Finance, Spending, and Productivity Project
Schools in Crisis: Making Ends Meet
Featured Briefs
What will be the education response to projected fiscal shortfalls? If history is an indication, state and district leaders will cut costs by eliminating the most junior teachers, cutting music, sports, or other add-ons. The system won’t be any better, more efficient, or more nimble as a result, only worse in that students have less of what schools offered before.
Despite historical patterns and the depth of today's fiscal shortfalls, there is some optimism among reformers that this time the fiscal cuts could be used to strengthen the system, yielding a more productive, agile, efficient organization. In other words, maybe all the red ink can unlock education resources and bring about unprecedented changes in productivity.
What’s needed to help the system seek out more strategic, thoughtful responses? First and foremost, education leaders need to understand their options, the tradeoffs that exist, and what’s at stake and for whom. Useful information must include fiscally relevant data that can inform timely decisions and clarify potential barriers.
Second, various stakeholder groups must be engaged as a powerful force in prompting consideration of alternatives. The clear need is for smart engagement strategies that access existing networks and communication channels to get information out quickly.
Led by Marguerite Roza, this initiative will produce a series of "Rapid Response" analyses designed to inform education leaders about the consequences and alternative options of various responses to fiscal shortfalls. Topics will solidify as the work evolves in order to remain timely and capitalize on rapidly changing conditions. Fiscal analyses for each topic will be modeled from either nationally representative data sources or accessible district or state databases.
Funding for this work is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
