Education Week’s Guide to New School-by-School Spending Mandate
October 8, 2019
This piece from Education Week provides an easy-to-follow guide to “what ESSA’s new data-reporting mandate means for different players in the education community.” As opposed to focusing on “per-pupil spending,” ESSA “requires states for the first time to break out how much districts spend on each school,” which advocates hope will change public perception and understanding of K-12 funding and “drive academic- and fiscal-policy shifts at the state, federal, and local levels.” There are, as always, a number of factors to consider and researchers and school finance experts recommend being cautious when drawing conclusions from bottom-line, school-by-school spending figures alone.