Superintendents were asked two questions about the overall quality of education in their district. The first question asked them about the effects of the revenue caps over the past seven years, whereas the second question asked about their perceptions about the future of educational quality in their district. The two questions follow.

1. "What has been the effect of the revenue controls on the overall quality of education provided by your district?
(1) very positive, (2) positive, (3) no difference, (4) negative, and (5) very negative."
2. "Assume that the overall educational quality in your district is the number "8" on a 10-point scale (10 being the highest). Given current and projected trends in revenues, enrollment and student demographics, what number do you think will describe the quality of education in 2005?"

As for the first question, only three persons (1%) said the effects of the revenue caps have been "positive." Ninety-six superintendents (36%) said the revenue caps have made "no difference" on the district's educational quality, compared with 168 persons (62%) who said the consequences have been "negative" or "very negative."

Table 4
Responses to the Question, "What has been the effect of the revenue controls on the overall quality of education provided by your district?"

	% of districts
Positive or very positive	1%
No difference	36%
Negative or very negative	62%

In response to the question asking about future educational quality, Table 5 shows that 29 superintendents (10.8%) said they did not know what the effects would be, while another eight persons did not answer the question. The values for the choices between "1" and "10" are shown in Table 5. For example, 2.2% of superintendents said that future quality would be at the "1" level in 2005. In contrast, 4.1% said their district would be at the "10" level. On average, superintendents said that overall quality would drop from a score of "8" to "6" (both the mean and median).

Table 5
Responses to the question, "Assume that the overall educational quality in your district is the number "8" on a 10-point scale (10 being the highest). Given current and projected trends in revenues, enrollment and student demographics, what number do you think will describe the quality of education in 2005?"

Projected future quality	% of districts
"1"	2.2%
"2"	1.9%
"3"	4.1%
"4"	9.7%
"5"	13.4%
"6"	23.5%
"7"	12.3%
"8"	15.6%
"9"	2.2%
"10"	4.1%
Don't Know	10.8%