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.
Five years ago, Baltimore City Public Schools seemed on the brink of a breakthrough. By almost all accounts, the district-led portfolio system—traditional and charter school options, all authorized and managed by City Schools’ central office—was working.
This analysis of trends across portfolio districts shows where cities are making progress on strategy implementation and where they are getting bogged down.
On the surface, the current dispute about Title I comparability (the requirement that schools within a district must receive comparable resources from state and local sources for education of disadvantaged children before federal funds are added on) is all about money.
Reorganizing time, talent, technology, and physical space to support personalized learning takes money, planning, and time. Dozens of philanthropies, new support organizations, and policy groups are dedicated to helping schools implement this model.
This paper takes the first systematic look at costs associated with implementing personalized learning schools, how leaders of these schools choose to allocate their funds, and what it might take to make personalized learning financially sustainable on public dollars.
We at CRPE have been watching the evolution of New York City Department of Education’s (NYCDOE) “iZone” for years. Betheny Gross and I did a paper on the early days of the iZone, when the district was asking about 200 schools to radically rethink their instruction, assessment, and staffing to revolve around personalization and customization for each student.
The Council of Chief State Schools Officers is meeting this week to discuss rural education. While worries about America’s public education system often focus on large cities, rural districts educate millions of American students, and they do so with less support and attention than their urban and suburban counterparts.
