National organization moves HQ to Norman Hall

After 35 years of publishing research on school finance issues, the American Education Finance Association is moving its headquarters to UF’s College of Education. COE Professor Craig Wood, the new executive director of the AEFA, will manage the organization from Norman Hall beginning July 1.

The AEFA announced the change at its March 2007 annual meeting, held in Baltimore. The organization was previously headquartered in Denver.

“I’m very glad to have been chosen for this position,” Wood said. “For people in the world of education finance, this organization fills much the same role as AERA (the American Educational Research Association), so as you can imagine, this is an honor.”

Wood is one of the leading scholars in the field of education finance.

His publication records includes more than 250 book chapters, monographs, and scholarly journal articles including the American Education Finance Association’s Annual Yearbooks, and the Journal of Education Finance .

His publications include the book Education Finance Law published this spring by the Education Law Association of Dayton, Ohio. He serves on the editorial boards of the Education Law Reporter, Journal of Education Finance, and Educational Considerations as well as the Journal of Law and Public Policy, published at UF’s Levin College of Law.

Wood has also designed the education finance distribution formulas for state legislatures, conducted a number of studies on the equity of financing for K-12 school systems in various states, and has served as the lead expert witness for state legislatures in several state constitutional challenges to the manner in which public funds are distributed to school districts.

The AEFA usually moves its headquarters to a new local each time a new director is chosen. This move will mark a sort of homecoming for the organization, which was originally chartered in Florida.

“I think the AEFA’s board of directors is pretty pleased to have the organization housed at a respected college of education,” Wood said.