Tools & Publications

ERS Tools and Publications are trusted resources for education leaders, practitioners, and policymakers seeking guidance to make transformative change. Looking for something you can’t find? Contact us.

ESSER Hold'em for Districts

ESSER Hold'em for Districts

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Publications Tools Turnaround ESSA Toolkits COVID-19

November 20, 2019

The Strategic CFO

3 mindsets and 5 core functions to help CFOs align resources to strategy More »

Publications District Leaders Funding & Portfolio
October 2, 2019

State Education Funding: The Poverty Equation

Originally published on FutureEd. The correlation between socioeconomic status and academic achievement doesn't just apply to individual students—the concentration of poverty in... More »

Publications Equity State Leaders
Toolkit: Advice for New Superintendents

As a new superintendent - whether it's your first time in that role or just new to a community- you'll face a tremendous number of challenges. The key is knowing where to begin. More »

District Leaders Leadership Toolkits
Toolkit: New Teacher Support

All school and district leaders want to grow their new teachers into effective educators who stay at their schools - yet most feel constrained by limited budgets. But it is possible to... More »

District Leaders Professional Learning Teaching Toolkits
January 02, 2019

School Design Packet

Through years of research and practice around school resource use, we have found that high-performing, high-growth schools are responding to the changing context in education by using... More »

Tools District Leaders School Leaders School Design
October 01, 2018

What is Resource Equity?

In this working paper, we've identified many - often hidden - "dimensions of equity," and we explain how each links to student outcomes, identify typical sources of inequities within... More »

Publications ESSA District Leaders Equity Funding & Portfolio
August 2018

Weighted Student Funding

Weighted Student Funding has become a popular initiative for district leaders who seek to allocate scarce resources to schools, especially in the face of stubborn achievement gaps,... More »

Funding & Portfolio Student-Based Budgeting Toolkits
Education Resource Strategies

Toolkit: What is Student-Based Budgeting? How can it drive student learning?

SBB is a funding system whereby dollars follow students based on student need, and can help increase funding transparency, equity, and flexibility. More »

Equity District Leaders Funding & Portfolio Student-Based Budgeting Toolkits
September 10, 2018

Transforming School Funding for Equity, Transparency, and Flexibility: An Introduction to Student-Based Budgeting

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,... More »

Publications
September 10, 2018

Transforming School Funding for Equity, Transparency, and Flexibility: A Nuts-and-Bolts Guide to Implementing Student-Based Budgeting

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.... More »

Publications
June 05, 2018

Addressing the Teacher Labor Market Challenge in Arizona

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. More »

Presentations ESSA Equity State Leaders
March 28, 2018

Shared-Content Teaching Teams Prototype

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... More »

Publications Professional Learning School Leaders School Design Teaching
March 6, 2018

Toolkit: Advancing Equitable School Funding under ESSA

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... More »

Presentations ESSA State Leaders States
October 2017

Budget Hold’em for Districts

Budget Hold'em for Districts 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. More »

Tools District Leaders Funding & Portfolio
August 15, 2017

Professional Learning Diagnostic Tool

How can your school system better connect professional learning to the everyday work of teaching—and to a systemwide strategy for student success? We studied four school systems that... More »

Tools District Leaders Professional Learning School Leaders Teaching
August 01, 2017

School Finance Packet for National Council of State Legislators (NCSL) Annual Meeting

State legislators face ever-increasing challenges around school finance—scarce revenues, lawsuits, new mandated reporting, and so on. These resources will demystify some of these complex... More »

Tools District Leaders States
March 2015 (Updated May 2017)

Designing Schools that Work

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... More »

Publications District Leaders School Leaders School Design
June 20, 2017

Informing Equity

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... More »

Publications Equity District Leaders Funding & Portfolio
June 14, 2017

Checklist: Creating a Strategic Master Schedule

Making school schedules is something district and school leaders must do every year — but during COVID-19, that job has just gotten harder. We've created a set of COVID Comeback Models... More »

Tools School Leaders School Design
Education Resource Strategies

School Check

This school assessment tool is based on resource strategies and principles from “The Strategic School: Making the Most of People, Time, and Money” by Karen Hawley Miles and Stephen Frank.... More »

Tools School Leaders School Design Teaching
May 2017

It Takes a System: A Case Study of Denver Public Schools (DPS)

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... More »

Publications Special Education Compensation District Leaders Professional Learning School Leaders School Design Teaching Leadership School Support & Accountability Turnaround
April 2017

Toolkit: Connected Professional Learning for Teachers

We studied 4 school systems that redesigned their approach to PL and have seen inspiring student growth. Their models are highly "connected" to what teachers do every day. More »

Professional Learning Teaching Toolkits
Karen Hawley Miles, David Rosenberg, and Genevieve Quist Green

Igniting the Learning Engine

How school systems accelerate teacher effectiveness and student growth through Connected Professional Learning More »

Publications District Leaders Professional Learning
February 27, 2017

Budget Hold'em for Schools

Hold’em is an ERS tool that’s helped more than 10,000 education leaders better understand the kind of trade-offs that are possible to improve districts and schools while staying within... More »

Tools School Leaders School Design
February 22, 2017

Same Resources, Better Student Outcomes

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... More »

Publications District Leaders School Design
February 07, 2017

From Financial Transparency to Equity: Part 1

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? More »

Publications Equity District Leaders Funding & Portfolio
November 10, 2016

ERS Comments on ESSA Supplement, Not Supplant Regulation

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... More »

ESSA Publications State Leaders
October 2016

Building a Talent Decision Map for K-12 Human Capital

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... More »

Publications District Leaders Professional Learning School Leaders Teaching
October 06, 2016

ESSA Financial Reporting Requirement

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.... More »

ESSA Publications District Leaders State Leaders
October 3, 2016

Two-Way Conversations

How first-year superintendents are using data to build political capital that enables system change More »

Publications District Leaders Leadership

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