Related Publications

These essays rethink foundational aspects of the current education system and offer new ideas to shift the lens from schools to students. 

This brief on the four-day school week answers common questions about its scope and trends and points out what is not yet known about the impacts on students and districts.

This paper reviews state policies on providing charter schools with facilities and recommends better incentives for districts to share space.

This brief examines a promising new “third way” approach to school improvement and provides guidance for district and charter leaders and policymakers considering partnership schools.

CRPE’s report urges districts, charters, and states to work together in new ways to address the financial challenges associated with declining district enrollment.

State policy should encourage and empower school district innovation and improvement strategies.

This paper takes the first systematic look at costs associated with implementing personalized learning schools, how leaders of these schools choose to allocate their funds, and what it might take to make personalized learning financially sustainable on public dollars.

This report was published by the Rural Opportunities Consortium of Idaho as part of their research on the four-day school week in rural Idaho.

Edited by Betheny Gross and Ashley Jochim, this fourth volume of the SEA of the Future details how rural schools and districts are innovative in how they deliver services, recruit teachers, use technology, and serve special populations.

This paper explains why personalized high schools are hard to get and keep, and shows how we can make them more broadly available through changes in policy and philanthropic investments.

This report outlines the problems districts face in procuring innovative goods and services, shows how other sectors have modernized procurement processes, and recommends ways to reform district procurement.

This paper looks at new efforts to ensure special education functions effectively in New Orleans' full-choice public education landscape.

This report examines federal, state, and district barriers that principals say hinder their ability to make innovative school improvements.

This fiscal analysis finds that early difficulties forecasting enrollment and revenue can undermine implementation of personalized-learning models that blend computer-based and teacher-led instruction.

Edited by Betheny Gross and Ashley Jochim, this volume begins a conversation with state education leaders about productivity.

Editor Robin Lake introduces the key areas explored in this year's volume of Hopes, Fears, & Reality.

In this short report, Paul Hill evaluates Ohio Governor John Kasich's education budget proposal.

This study uses data from Seattle Public Schools to explore actual salary changes amidst rapid changes in economic context and the effect of the recession on teacher pay.

Cuts to state support for higher education have prompted some universities to raise tuition, admit more out-of-state students, and increase enrollment to close budget gaps. This analysis compares these three strategies in terms of the relative magnitude needed to close a gap in state funds and the extent to which they contribute to degree production for state students.

Public universities across the country are shifting more spots to nonresidents (who pay higher tuitions) in order to plug budget gaps. This case study examines admissions data at the University of Washington in order to quantify the effect on admissions standards for residents versus nonresidents.

This working paper examines how state finance policies that protect districts from declining or low enrollments drive up spending and inhibit adaptation.

This report offers the first detailed look into the financial implications for public schools embracing student-centered learning models.

This Rapid Response brief examines the real numbers on the Chicago teachers contract costs.

This Center for American Progress brief dissects the nation’s sizeable investment in master’s bumps as a means of highlighting policy obstacles to a more smartly differentiated compensation approach.

In this chapter Parker Baxter argues that by reimagining the distribution of funding, facilities, and other district assets without regard to whether a school is a district school or a charter school, districts can strike a unique and powerful bargain with charter schools: shared resources and shared responsibility.

This paper illustrates the flaws in the existing structure for making resource allocation decisions in public education.

This study identifies key functions performed by state education agencies, estimates the relative level of resources devoted to each activity, and explores ways SEAs could free up resources to build school improvement capacity.

Washington State is set to spend nearly $100 million in the next two years on pay bonuses for teachers who receive national board certification. This brief explores whether this investment makes a difference in improving the state's teaching force and encouraging the most capable teachers to work in high-poverty schools.

This brief describes how a different method of supplying benefits to employees might work for districts: cafeteria plans. While typical school district plans offer a one-size-fits-all package of benefits to employees, cafeteria plans allow employees to customize their benefits within a given cost.

In this brief, CRPE analysts find that most of Washington's largest districts spend less per math or science teacher than for teachers in other subjects.

Looking at the 15 largest districts in California, this analysis finds that teachers at risk of layoff are concentrated in schools with more poor and minority students, concluding that "last in, first out" policies disproportionately affect these students and their schools.

This brief explores trends in K–12 education jobs—those funded through the stimulus and by other means—to answer the question of what role ARRA played in overall education employment.

This brief demonstrates how, contrary to common worry, closing Title I's "comparability provision" loophole would not force districts to mandatorily reassign teachers.

Calculating the per unit costs of what schools or districts deliver can provide the best insight into the implications of all that spending. This paper was published in the edited volume, "Stretching the School Dollar: How Schools and Districts Can Save Money While Serving Students Best."

This analysis argues that in the current fiscal climate, districts should rethink automatically paying teachers for master's degrees, and consider how money could instead be channeled into compensation in ways that lead to improved student performance.

This analysis examines ways in which per-pupil spending in high schools varies by subject and course level, and demonstrates how such fiscal metrics can reveal the financial implications of the inner workings of individual schools.

This paper adds to the nascent literature on teacher pensions by exploring two questions: How well do teachers understand their current pension plans? And, what do they think about alternative plan structures?

This brief makes early projections of of what state budget cuts might mean for education spending and job losses.

In this commentary, the authors argue that the economic crisis could ultimately strengthen public education if leaders make tough resource decisions that can produce greater efficiencies.

This report summarizes the work of of the National Working Group on Funding Student Learning, a group of eleven top school finance scholars. The report both describes the problems with state school finance systems and offers solutions.

This is a pre-print version of an article that was published in ASBO International's School Business Affairs magazine. The article summarizes a five year research study that examined the linkages between how money is spent on K-12 education and whether students learn.

This paper explores the value teachers place on financial incentives and how much of a salary incentive is needed to attract new teachers to high-needs schools.

This commentary from the News & Observer argues that North Carolina needs to fundamentally reform how the state funds its public schools.

This paper briefly summarizes three School Finance Redesign Project teacher compensation studies that begin to help build the evidence base for teacher pay reform.

This paper explores why the current Title I program's comparability provision falls so short of what is needed, and the reasons for modifying it.

This paper finds that federal, state, and local policies designed to distribute education funds systematically provide more money to higher-income students and wealthier schools.

Public school funding in the U.S. is not a product of intelligent design, but this article shows that Americans can learn to make more effective use of the money available for public schools.

What are the options for charter school authorizers or entities with similar responsibilities who want to preserve assets when closing low-performing schools? This study suggests that authorizers rarely try to salvage these assets.

This Education Week article outlines changes to the education finance system that are needed in order to bring about new and more productive uses of existing funds.

This op ed urges the Washington's Basic Education Finance Joint Task Force to move to change our education finance system to support the state's education goals.

This Interim Report explains the study questions, research strategies, and early findings of the School Finance Redesign Project.

This brief touches on the experiences of urban school districts as they sought to close schools. It offers insight into the critical questions districts encountered and different paths chosen during the process.

Policymakers and researchers alike have expressed concern about a teacher quality gap between schools with affluent student populations and the more disadvantaged ones. This study uses teacher and school-level data from the NCES Schools and Staffing Survey combined with census-level information about community characteristics to build hedonic wage models for both public and private schools.

This paper shows that none of the available methods for estimating what it would cost to reach high standards for all children is adequate to the task.

This study examines resource allocation patterns across elementary schools and how these patterns differ depending, in part, on various levels of autonomy over resources at the school level.

This policy analysis tool, created by by Education Resource Strategies, helps districts deliberate about how to use funds effectively.

This paper shows how districts can assess the efficiency of their own resource use compared to similar districts and judge whether non-instructional expenditures are excessive.

This paper explores ways districts can reduce the costs (in terms of lost school productivity and lost training investments) of teacher turnover.

New accountability systems require that states and districts accomplish something never accomplished before—ensuring that all students meet state standards. This report explores how these expectations have altered resource decisions in North Carolina.

In this paper, Diana Sharp and John Bransford show how the learning sciences can be applied to school finance.

New accountability systems require that states and districts accomplish something never accomplished before—ensuring that all students meet state standards. This report explores how these expectations have altered resource decisions in Texas.

How might money be used in a more productive system? This working paper imagines a public educational system in which it is possible to link benefits received with costs borne.

This working paper paper suggests how a performance-driven system would allocate funds, monitor performance, search for more productive models of instruction, and replace less effective schools and programs.

This paper asks whether significant changes in public education finance are politically feasible.

This article shows how a regulated market in education would work and how one could be created.

Plaintiffs in adequacy lawsuits presume that school districts know how to use additional funds effectively. This chapter, from Courting Failure: How School Finance Lawsuits Exploit Judges' Good Intentions and Harm our Children, examines that presumption.

In this article, Paul Hill argues that mayors who seek to reform their schools need to untangle the tendrils of school district accounting practices, and he warns that mayors who attempt large-scale school reform without first attempting to understand their district's financial and personnel practices do so at their peril.

This chapter of Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2005 explores the details of how to compare charter school and traditional school funding.

Drawing on data from five large school districts, this report reveals that the nation's main program for educating the disadvantaged, Title I, is hampered by loopholes that prevent it from fulfilling its mission.

This is the first in a series of working papers on ways people working for the disadvantaged might use evidence about within-district spending inequalities.

This working paper presents a principal-agent model in the context of public schools to help explain the factors that affect district decisions about merit pay.

This paper, prepared for The Aspen Institute Congressional Program, February, 2005 explores the causes of school level spending variations.

Edited by James Harvey and Paul T. Hill, this book identifies roles for foundations and civic groups in defining strategies for big-city school reform, and ensuring that promised changes are implemented. This is the third and final book in a series on big city school reform initiated by the Brookings Institution.

Under current budgeting practices it is difficult to assess how resources are distributed between schools and whether every school is afforded the same opportunities to meet its educational goals. This paper addresses one key driver of spending variation between schools: shared district resources.

This report, published by The Phi Delta Kappan, traces Cincinnati Public Schools's process of moving to a system of student based budgeting: funding children rather than staff members, and weighting the funding according to schools and students' needs.

This report suggests that even with the economic slowdown and the sense of relief from a pending teacher shortage, districts will continue to struggle to get and keep good teachers unless they make dramatic changes in the ways they recruit teachers.

This report finds that although some districts and areas are experiencing difficulties finding good school principals, there are far more candidates interested in assuming school leadership roles than there are principal vacancies to fill.

Many foundations have put funds into urban school reform. The paper suggests that foundation giving needs to be backed up by a clear theory of change and that foundation officials need to know whether the districts in which they plan to work or are already working match the foundation's interests.

This paper presents the first results of a series of studies on within-district spending patterns. It provides an overview of some early analysis of variations in spending among schools within three districts.

This report examines the first-year finances of Massachusetts charter schools.