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.
In 1997, Paul Hill published his book Reinventing Public Education: How Contracting Can Transform America’s Schools (the center where I work at the University of Washington was founded on the ideas presented).
This brief examines a promising new “third way” approach to school improvement and provides guidance for district and charter leaders and policymakers considering partnership schools.
/* ><!*/ Our report, Better Together: Ensuring Quality District Schools in Times of Charter Growth and Declining Enrollment, is intended to spur constructive dialogue and action on a complex issue that has long divided education leaders.
When districts go into a major period of declining enrollment, schools can experience chaotic changes in staffing, course offerings, and student supports—as fixed costs eat up an increasingly large share of revenues, and teacher and student morale spirals downward.
