Dedication
In memory of Charles Scott Benson, 1922-1994
This publication is dedicated to Charles S. Benson, a distinguished economist and educator at the University of California, Berkeley, who dedicated his life's work to improving education finance for students in poor and downtrodden school districts, which he believed trained them to wander from one minimum wage job to another.
Dr. Benson was a professor emeritus whose three decades at Berkeley were spent teaching educational administration and policy analysis. He also was the director of the National Center for Vocational Education, which studied the effects of education on employment. His text, "The Economics of Public Education," is still widely acknowledged as a classic in the field. Dr. Benson, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, received his bachelor's degree in economics from Princeton University and his master's and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Before joining the Berkeley faculty, he taught at Bowdoin College from 1950 to 1955 and at Harvard University from 1955 to 1963.
Although the editor did not have the pleasure of knowing Dr. Benson personally, those who did remember an erudite, trenchant, and amusing fellow whom others sought out as much for his humor as his insight and wisdom. The editor wishes to express his appreciation of Dr. Benson's lifelong efforts to change existing systems of school finance in distressed school districts. As G. Alan Hickrod confides in this volume, Dr. Benson testified before a U.S. Senate Committee:
You must be very careful when you wish for things because you may just get what you wish for. We worked hard for equity in California. We got it. Now we don't like it.Those contemplating a life journey similar to that of Dr. Benson, striving to improve the financing for education of students in distressed school districts, would do well to remember not only his enormous contribution to the education finance community and to students, but also his style, wit, wisdom, and especially, his kindness and willingness to help all those he encountered.
