After years of non-stop increases--national k-12 per-pupil spending is up by "one-third" in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1995--schools now face the near-certainty of repeated annual budget cuts for the first time since the Great Depression. In some states and districts, reductions will be dramatic--well into the double digits. And…

In the fall of 2007, Education Resource Strategies (ERS) was invited by Philadelphia's School Reform Commission to conduct a Resource Use Analysis for the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) that would in part inform a possible transition to weighted student funding. In April 2008, ERS began the first set of interviews and data gathering…

Debates about how to improve public education in America often focus on whether government should spend more on education. Federal and state policymakers proposing new education programs often base their arguments on the need to provide more resources to schools to improve opportunities for students. Many Americans seem to share this view. While…

Centers on the internal allocation of budget development in the university. (Author/IRT)

Institutional performance was a topic given considerable attention by the Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Florida's Community College System responded to the challenge by committing to increase performance-based funding allocations from less than 2% to 5% of total state appropriations. Results of the analysis indicated that…

School districts' budgets don't have to confound the ordinary citizen. This two-page Q&A explains where the money comes from and the constraints on those deciding where it goes. It discusses the major budget pressures facing school districts, the role of collective bargaining, and how the public can influence local school budget decisions.

This article discusses how one small liberal arts school, Wheaton College in Massachusetts, devised a strategic plan to improve faculty salaries by linking improvements in salaries to improvements in college resources. The benefits of the salary plan went beyond improving salaries. First, the plan dictated that faculty salaries be determined at…

Though the number of districts with student-based funding-type (SBF) policies has grown, the literature on the implementation and possible impacts of these policies is limited. To address this, this report describes the implementation of SBF policies in two California school districts--San Francisco Unified School District and Oakland Unified…

With the national average cost of diesel fuel hovering around $3 per gallon, school and university administrators face the challenge of compensating their budgets for money lost to the gas tank. Some are playing with numbers, looking at their budgets for ways to move money around and make things work. Others are scouring for places where cost…

Discusses the history of zero-base budgeting, its application in business, and both the positive and negative aspects of its application in education. (PKP)

Identifies five ways in which budget adjustments occur in budget administration: underestimating revenue, employing accounting legerdemain, transfering funds between budget lines, reprogramming, and manipulating special funds. (Author/IRT)

In these activities, middle school and high school students examine the threat of nonnative plant species to Hawaiian ecosystems. Students explore different viewpoints on alien plants and consider how beliefs and attitudes may affect others' decisions concerning nonnative plant species. Students also identify invasive plant characteristics and…

Five years ago, the National Institute of Certified College Planners, an organization that licenses college-planning professionals, did not exist. This year the organization has 1,200 registered members. Professionals in college financial planning say business is booming, and the bulk of demand for their services is coming from families with…

Author suggests a scheme of school budgeting that reverses the order of assessment--by first establishing the overall limit for school expenditures and secondly assigning funds to various school programs on a priority resource allocation basis. (Author/HB)

These self-instructional resources have their origins in a workshop on the Costs and Financing of Open & Distance Learning which took place from 6-10 August 2007 in Gabarone, Botswana. The workshop was sponsored by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) with the overall aim of building capacity to plan, negotiate and manage appropriate financial…