Writing for Brown Center Chalkboard, Michael Hansen recently reviewed ways to reform teacher compensation without imposing a minimum annual salary across the board. Excerpts of the piece appear below: Teacher compensation reform has reemerged as an urgent policy topic, with bills introduced in both chambers of Congress to incentivize states Read more
Released by ERS, ESSER Hold’em is a modified version of Budget Hold’em for Districts that helps districts plan, focus investments, and navigate tradeoffs in spending ESSER dollars among the 5 Power Strategies that have been identified. These five strategies address critical student needs now and lay a sustainable foundation for Read more
Writing for FutureEd, Phyllis Jordan and Bella DiMarco explore trends in federal COVID ed aid spending. Excerpts from the piece appear below: To understand state and local policymakers’ strategies for bolstering teaching resources in the wake of the pandemic, FutureEd analyzed the COVID relief spending plans of 5,000 districts and Read more
A new 90-second video can be used to help school systems explain their efforts to invest ESSER funds with a sustainable “Do Now, Build Toward” approach. It begins by walking through three approaches to ESSER spending and then digs into what sustainability looks like in this moment — thinking beyond Read more
Writing for the Fordham Institute, Adam Tyner reviews a new research report by Jackson and Mackevicius that explores how money matters for student outcomes. Excerpts from the piece appear below: The overall effect of an additional $1,000 of spending per child on test scores, based on 2018 prices and over Read more
Writing for Future Ed, Karen Hawley Miles envisions a future for public schooling that makes the most of current flexibilities. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Let’s not repeat the mistakes the education sector made in responding to the last major disruption of the education system. In the wake of Read more
A new AEI paper by Jonathan Wai and Frank C. Worrell, “Fully Developing the Potential of Academically Advanced Students: Helping Them Will Help Society” argues that gifted students are often left out of education reform conversations. In the $59.8 billion 2015 federal education budget, one dollar was spent on gifted Read more
With America’s public schools unlikely to return to past funding levels in the near future, the District Management Council (http://www.dmjournal.org/spending-money-wisely/) released a policy guide this week to help districts thrive, rather than just survive, within the constraints of their new fiscal realities. In the main report, “Spending Money Wisely: Getting Read more
In a time when the Obama Administration’s tenure is winding down and when Congress has yet to make any significant progress toward a remake of ESEA, some measured thoughts about the role of the federal government in American education are quite timely. Frederick M. Hess and Andrew P. Kelly, of Read more
The new budget bill, which moved through both houses of Congress quickly and was easily passed by both houses, represents a 2.6 percent increase over the post-sequester budget for FY 2013. The fiscal relief is not evenly spread, with some programs receiving significant increases and others continuing at lower levels. Read more
New America’s education experts have deciphered the 2013 and 2014 budget actions, with a particular view to how they affect education. In the report, “Federal Education Budget Update: Fiscal Year 2013 Recap and Fiscal Year 2014 Early Analysis,” Jason Delisle and Clare McCann explore congressional budget actions over the past Read more
In the current economic climate, with budget cuts a necessity and many states seeing their education budget battles going to state supreme courts, states and districts need help weathering the storm. DREAM hopes to help states and districts do just that with a “new way to explore school budgets.” DREAM Read more
The Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution has recently released a report on the current cost of standardized testing in United States. The purpose of the study is to shed light on current costs so that there will be an accurate baseline upon which to compare new Read more
Three large school districts, Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York, have bailed out of Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants. The Teacher Incentive Fund’s competitive grant program aims at promoting performance-based compensation and PD for educators. Overall, the three districts forfeited $88 million. The problem? A lack of teacher buy-in for the Read more
Since the end of the recession three years ago, 300,000 educators have lost their jobs—7,000 in the last month alone, according to a new White House report. These startling numbers have led the Obama administration to sound the alarm on education spending cuts across the country. In Investing in Our Read more
Using financial analyses, Public Impact shows how redesigned teacher roles that extend the reach of excellent teachers to more students free funds to pay those teachers up to 130 percent more, within current budgets. Multi-classroom leadership can pay teachers up to about 130% more Elementary subject specialization can pay teachers Read more