| Winter 2001 |
| University of Oregon - Eugene |
How well do schools use their financial resources?
Admit it. It’s been one of your favorite fantasies. You give Regis your
final answer and it is good enough to win a million dollars on Who Wants To
Be a Millionaire. Now, if you really did win all that money, you would have
some decisions to make. How will you manage that huge sum of money and put it
to good use?
Public schools face those same decisions all the time. Large sums are allocated
to K-12 education each year–over $300 billion, in fact, more than the Department
of Defense’s yearly budget. And taxpayers hold schools accountable to spend
that money wisely.
How are schools allocating the financial resources at their disposal? And are
they spending the funds in ways that lead to improved student performance? To
help answer these questions, the Clearinghouse commissioned one of the nation’s
foremost experts on school finance, Lawrence O. Picus, to summarize and review
recent research on resource allocation in education.
His new book In Search of More Productive Schools: A Guide to Resource Allocation
in Education brings together a wealth of information that will help readers
better understand how money affects student performance.
Picus is professor and chair of the Department of Administration and Policy
in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California,
where he also directs the Center for Research in Education Finance. He is an
experienced researcher, astute policy analyst, and–fortunately for the
benefit of his new book’s readers–a very lucid writer who is able
to convey the complexities of financial research in terms school leaders, board
members, and lay people can readily understand.
In his quest to shed light on where education dollars go and what they buy,
Picus seeks answers to several key questions:
• How can schools and districts make more productive use of their funds?;
that is, how can they more effectively allocate money to improve student performance?
Picus examines production-function studies, which "attempt to estimate
the effect of additional resources on some outcome such as student test scores
while controlling for student, school, and district characteristics."
• Does more money result in better student outcomes, both now and in the
future (calculated through an analysis of adult earnings), or is the relationship
between school funding and student success less direct? Picus writes, "What
is particularly interesting about this line of research is that when state-level
measures of school inputs are utilized, there appears to be a positive effect
on student outcomes. However, when the data are disaggregated to the school
level, this finding seems to disappear."
• Should funds be channeled toward reducing class size or are there other
more cost-effective ways of having a positive impact on student learning? Picus
includes a discussion of class size because the single largest expenditure of
our public schools is for teachers. "Lowering class size is consequently
an expensive proposition," he notes, requiring policymakers to understand
the impact of such reductions on both the budget and student achievement.
• Can collection and analysis of school-level data clarify the situation?
A major problem in school-finance research is the availability and quality of
the data. Picus discusses the costs and benefits of collecting school-level
and even student-level data from schools and suggests how those data might be
used to improve the quality of research on this topic.
• How can a determination be made about whether funds should be reallocated?
In answering this question, Picus addresses policy considerations faced by federal,
state, and local officials as they seek to determine how to make the most cost-effective
use of educational resources.
Picus concludes that the evidence "makes it difficult to reach a strong
conclusion whether and how money matters in improving student performance….
As a result, demands for more money, absent a well-reasoned description of how
the money will be used, do not build confidence that the money–by itself–will
make a difference."
Turning to policy options, Picus points to four ingredients that have potential
to improve student performance:
• reallocation of existing resources to use them as efficiently as possible
• incentives for improved performance
• development of the concept of "venture capital" for schools
and school systems
• a more market-based budgeting environment, which commonly takes the
form of school-choice options
In Search of More Productive Schools is a shining example of information analysis
at its best. Picus demonstrates an authoritative grasp of the issues and a gift
for clear, judicious expression. He addresses a number of controversial, complex
issues in a thoughtful, balanced manner, and his insightful conclusions and
recommendations reflect deep understanding of practical issues and constraints
governing resource allocation in education.
Picus notes that the purpose of the book "is not to resolve the debate
over whether money matters, or how it matters" but rather to pull together
in a meaningful way existing research on the topic.
head("New ERIC/CEM CD Offers Big Bang for Your Buck",2)}
Wish you were able to slip a CD into your computer and read Lawrence Picus’s
new book In Search of More Productive Schools? Or browse the fifteen chapters
of School Leadership: Handbook for Excellence? Or have instant access to this
Clearing-house’s ERIC Digests?
A variety of products published by the Clearinghouse are now available in full
text on CD-ROM for your perusal. Practitioners, scholars, and students now have
access to a virtual library of the Clearinghouse’s best works of information
analysis written during the past decade.
If you are a principal or superintendent, you can refer to the resources when
questions arise in your practice of educational leadership. If you are a school
board member, you can acquaint yourself with the latest trends in educational
policy and governance.
If you like to share ideas and research findings with colleagues, you can print
out portions at your convenience.
With the production of our new CD, all this is now possible. Contained on the
CD for easy retrieval through the click of your mouse are the full text of the
following:
• 21 books published since 1989 (see sidebar for titles)
• 63 ERIC Digests published between December 1992 and December 2000
• 14 Research Roundups, the Winter 1996-97 issue through the Winter 2001
issue
• 1 Policy Report on Class Size
In addition, stored on the disk are the abstracts of all documents entered
into the ERIC database by the Clearinghouse on Educational Management since
1994 (topics covered include administration, leadership, policy, law, and organization).
You may search both the abstracts and the publications using the CD’s
stand-alone search application. The CD Search application can search for a keyword
or phrase, similar to the way major internet search engines work, and requires
installation on your hard drive.
The main page of the CD opens in your default Web browser when you insert the
CD into your computer.
The total cost of the twenty-one books, if purchased separately, comes to $278.35,
so you save over $215 by buying the titles in electronic form.
The books are in .pdf format. Adobe Acrobat Reader software, available on the
CD, allows you to read and print these files. The remaining items on the CD
are in .html format and can be accessed using your favorite web browser.
The CD is readable on either Windows or Macintosh platforms. It can be purchased
for $59.00 plus $4.00 shipping and handling.
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