Karen Hawley Miles is the CEO of Education Resource Strategies, Inc. She has worked intensively with school systems nationwide to analyze and improve their funding systems, school-level resource use, and human capital and professional development systems. This work has two major components: partnering with system leaders to deeply analyze their resource use and then working side-by-side with them to change the resource strategies in ways that improve school performance. ERS focuses especially on helping systems to redesign their funding systems; create new schools that organize talent, time, and technology to maximize learning; restructure teaching to encourage individual and team effectiveness; and develop powerful school turnaround strategies.
Karen has taught school leaders at Harvard University, in school districts, and for New Leaders for New Schools. She has authored numerous articles and co-authored The Strategic School: Making the Most of People, Time and Money with Stephen Frank. She serves as a Senior Advisor to the Aspen Institute Education and Society Program, and she served as a Commissioner on the Equity and Excellence Commission for the U.S. Department of Education.
This paper is a companion piece to the District Resource Allocation Modeler (DREAM) tool developed by Education Resource Strategies.
This paper presents the first results of a series of studies on within-district spending patterns. It provides an overview of some early analysis of variations in spending among schools within three districts.