School Finance

Project Overview

With the advent of the standards movement, raised expectations for improved academic achievement for all students has put pressure on school systems to use their resources more effectively. While a number of promising school improvement strategies have been identified, there has been little research into their implementation costs, and cost is often perceived as a barrier to their adoption by schools. The CPRE Finance Project has undertaken a research agenda that will shed some light on the costs of school improvement and the financial capacity of schools to implement improvement strategies.

The research carried out by the CPRE Finance Project will look at both the current expenditure patterns of schools in a variety of district and state fiscal contexts as well as the costs of school improvement strategies at both the district and school site levels. Particular emphasis will be placed upon the costs of professional development and comprehensive school reform designs as well as improvement strategies that have been found to be effective through concurrent research by the other CPRE member institutions.