PIE Network Guest

Expanding on the summit theme of advancing reform during a time of fiscal austerity, this session focused on the productivity, or efficiency, of education budgeting. At the start, Ulrich Boser presented a useful interactive tool that his organization, the Center for American Progress , created to show states’ and districts’ return on educational Investment. The tool shows productivity levels for districts—some are high performers with low per-pupil costs, while others are the opposite.

Boser said CAP didn’t want to explain or analyze the “why” behind educational costs, but simply provided the “what,” giving policymakers insight into educational productivity and encouraging states and districts to embrace approaches that make it easier to improve achievement and sustain educational efficiencies.

Focusing on redesign and productivity

Marguerite Roza of the University of Washington built on her plenary session presentation on education finance, explaining the connections between budget gaps and finance reform. She outlined the work advocates need to focus on:

• Clarify the scope and duration of the fiscal crisis
• Paint a clear picture for education (what does it mean?)
• Create a sense of optimism
• Navigate the obvious implications for teachers
• Lay out the possible trade-offs
• Link relocation to reform

Because trends indicate expenditure will continue to outpace revenue, Roza said we have to be thinking about a multi-strategy approach that focuses on redesign and productivity. “People still don’t realize how technology can improve education,” said Roza. “What’s needed is a sense of optimism around this,” citing Khan Academy as an example.

Roza also described how the teaching force is changing, and how this impacts education budgets and efficiencies. She said states and districts can’t sustain the continuous growth in staff since the 1970s. “It’s better to create reforms that don’t depend on extra staff,” she said.

Roza said advocates should work for efficiencies such as designing reforms that expand the use of staff and defining new reforms are paid through savings. “We need to achieve our way into the black,” she said.

Advocating for funding reform in Connecticut

Jennifer Alexander explained what her group, ConnCAN, is doing to advocate for school finance reform in Connecticut. ConnCAN has put forward a comprehensive proposal for moving to a student-based budgeting system in Connecticut. She described their advocacy, policy, and communications efforts to date, and described a simulator they have constructed to study finance and student-based budgeting and model the impact of a system redesign over time. This system would consistently fund student need at any public school he or she attended and drive funds to the students who need them most. This proposal served as the model for last year’s Senate Bill 1195, which did not make it out of committee. ConnCAN is refining the model and using it to advocate for change again this year.