“The Evolution of Public School Finance in the Antebellum Era,” 2/21 KICD Colloquium with Caltech Prof. of Political Science Rod Kiewiet

Exploring the institutional change he refers to by the shorthand, the “Second Great Devolution,” Caltech Professor of Political Science Rod Kiewiet will trace the ripple effects of states’ shifting the funding burden for constructing and operating public schools to local governments and the concomitant extension of taxing authority to school districts. The talk will be held on February 21 at 3:30pm in Jesse 410.

Abstract

In the First Great Devolution, the federal government reserved Section 16 in each township out in the public domain, either to the residents of the township or to the people of the states in general, to support their schools. As increasing demand for schooling drove the Common School Movement onward, many state governments contributed larger amounts of their own revenue to public education. For the most part, though, state governments followed the same policy path as the federal government. In what will henceforth be referred to as the Second Great Devolution, state after state called upon local governments to levy the bulk of the taxes needed to pay for the construction and operation of public schools. This was achieved, for the most part, by granting taxing authority to school districts—jurisdictions created for the sole purpose of providing education to the children of the families residing within them. It was this institutional innovation that enabled the United States to make an unparalleled degree of progress in the provision of mass education.

D. R. (Rod) Kiewiet received his BA from University of Iowa University and his PhD from Yale and, in addition to his role as a Professor of Political Science, has served in a variety of capacities at Caltech since arriving there in 1979, including Dean of Students, Dean of Graduate Studies, and Dean of Undergraduate Studies. A scholar of how empirical analyses help us better understand questions of formal political theory, Prof. Kiewiet is the author of four books and dozens of scholarly articles and, among other recognitions, received APSA’s 1986 Congressional Quarterly Press Award (with Matthew D. McCubbins) and 1992 Gladys M. Kammerer Award for best book on U.S. national policy (also with Matthew D. McCubbins).