Winter 2004
The new issue of Education Next is out, with a focus on school financing and the mounting debt that many districts face. Jon Fullerton identifies four underlying reasons that many school districts find themselves in financial trouble: inefficient financial oversight and a general na?vet? about how budgeting and financial planning work; constraints on how districts can manage their budget; political pressures from elected officials; but especially, a "use it or lose it" mentality that encourages districts to spend their full allocation each year and makes it hard for them to adjust to changing financial realities. In a companion article, UCLA professor William Ouchi argues for personnel and financial decentralization as a way out of these structural problems. Elsewhere, David J. Ferrero argues that choice is good for teachers, as it would allow them to band together in schools with a common educational mission instead of forcing them together in schools riven by radically different pedagogical approaches and attendant tensions. And that's just the beginning. Check it out at http://www.educationnext.org/20041/.