Within University of Minnesota Extension's health and nutrition program area, we created and are using a decision-making tree to prioritize our work with communities of color through equitable decision-making practices. The tool is currently used to help grant administrators winnow down a pool of applicants for a participatory grant-making program…

Education stakeholders have used descriptors of poverty and race as if they were synonymous. This 'synonymization' of identities is particularly evident for black and poor students. We define 'synonymization' as a policy threat that emerges when policymakers conflate two marginalized identities, resulting in policies that ostensibly, but not…

In February 2015 a large group of scholars, researchers, and practitioners interested in P-20 finance issues gathered in St. Louis, Missouri, for the National Education Finance Academy's annual conference, on February 25-27, 2015 to discuss, among multiple topics, the state of P-20 finance in all 50 states. There were 35 states represented in the…

When Brad R. Simpson visited the University of Connecticut for a job interview in February, he was struck by a vibe that he finds increasingly rare on college campuses. People, he says, were optimistic. At a time when he encounters many demoralized professors, as campuses across the nation slash budgets and freeze hiring, the University of…

Differential response (DR), also referred to as alternative response (AR), family assessment response (FAR), or multiple track response, was developed to incorporate family-centered, strengths-based practices into child protective services (CPS), primarily by diverting lower risk families into an assessment track rather than requiring the…

The idea behind public charter schools was to develop flexible models of public schools and to incubate innovative ideas that then could be shared with the district's public schools. Today, almost 20 years since the first public charter school opened its doors in Minnesota, one still does not see consistent, productive collaboration and shared…

Increasingly, there is a growing realization in alumni relations that successful alumni programs, benefits, and services are not ends in and of themselves. Rather, alumni engagement is ultimately all about the institution. Success in alumni relations ideally advances an institution's overall forward progress. Twenty years ago, alumni strategic…

As president of Miami University of Ohio from 1996 until 2006, James C. Garland redefined the public institution as a "semi-private" university by implementing the same tuition for both in-state and out-of-state students. Students from Ohio with need received large scholarships--but those who could afford to pay more did so. The reform,…

Most colleges and universities that launch into social media do so by dipping one toe in the water rather than swan diving into the deep end. And while many people define "social media" as Facebook and perhaps Twitter, the term actually encompasses everything from blogs to photo- and video-sharing sites to LinkedIn to any of dozens of…

In 2004, after an in-depth review of student achievement data for over 4,000 students, the administration of a school district in southern Minnesota identified the following challenges: (1) above-state-average number of special education students; (2) increasing number of English as Second Language (ESL) students; (3) increasing number of students…

There has developed moderate discussion in European higher education about the use of performance indicators for both accountability and evaluation purposes. This paper begins by summarizing governmental expectations, institutional objections, and several of the controversies surrounding performance measures. We then report on using performance…

Examines several schemes that include income (as well as property wealth) to measure school district fiscal capacity. (Author/JM)

Describes school-level K-12 revenue and expenditure data collection in California, Texas, Florida, and Minnesota. Neither California nor Minnesota collects school-site fiscal data. Florida's highly advanced district and school-level data collection system has inconsistently reported standardized test scores. Texas has developed a good database to…

Implementing an incentives-based budget system at a large public research university significantly redirected internal funds while producing notable organizational and financial surprises. For example, units did not increase their "hoarding" of students, contrary to some expectations. The findings point to several issues for further…

Stresses the need for having financial and staff data available at the school level and relates Minnesota's state department of education's experience with school-level data collection. Schools need to develop unit record data collection and integrated, relational databases. School-level data can provide answers to major questions concerning…