With escalating education costs in a time of declining school budgets, ERS articulates for state leaders opportunities to shift scarce funds toward the most critical areas. ERS Executive Director Karen Hawley Miles gave this presentation in Chicago at the conference Moving Forward with a Transformative Education Agenda hosted by the Council for Chief State School Officers on January 13, 2011.

The presentation outlines areas of opportunity to better align resource use with district performance goals: compensation, class size models, special education, and the use of time. The presentation also highlights ways that states can increase district understanding, change policy, remove barriers, shift incentives, and invest in new structures for district improvement and transformation.