School Budget Hold’em:ERS, November 3rd, 2011
Education funding decisions should never be left to chance. School Budget Hold ‘em is more than a game…it’s an interactive exploration of the thoughtful trade-offs school administrators have to make in these challenging budget times.
Resource Mapping Summary Report:Education Resource Strategies, January 17, 2012
ERS’ public presentation to the Denver Public Schools Board of Education. See an example of resource mapping results and how this kind of analysis can reveal a road map for how to most effectively and efficiently meet goals for improving instruction.
The Resourceful School: by Naomi Calvo and Karen Hawley Miles
Educational Leadership, December 2011
The new Issue of Education Leadership focuses on tough times and strategies for making the most of decreasing budgets.
Sustaining Turnaround at Scale - Session Summaries
A brief description of every panel presentation from the ERS Summit, Sustaining Turnaround at Scale.
Memphis White Paper:ERS, October 27, 2010
If your school district is facing a budget issue, it might surprise you to learn that the solution might very well lie in a game of cards. That certainly was the case earlier this year for the city schools of Memphis, Tennessee.
Act Now to Transform School Systems by Karen Hawley Miles and Karen Baroody
PIE Network, September 2011
This article identifies seven priorities that could help districts invest in transformation. It then reviews the barriers that prevent change and the steps state policy makers can take to overcome the barriers.
Seven Strategies for District TransformationERS, September 2010
Learn about the seven key strategies for districts to improve student performance at scale.
School Design:ERS, October 2010
See how to align your resources with strategic school designs across your district.
Turnaround Schools:ERS, September 2010
Help ensure that efforts to turnaround the worst performing schools lead to sustainable improvement for the students.
School Funding Systems:ERS, September 2010
Use existing resources more effectively by shifting spending, targeting cuts, and laying the groundwork for long-term change.
The Strategic School: by Karen Hawley Miles and Stephen Frank
Corwin Press 2008
Learn how schools can best use the resources they already have.
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform’s Voices in Urban Education publication, produced in partnership with ERS, grew from the ERS-convened Fair Student Funding Summit in March 2010. The summit brought together more than sixty urban education leaders from fourteen school districts that use student-based budgeting. The issues explores student based…
Read the nine detailed case studies that helped inform the report: Strategic Designs: Lessons from Leading Edge Small Urban High Schools.
ResourceCheck™ Tool:ERS, July 2010
Take an online self-assessment to learn how your district’s resource use measures up to best practice.
On March 25-26, 2010, urban education leaders gathered in Baltimore, MD for the Fair Student Funding Summit, a conference that brought together districts that use weighted student funding (WSF) as an approach for allocating dollars to schools. Convened by Education Resource Strategies (ERS) and hosted by Baltimore City Public Schools,…
by Regis Anne Shields and Karen Hawley Miles
ERS, 2008
This report illustrates how nine high performing, small urban high schools across the U.S. are thinking about and organizing their resources strategically to best meet their students’ most pressing needs.
In March, 2010, ERS brought together a group of urban education leaders for a two-day summit to explore innovative approaches for allocating student funds based on student need. These summaries came from posters used for an opening gallery walk to the summit. You will find information about each districts size,…
Before schools can systematically implement a district’s vision for excellent school practices, district leadership must clearly articulate exactly what school strategies they believe will improve student learning. Many districts have gone to great lengths to communicate the “essential school practices” they want to see in their schools. Some use these…
Don Hovey, April 26th 2010
ERS articulates for states what we know about district resource use and how states’ policies can best help district efforts. ERS Director Don Hovey gave this presentation in Miami at the Governors’ Education Policy Advisors (GEPA) Institute for the National Governor’s Association on April 26th, 2010. The presentation focused on…
ERS, April 2010
ERS has partnered with a number of districts on implementing weighted student funding, which is also known as fair student funding or student-based budgeting. This presentation serves as an introduction to this budgeting process.
Breaking the Cycle of Failure in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools by Jonathan Travers and Barbara Christiansen
ERS, April 2010
How one district is harnessing the critical levers of school leadership and teaching excellence to turnaround schools in the context of a larger school system.
by Stephen Frank
ERS, April 2010
ERS, with the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), released a paper that doucments how six urban school districts structure time compared to nine Leading Edge high schools.
ERS, 2008
Paper and tool that helps leaders understand and manage the drivers of small school spending.
by ERS
Case Study, 2008
Case Studies of Leading Edge Small Urban High Schools
by ERS
Case Study, 2008
Case Studies of Leading Edge Small Urban High Schools
by ERS
Case Study, 2008
Case Studies of Leading Edge Small Urban High Schools
by ERS
Case Study
Case Studies of Leading Edge Small Urban High Schools
ERS, 2007
Literature Review:
This document considers the limited research on small high school costs, resource use, and constraints to understand the key questions surrounding the topic and identify further areas for investigation.
ERS, 2008
Do districts have to spend more to create small schools? This report finds that three large urban districts spend more on small high schools than on large high schools—but they don’t necessarily have to. While this higher spending is not necessarily undesirable, it is also not always sustainable, particularly given…
ERS, 2008
Download copies of resource worksheets from the book, The Strategic School: Making the Most of People, Time, and Money to measure how you currently use your resources and consider strategies for improving allocations to better support student learning.
Calculate how you currently use people, time, and money to support…
ERS, 2008
The tool will assist in analyzing the impact of the school design on budgets and schedules as well as other critical indicators such as class size, teacher load, and time spent on core academics. For school redesign the tool can model several years of resource allocation choices and then compare…
by Karen Hawley Miles
New American Schools
This article presents a framework for districts and schools to use when examining school infrastructures to better support academic success.
by Regis Shields
New American Schools, 2005
This article provides examples for principals and school leaders of approaches by five K-8 schools in Boston and Cincinnati that have reorganized schedules to allow for common planning time and literacy blocks.
by M. Roza & Karen Hawley Miles
Center for American Progress, July 2008
This paper released by the Center for American Progress explores the costs involved in expanding learning time for all students.
WSOCTV January 12, 2010
CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman described the budget year ahead as “not pretty” Tuesday night.
CMS cut $87 million from their budget last year, and Gorman believes even more cuts will come this summer.
At Tuesday night’s school board meeting, the board heard a presentation on ways to save…
Center for American Progress and Education Resource Strategies, April 2009
This paper, written with the Center for American Progress, gives state and district leaders 15 concrete ways to use all resources—current and new—for long-term transformation.
by Ann Doss Helms
The Charlotte Observer, January 28, 2009
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools must take dramatic measures to improve its lowest-performing schools, Superintendent Peter Gorman and a consultant told the school board Tuesday.
And leaders must figure out how to do that while slashing spending in a recession, Gorman added. The board spent almost 31/2 hours Tuesday wading through data, preparing…
by Regis Shields & Karen Hawley Miles
Education Week Commentary, August 5, 2008
Creating new small high schools out of large failing ones continues to be a popular strategy for tackling high dropout rates and low performance in urban high schools. But, too often, districts create high-cost mini-versions of their large failing high schools because they do not have a vision of how…
by Regis Shields
Press Release, June 3, 2008
Detailed report highlights the importance of focusing on teacher quality, increasing academic time and providing individual attention in high-performing small high schools.
by Joel Rubin and Howard Blume
Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2007
Supt. David L. Brewer advocates longer school days, same-sex campuses and the creation of an innovation unit to effect change in L.A. Unified.
by Karen Hawley Miles
This paper released by the Center for American Progress explores the costs involved in expanding learning time for all students. 2006
by Albert J. Simone, Chairperson, Carlos Carballada, Joan Roby-Davison, Paul Haney, Stephen Jones, Emeterio Otero, Sandy Parker, John Walker, Arthur Walton
This report evaluates RCSD’s fiscal management, budget process, and educational outcomes as they relate to finance and budget. Included are recommendations relating to fiscal management, organization, planning, operations, school-level leadership, resource use, and accountability. June, 2005
by SUN STAFF, Laura Loh
Baltimore Sun, May 11, 2005
Equal spending for all students places system finances at risk, officials say; Relief to be sought from courts, federal agency
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