Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools

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November 2008
Paul Hill, Marguerite Roza, James Harvey

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Public school finance systems around the United States are outmoded, failing to support the effective education of America’s children.

In practice, the way states and local school districts fund their schools is “like an old computer that has become so laden with applications, one added on top of another over the decades, that it can no longer do anything well.”

This is the conclusion of an extensive six-year national study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The study’s final report, Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools, authored by Paul Hill, Marguerite Roza, and James Harvey, criticizes school finance systems because they are so burdened by rules and narrow policies that they commit dollars “with little regard for results, holding adults accountable for compliance but not results.”

According to the authors, “We need to measure performance at every level—district, school and classroom—and let money and students flow from less to more effective uses. We need to experiment with new ideas and new technologies.”

Facing the Future offers a four-part action plan to overhaul today’s outmoded school finance systems:

• Drive funds to schools based on student counts—the money would be given to principals to allocate and manage within their individual schools. A weighting formula could be used to provide extra funds for disadvantaged students.
• Concentrate federal funds on low-income students—direct money on the basis of student characteristics right down to the individual student’s school.
• Redesign states’ school finance systems for continuous improvement—demand innovation and continuous improvement, keeping what works and discarding what does not.
• Base accountability on performance—make superintendents and the chief of state schools responsible for judging school performance and finding better options for children whose schools do not teach them effectively.

The report was produced by the School Finance Redesign Project (SFRP), with funding by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Additional Information

Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools was released December 1 at the Brookings Institution. Learn more about the event and download the transcript.