DREAM: A New Way to Explore School Budgets
Important Update:
As of 2025, our 2013 DREAM tool is no longer active. However, we invite you to explore our similar and very popular Budget Hold’em games available on our site. Enjoy the excitement and strategy of Hold’em with our engaging and user-friendly games!
About Our 2013 DREAM Tool
DREAM used the most recent available data at the time it was created: 2010-11 data in most areas, 2009-10 financial data, and NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) to generate a cost model for districts. This model was represented as a series of “sliders,” each representing a key cost lever. By adjusting the sliders, you could drive changes in cost and other important measures of quality and efficiency such as time or class size.
This tool helped district leaders rethink how schools and systems are structured. DREAM’s effectiveness helped inform ERS’ popular “Budget Hold’em” game. You can watch the video below to learn more about how the DREAM tool worked in depth to help district leaders with scenario recommendations based on individual challenges.
Learn how the tool worked by watching our Introduction to DREAM video: