School Finance Redesign Project

Tools to Support Strategic Resource Allocation

Two SFRP projects, one led by Stephen Frank and Karen Hawley Miles and the other by Richard Brandon, provide analysis tools that states and districts can use in deliberating about how to use funds effectively. These tools are only as good as the evidence on which they are based, and the available evidence about links between education spending and student outcomes is far from conclusive. However, the authors hope that deliberative processes focused on alternative ways to raise student achievement will help public officials make coherent decisions and reverse the current fragmentation of effort and funding in public education.