US - Let's Renovate Our School Finance Systems

Let's Renovate Our School Finance Systems
Though the editorial concerns reforming finance in the US, it's an interesting proposal that could commute to other systems as well.

"For most of this century education funding has been channeled to school districts. But since the 1980s, education reform has created a variety of new policy initiatives that require states to consider how to finance school sites (e.g., school-based management, school-level accountability, and charter schools). As states address this new task, they realize that their current district-based finance structures require significant modification, if not a complete overhaul, to produce a system that fairly and adequately responds to fiscal and curricular goals of the future.

UW-Madison Education Professors William Clune and Allan Odden say new finance systems should align with other initiatives of standards- and school-based education reforms. Based at WCER%u2019s Center for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), Odden says, 'With the right kind of change, finance systems and structures could help the education system improve the productivity of the educational dollar. Many more students could be taught to high standards.'"