Clear Reports, Full Budgets, Can’t Lose
If I asked you what you think we as a country prioritize more: math or cheerleading, what would you say?
What if I told you of a high school that spends $1,348 per student on cheerleading and less than a fourth of that - $328 - per student on math? What if I told you that school wasn’t an anomaly, but schools consistently spend much more per pupil on sports and electives than core subjects?
What if I told you schools in poor areas of a district often get less money than schools in the wealthier areas, even as we as a nation have decided to prioritize funding towards low income students in attempts to reduce the achievement gap?
Marguerite Roza’s Educational Economics: Where Do Schools Funds Go? reports research by the Center on Reinventing Public Education. One of Roza’s big conclusions after analyzing district and school data: We don’t spend the most on what we prioritize most. Roza writes:
“If one subscribes to the textbook explanation than an organization’s resource allocation system is a manifestation of its strategic priorities, then here is what CRPE research has shown is most important to urban districts throughout the nation: middle and upper-class students, not poor students. Electives and athletics, not core subjects. Gifted and high-achieving students, not struggling students. With implicit priorities like these playing out at the school level, it is no surprise that the system produces such a weak link between spending and goals for student outcomes.”
How can such blatantly contradictory spending patterns persist? Roza explains: simple ignorance. “Education leaders simply do not know whether their investments support their stated objectives...”
And not because they don’t necessarily want to know, but rather because the systems in place make it all but impossible: “District budgeting and accounting practices make it incredibly difficult to identify detailed spending patterns. Frankly, the five-inch-thick binders of impenetrable financial information plunked down in front of school board members do not even include this essential information.”
She continues, “Despite extensive financial reporting requirements, most districts cannot answer basic questions that the public might have during these budget discussions: How much do remedial reading programs cost compared with tutoring? How much does the district spend on professional development and how much would it cost if restructured?”
So what to do? Roza calls for accounting systems that actually let school leaders get the answers they need: “[U]ntil district leaders recognize that their financial accounting systems are inadequate at the school level, they will continue to be “driving blind” and heading toward financial instability, even disaster...What is needed are solid, reliable accounting systems that inform resource allocation.”
It’s 2015. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable request. So many of the problems within education are complicated and messy and cannot be solved with good technology; this can. BookReport (my new venture) is committed to doing just that.
Beyond district and school leaders, the public should have this data too. Even in Texas, where high school football is king, for anyone who’s seen Friday Night Lights, I think we can all agree that Tim Riggins needed a math tutor more than Lila Garrity needed a new cheerleading uniform.
Imagine what Tami Taylor would have done with data telling her where the school’s money actually went...
Source: NBC, http://sundaystorms.tumblr.com/
