THE BIG DISCONNECT: SPENDING POLICIES, SCHOOL PRIORITIES, AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Panelists: 

Kevin Finneran, editor-in-chief, Issues in Science and Technology

Marguerite Roza, senior scholar, Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington (on leave); senior economic and data adviser, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; author, Educational Economics: Where Do School Funds Go?

Noah Wepman, former chief financial officer, District of Columbia Public Schools

Others to be announced

Imagine a high school that spends $328 per student for math courses and $1,348 per cheerleader for cheerleading activities. Or a school where the average per-student cost of offering ceramics was $1,608; cosmetology, $1,997; and such core subjects as science, $739.

These schools are not anomalies. Marguerite Roza and colleagues at the Center on Reinventing Public Education regularly found a much greater per-pupil investment in sports and electives than in core subjects. They also found -- in Austin, Baltimore, Dallas, Denver, Cincinnati, Houston, Seattle, and many other cities -- that teacher salaries average $1,000 to $5,000 higher in schools with fewer poor students than in the highest-poverty schools in the same district.

After collecting revenues from all taxpayers, how are these all too common scenarios possible or justifiable? What happens to students and public trust when districts don't track or report detailed spending for every school? Who wins and loses when school officials use outmoded resource allocation policies? And how can a district's internal policies be updated and aligned with the public's priorities? Join the discussion and debate as a panel of experts follows the twisted trail of school-level funding. 

At the Urban Institute

2100 M Street N.W., 5th Floor, Washington, D.C. 

Lunch will be provided at 11:45 a.m. The forum begins promptly at noon.