In 2018 the Department for Education published "Supporting excellent school resource management: strategy." This set out the Department's commitment to helping schools improve outcomes for pupils by making every pound count and getting the best value from their resources. This strategy underpins the School Resource Management (SRM)…

Deciding how to spend the nation's education dollars is a tremendous responsibility. It's easy to forget that this responsibility falls primarily to district leaders (sometimes with input from principals). Sometimes those decisions go well and schools beat the odds on student outcomes. Other times, they do not, and student outcomes lag. Sometimes…

Weighted student funding (WSF) decentralizes control over resources and empowers principals as financial leaders of their schools. In this study, we set out to understand how principals are making use of those leadership opportunities. Based upon a 2017-18 survey of 639 principals in 14 school districts implementing WSF, we find that principals…

To address the increased needs of students and schools resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has enacted a series of three relief and stimulus bills -- the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA), and the American Rescue Plan…

School systems are currently faced with critical recovery needs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Leaders must decide how to allocate nearly $200 billion of federal funding, which has the potential to significantly impact efforts to accelerate learning and provide student well-being supports, especially for students who have been…

The effects of linking school districts' funding directly to the students they serve and providing local school districts and communities with more control over how that money is spent could ripple through the entire K-12 system, from the state Capitol to the classroom. For district leaders anxious to improve their schools and better support…

The education profession is notorious for its resistance to change. School leaders often claim that collective bargaining agreements, state and federal regulations, and budget concerns prevent them from pursuing effective school reform. The culture of the K-12 leadership environment is one that often seeks consensus over progress and collegiality…

Researchers have questioned whether additional resources impact student achievement--essentially, whether money matters. This policy brief examines the connections between student achievement and resource allocation with the aim of providing policymakers with guidance in this area. Key points are that targeted resource allocation especially…

Presents a portfolio model for management principles that can be applied to state and local government tax structures to determine how governments can minimize tax variability for any desired rate of growth of revenues and apply the principle to the issue of funding education. (Author/MD)

An Arizona district funded staff salary raises by developing some workable budget-reduction strategies. The process emphasized garnering board and community support and collaborating with employee groups. A list of 67 ideas for generating revenues or reallocating program dollars represented $9 million in savings. A condensed list saving $3 million…

Summarizes the current literature on whether money matters in education and the allocation and use of educational resources. Offers suggestions for districts seeking to focus on instructional purposes. How money is spent matters more than how much is spent. Since 80% to 90% of a district's funds are spent at the school level, most savings or…

School district budgeting is a daunting process. To help administrators, board members, and teachers who are not as knowledgeable on the subject as they feel they need to be, a practical manual on the budget-development process is offered here. Three themes are established early in the book: "budgeting is planning"; "administration in budgeting is…

Standards-based educational reform has prompted the education system as a whole to examine whether the dollars put into the system reflect an investment in meeting the overarching goals of school reform. Driven by a common goal of improving the achievement of all students to increase the productivity of society in general, the education industry…

A national study of rural superintendents identified several fiscal practices to maximize resources, including seeking bids and comparison pricing for purchases, paying bills promptly where discounts are available, employing aggressive energy conservation measures, joining a regional service agency to provide services and programs, and increasing…

Learning activities that expose students to the concepts of economics are presented, using concrete examples involving the daily activities of zoos and their visitors. The activities call for students to identify zoo expenses, evaluate decisions about zoo spending, and consider the financial and moral costs of treating animals humanely. (JDD)