This essential resource provides a roadmap for redirecting school funds in ways that will dramatically improve student performance. Lead author Allan Odden3⁄4one of the nation?s foremost scholars in school finance3⁄4offers a vision of finance reform that will give local schools more control over their budgets and ultimately boost student performance. Allan Odden and Carolyn Busch look at the inefficiencies in current education spending, examine varied approaches to school-based financing, and offer recommendations for restructuring financing systems to meet ambitious reform goals. In addition, they propose ways to make funding more equitable across districts, outline the various elements that make school-based management work, and describe the key roles and responsibilities for the district even in a decentralized system. Financing Schools for High Performance is filled with examples of creative finance structures, formulas, and actual school budgets that support student learning and rigorous instructional programs. It will prove to be an indispensable aid for state, district, and school-level administrators.
This updated text provides a clear discussion of how research in school finance, resource allocation and use for higher performance, site-based management of schools, and teacher compensation may impact the funding of schools in the coming years.
This ambitious book grows out of the realization that a convergence of economic, demographic, and political forces in the early twenty-first century requires a fundamental reexamination of the financing of American higher education. The authors identify and address basic issues and trends that cut across the sectors of higher education, focusing on such questions as how much higher education the country needs for individual opportunity and for economic viability in the future; how responsibility for paying for it is currently allocated; and how financing higher education should be addressed in the future.
Designed for aspiring school leaders, this text presents the realities of school finance policy and issues, as well as the tools for formulating and managing school budgets. In an era of dwindling fiscal support for public schools, increasing federal mandates, and additional local budget requirements, educational leaders must be able to articulate sound finance theory and application. The authors move beyond coverage found in other texts by providing critical analysis and unique chapters on misconceptions about school finance; fiscal capacity, fiscal effort, adequacy, and efficiency; demographic issues; and spending and student achievement. Examining local, state, and federal education spending, this text gives readers the foundation to understand school finance and knowledgeably educate colleagues, parents, and other stakeholders about its big-picture issues, facts, and trends. The new edition of American Public School Finance will help educational leaders at all stages of their careers become informed advocates for education finance practice and reform. New in this edition: Expanded coverage on school choice Discussion of new standards and law Updated exploration of student demographics and its impact on learning Advanced pedagogical features such as connections to the latest Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL), Focus Questions, Case Studies, and Chapter Questions/Assignments Complementary electronic resources designed to deepen and extend the topics in each chapter and to provide instructors with lecture slides and other teaching strategies.
Ultimately, the authors recommend that states create new ways of helping colleges with many at-risk students, define performance indicators and measures better tailored to institutional missions, and improve the capacity of colleges to engage in organizational learning.
Managing School Districts for High Performance brings together more than twenty case studies and other readings that offer a powerful and transformative approach to advancing and sustaining the work of school improvement. At the center of this work is the concept of organizational coherence: aligning organizational design, human capital management, resource allocation, and accountability and performance improvement systems to support an overarching strategy. This central idea provides a valuable conceptual framework for current and future school leaders. The case studies presented in Managing School Districts for High Performance grow out of the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP), a unique partnership between the Harvard Business School, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a network of urban school districts. This rich array of cases explores the managerial challenges districts face as they seek to ensure rich learning opportunities and high achievement for all students across a system of schools. "This book of insightful case studies fills a void long felt by educational administrators in search of practical, real-world training tools. It will serve as a catalyst for the tough conversations district leaders need to have about achieving high-quality outcomes for all students. The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems has used many of these cases with great success, and we are excited that they are now compiled into a single collection." -- Dan Katzir, Managing Director, The Broad Foundation "This volume is not a treatise about how schools and districts should work. Rather, it provides a deep immersion in the real dilemmas involved in advancing school district reform. Anyone who works through these cases cannot help but come away with a more informed vision for change, a more reflective orientation about the interrelationships among the multiple tasks involved, and a more prudent grasp of what it takes to educate all children to high academic standards. The course of study presented by Managing School Districts for High Performance should be required professional education for anyone charged with advancing a coherent agenda of school improvement in our diverse, demanding, and rapidly changing society." -- Anthony S. Bryk, Spencer Professor of Organizational Studies, Stanford University "This set of case studies offers practitioners, policymakers, and scholars the opportunity to learn from the collective wisdom and real-life experiences of educational leaders involved in systemic transformation. Implementing coherent reform strategies designed to improve and sustain student performance often takes place in a vacuum. As a former urban superintendent, I believe that these selected educational case studies provide a compelling forum for shared experiential teaching and learning." -- Arlene Ackerman, Christian A. Johnson Professor of Outstanding Educational Practice, Teachers College, Columbia University "This collaboration between the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education provides a set of analytical tools to address the most complex and challenging issues facing urban public schools. The contemporary case studies document actual choices and constraints and point to patterns and similarities across organizations, from urban schools to corporate environments." -- Carol Johnson, Superintendent, Boston Public Schools Stacy Childress is a lecturer at Harvard Business School. Richard F. Elmore is the Gregory R. Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Allen S. Grossman is the MBA Class of 1957 Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School. Susan Moore Johnson is the Pforzheimer Professor of Teaching and Learning at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
The United States annually spends over $300 billion on public elementary and secondary education. As the nation enters the 21st century, it faces a major challenge: how best to tie this financial investment to the goal of high levels of achievement for all students. In addition, policymakers want assurance that education dollars are being raised and used in the most efficient and effective possible ways. The book covers such topics as: Legal and legislative efforts to reduce spending and achievement gaps. The shift from "equity" to "adequacy" as a new standard for determining fairness in education spending. The debate and the evidence over the productivity of American schools. Strategies for using school finance in support of broader reforms aimed at raising student achievement. This book contains a comprehensive review of the theory and practice of financing public schools by federal, state, and local governments in the United States. It distills the best available knowledge about the fairness and productivity of expenditures on education and assesses options for changing the finance system.
The expert contributors to this volume assess recent court actions in school adequacy lawsuits and their impact on student outcomes. They show that simply throwing more resources at the problem has not brought about a solution and call for changes centered around accountability, incentives, and more informed parents and policymakers.
This third edition of this book explores traditional economic and political models and contemporary issues that affect the social, political, and economic state of schools. Like the previous two editions, this edition takes a balanced approach to understanding school finance issues by using paradigms of both the economist and the political scientist. Part I begins with a discussion of the educational decision-making process in a political-economic system divided between public and private sectors. Part II examines the sources of money that society devotes to support public education. Part III focuses on the merits and structures of general and categorical aid programs at state and federal levels in the United States. Part IV examines the potential of school finance policies to achieve high standards. Part V examines how changing the incentives provided by financial rewards in state policies and by teacher compensation within districts might improve school and student performance. Part VI concludes with a discussion of some implications of the systemic-reform movement on the changing policy context. (Contains a name index and a subject index.) (WFA).
Funding, efficiency, and equity in education In OECD countries the average expenditure on primary and secondary education institutions is about 3.5% of GDP. The investment in education has large implications for economic development and the proper functioning of democratic institutions, as well as overall well-being. However, clear consensus and guidance on which system leads to the best educational outcomes is lacking. This volume describes the resource allocation for compulsory and special needs education for a selection of well-performing countries and regions on PISA tests. By studying the funding systems in well-performing countries and regions the authors identify the elements in the respective funding systems that are associated with best outcomes and have the ideal characteristics to pursue particular goals of education systems such as equity and efficiency. The funding methods of primary and secondary education as well as special needs education are covered. Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
