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Student-Based Budgeting (SBB) has become a popular initiative for district leaders who seek to allocate scarce resources to schools, especially in the face of stubborn achievement gaps,...
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Ready to implement SBB? This detailed manual describes the conditions for success for SBB and helps district leaders assess whether it is the right strategic move for their district....
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This pre-recorded webinar shows advocates how they to leverage ESSA’s resource allocation review requirements to truly improve equity and excellence in schools.
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Arizona spends less on K-12 education than almost every other state. But adding resources on top of the current system is likely an ineffective solution.
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Teacher teams are one of the most important strategies to promote teacher growth and ignite student learning—if done well. But how to make this crucial time as effective as possible?
The...
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The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) gives states new financial transparency tools to better understand and become leaders for resource equity, but only if they are used well. These...
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Through years of research and practice around school resource use and principal training, we have found that high-performing, high-growth schools are responding to the changing...
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This report is a deep look into K-12 spending and resource allocation in charter and district-run schools in Oakland, comparing them across three dimensions: student need, resource...
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Over the last decade, Denver Public Schools (DPS) became one of the fastest-improving large districts in the country—achieving significant improvement across all student subgroups. Unlike...
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A school system’s people, time, and money are always limited, so these critical resources need to be used wisely to best serve students. Without adequate data and analysis, though, it’s...
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This brief summarizes the insights from a working group that sought to answer: How might we allocate resources to achieve the best outcomes for kids?
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Our comments target strategies that promote both equity and excellence—in other words, how many resources schools receive and how well they use them. We argue that while it is indeed...
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School systems can empower all principals to be strategic talent managers—by mapping out the what, who, when, and how, and organizing data, support, and timelines around the most critical...
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Under ESSA, districts must report per-pupil spending at the LEA and school level using actual salary data. This new level of financial transparency aims to promote equity across schools....
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A collaboration between Center for American Progress and Education Resource Strategies on the 7 tenets for states to empower districts to become agents of change in school turnaround.
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Our School System 20/20 series of briefs, Data Decisions, highlights common opportunities school systems have to yield big results for students by adjusting their current resource use. It...
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Our School System 20/20 series of briefs, Data Decisions, highlights common opportunities school systems have to yield big results for students by adjusting their current resource use. It...
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If your LEA or SEA is completing a TIF application for the July 15, 2016 deadline, these free online resources can support your human capital goals.
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School System must better meet the needs of all students. And they can. But to succeed, we can't just do more of the same. We need to transform. Building off of One Vision, Seven...
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Aldine Independent School District has faced daunting challenges and achieved impressive results since the early 1990s. This School System 20/20 case study explores how they did it.
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Under ESSA, state education agencies have the opportunity to establish a new vision for partnership with districts - one based on their powers to allocate, regulate, and importantly,...
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ERS is now working with selected districts to perform the School System 20/20 Diagnostic—a data-informed, holistic series of assessments to help leaders in their efforts to redesign...
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More and more districts—and several states—are adopting funding models like student-based budgeting (also called weighted student funding or fair student funding) to increase equity...
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These short papers highlight common opportunities school systems have to yield big results for students by adjusting their current resource use. It is based on ERS' 10 years of close...
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In 2011, Lawrence Public Schools was the first district that Massachusetts placed into state receivership due to poor performance. By 2014, things had dramatically changed for the better....
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Effective teachers are the biggest in-school factor related to student success. Across the country, a diverse set of districts are pioneering innovative approaches to teacher compensation...
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K–12 education resources are often allocated non-strategically, with schools spending time and money on activities that have little relationship to student outcomes. States can help...
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Recently, there has been growing interest in adapting Return on Investment thinking to education. But most ROI analysis still misses a big opportunity. Education leaders need a new...
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