At CRPE, our previous finance research centered on how funding systems could support the growth of charter schools and portfolio-style governance, with a strong emphasis on equity, transparency, and flexibility in resource allocation. We examined how traditional formulas often disadvantaged schools of choice and studied weighted or student-based funding models that might better match dollars to student needs.
Today, our focus has shifted to how education finance can help schools recover and adapt in the face of disruption. We study how pandemic-era funding was used, what lessons districts learned, and how the expiration of those funds creates new fiscal challenges. We also examine how shifting federal priorities—such as efforts to scale back or restructure education funding—affect schools’ capacity to innovate, sustain supports, and equitably serve all students. Across this evolution, our commitment remains the same: to understand how funding systems can be designed to meet student needs while enabling schools to respond to change.
This report suggests that even with the economic slowdown and the sense of relief from a pending teacher shortage, districts will continue to struggle to get and keep good teachers unless they make dramatic changes in the ways they recruit teachers.
This report finds that although some districts and areas are experiencing difficulties finding good school principals, there are far more candidates interested in assuming school leadership roles than there are principal vacancies to fill.
This research brief relates to a CRPE report that finds, despite widespread publicity about a shortage of school principals, there are far more candidates certified to be principals than there are principal vacancies to fill.
Many foundations have put funds into urban school reform. The paper suggests that foundation giving needs to be backed up by a clear theory of change and that foundation officials need to know whether the districts in which they plan to work or are already working match the foundation’s interests.
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.