Financing Schools for High Performance Strategies for Improving the Use of Educational Resources

This essential new resource shows how educators can use existing dollars effectively and productively. The key lies in creating finance systems that give schools greater control over their budgets?allowing more resources to flow directly to teachers and students. Allan Odden and Carolyn Busch look at inefficiencies in current education spAnding, examine varied approaches to school-based financing, and offer recommAndations for restructuring finance systems to meet ambitious reform goals. In addition, they propose ways to make funding more equitable across districts, outline the various elements that make school-based management work, and describe the key roles and responsibilities for the district, even in a decentralized system. Financing Schools for High Performance is filled with examples of budgets, finance structures and formulas. It will prove to be an indispensable aid for state, district, and school-level administrators.

ALLAN ODDEN is professor of educational administration and policy at the University of Wisconsin?Madison and codirector of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education. He is the editor of Rethinking School Finance (Jossey-Bass, 1992). CAROLYN BUSCH is an education finance advisor to Governor Locke in Washington State. Previously she worked as a research associate at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education at the University of Wisconsin?Madison.