal and Department of Defense schools and districts evolved? Are the funds provided under the Impact Aid program sufficient?
Proposed papers may take the form of reviews of recent research, new empirical research, exemplary case studies, or combinations thereof.
The book is meant to serve scholars in education finance and policy who need a refined perspective on the context of schooling. The book is also meant to serve students and faculty from programs in public administration, public policy, community development and applied economics, education administration, educational leadership and policy studies who are studying content related to education policy, the economics of education, state and local public finance, and taxation. Some upper-level undergraduate students may also benefit from this resource.
Submission Guidelines
In response to this call, prospective authors are invited to submit a chapter proposal of ~500 words by November 30, 2026 using the editors’ emails (Thomas Downes, Kieran Killeen). The proposal should include four elements:
Chapter title
Research question
Summaries of the main sections of the chapter
A statement about why the manuscript will be valued by the target audience.
Editors will review each proposal and will select chapters within 30 days.
The author(s) of each chapter will be invited to a convening in early June 2027 during which the contributors to the book will present their manuscripts.
Peer review feedback, editorial review, and copy-editing services will be provided during late summer 2027.
The final book chapters will be due November 15, 2027.
Book publication is slated for Summer 2028.
About the Editors
Thomas Downes, Department of Economics Tufts University, thomas.downes@tufts.edu
Kieran Killeen, College of Education and Social Services University of Vermont, Kieran.Killeen@uvm.edu
References
Anglum, J.C., Shores, K., & Steinberg, M.P. (2022). Federal Stimulus Aid and School Finance: Lessons from the Great Recession. In T. Downes and K. Killeen (Eds.), Recent Advancements in Education Finance and Policy (pp. 3 – 35). Information Age Publishing.
Goldhaber, D., Falken, G., & Theobald, R. (2024). ESSER funding and school system jobs: Evidence from job posting data. National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, 297-0424.
Rice, J. K., & Roellke, C. (Eds.). (2008). High stakes accountability: Implications for resources and capacity. Information Age Publishing.
