Districts and states are facing huge budget shortfalls and are being forced to cut education spending. If the face of this economic climate Education Resource Strategies (ERS) set out to reveal the most effective ways to cut costs while maintaining results. They find that billions of education dollars are trapped each year, due to state laws that prevent resources from being used most effectively. The report also explores opportunities to improve education by re-thinking the best ways to meet student needs. With most states unlikely to increase education spending any time soon, now is the time for states to update their policies in ways that allow existing dollars to have their greatest impact.
“Most districts and states are struggling with huge spending cuts and now is the time to break out of the old structures that are tying up resources and often not delivering the quality education our students deserve,” says ERS Executive Director, Karen Hawley Miles. “States have the choice to make this kind of transformation possible or impossible. This paper gives guidance to help them make the right choice.”
Examples of hidden opportunities discussed in the paper include:
- Hidden funds tied up in one size fits all class size models: increasing student-teacher ratios by an average of only 1 student per teacher could free up to $6 billion across the nation. This doesn’t have to mean across-the-board increases in class-size. Instead, districts and schools need the freedom to adapt class sizes and student groupings across subjects and throughout the day and year to meet student and subject needs.
- Hidden funds in special education: implementing new approaches to serving struggling learners could free dollars and improve results for all students. A staggering 20% of education spending is targeted to special education students. There are a variety of approaches to serving this population, as evidenced by the wide range of rates of special education incidence across states. If states above the national average of special education incidence were able to reduce their incidence to the current national average, we estimate savings would be close to $3 billion nationally and as much as 2.5% of total education spending in some states. Real and perceived limitations on how districts and schools can serve special education students have stifled innovation and protected special education from funding cuts at the expense of general education. States can ease requirements and encourage districts and schools to explore other ways to serve struggling learners both within the special education and general education systems.
- Hidden funds trapped in states’ categorical funding streams: fragmented programs that each come with their own strings attached limit education leaders’ creativity and flexibility to meet student needs better or for less. Districts and schools can receive funding from as many as 90 different federal and state sources, each with their own compliance and reporting requirements. As a result, schools end up creating a disjointed collection of programs and positions that may not meet their needs. Instead states should look at combining smaller funding streams, and trading strict regulation of inputs for better accountability systems that track desired outcomes.
