Afton Partners

The state education department told the Education Institute of Hawaii that it didn’t have the technological tools to give a line-by-line accounting for much of the $2 billion in K-12 spending, including teachers’ and administrators’ salaries. State departments of education across the country this year have been under intense pressure to open their fiscal books to the public, a technologically and politically complicated feat. Hawaii also is among several states with antiquated data systems that can’t track the thousands of transactions school districts make throughout the school year. Department officials are blaming those data systems for high-profile glitches that have occurred this year as state legislatures seek to boost teacher pay and states look to comply with a new federal requirement to break out school spending amounts. “To have any sense of empowerment, you have to have an idea of the fiscal health of the department,” said former state assistant superintendent and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Ray L’Heureux.

A common myth is that principals are like CEOs of their schools, with authority to make key decisions and strategically deploy resources. The reality, though, is quite different. Principals typically are treated like middle managers, with little control over the $694 billion in annual U.S. public education spending. At the state level, school finance formulas determine how dollars are allocated to districts, virtually all of which contain allotments that are restricted for specific purposes. But perhaps the biggest impediment to giving school principals more autonomy are school districts, where most spending decisions are made by central offices. Instead of giving principals actual dollars to spend, most districts allocate staffing positions and other resources based on one-size-fits-all models. For example, a district might dole out one teacher for every 25 students, an assistant principal for every 250 students, and a social worker for every 500 students.

Where, exactly, do those billions of dollars taxpayers annually spend for schools go? In most states, policymakers really don’t know. That’s because state education departments don’t have the technology to track the tens of thousands of transactions that district officials, using a combination of federal, state, and local dollars, make throughout the school year. So instead, the departments give lawmakers a receipt that includes a summation of broad spending categories, a breakout of average salaries, and maybe a mention of whether spending is up or down. But overhauling education departments’ data-collecting tools…can cost millions of dollars and fan flare-ups between policymakers over student privacy and local control. It’s a price tag and an ideology battle few policymakers want to take on.

Regardless of what happens…at the ballot box, school systems know they can’t wait; they must use their limited resources as strategically — and as equitably — as possible to accelerate student learning. “How much” schools receive is important; “how well” resources are used is also key. Education Resource Strategies (ERS), a national nonprofit with a California office and focus, recently profiled eight school systems from across the country that used their resources strategically and are seeing tangible results for black, Latinx and low-income students. Among those, two California districts provide examples of how school systems can manage people, time and money effectively.