Source: Education Week
School district leaders in 2016 were seemingly apocalyptic once they realized that a tiny provision buried in the Every Student Succeeds Act would by summer 2020 require them to report to the public how they divvy up funds among their schools. But in at least 13 states where education departments have in the past two months started reporting school-by-school spending amounts a year ahead of schedule…most of those administrators’ fears have yet to come to fruition. So far, with exceptions such as New York state and North Carolina, there’s been little media coverage of spending disparities between schools, and few school boards appear to be using the numbers to craft their budgets for the coming school year. “I hope that the numbers will be used to drive conversations about inequities and the way we resource and fund our schools,” said Ary Amerikaner of the Education Trust. “For that to happen, the data needs to be reported in a way that’s understandable, usable, and widely distributed.”
Also see this related article, The coming storm for financial transparency.