Western Educational Equity Assistance Center

Alignment and Coherence of Education Systems

Making Every Dollar Count With Student Success ROI 

School district budgets may be shrinking, but student needs are not. Amid pandemic relief funds ending, enrollment declining, and costs of business rising, schools are still expected to provide essential supports for every student despite difficult financial constraints.

As these constraints persist and even mount, leaders must answer the question: Which programs are delivering the most meaningful benefits to students? Measuring student success return-on- investment (Student Success ROI) can help districts prioritize what works–and make strategic decisions that honor both student outcomes and fiscal responsibility.

This blog post defines Student Success ROI and shares important considerations for school district leaders to evaluate both the cost and impact of their programs.

How Well Will Your State’s Schools Weather the Next Financial Storm?

While states are often impacted by cost pressures beyond their control, certain state policies can help stabilize school funding from year to year and help school districts maintain stable services during times of declining revenue.

This report delves into some of the most pressing conditions contributing to current revenue volatility. It then explores policies that states may want to consider implementing to help them weather economic uncertainty and declining enrollment.

Strategic Resources Allocation for the 21st Century

With education systems across the country facing an increasingly challenging fiscal environment, state departments of education and local school districts are being forced to make difficult decisions about how to leverage limited dollars to best meet the needs of students. During these difficult budget periods, state leaders are uniquely positioned to support school districts.

As a follow-up on two previous “Silent Recession” reports, this paper describes state-level strategies for helping school districts address rising education costs and deploy resources strategically to improve student outcomes.

The strategies focus on three key areas: special education, educator compensation and benefits, and revenue generation. The paper draws from research literature, a media review, and interviews with state leaders, directors of regional education-focused nonprofits, and leading education researchers.

The paper is prefaced with commentary from the authors on new challenges and considerations resulting from the COVID-19 crisis.

Following Through: 5 Strategies for Getting Federal Relief Aid to Students Who Need It Most

To address the increased needs of students and schools resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has enacted a series of three relief and stimulus bills — the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA), and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) — that have collectively infused nearly $200 billion directly into K–12 public education.

State education agency leaders play a critical role in providing guidance and technical assistance to local education agencies regarding the equitable allocation and use of funding to help ensure that dollars reach and positively affect the students with highest need.

In addition, states have an opportunity to support LEAs in thoughtfully engaging community stakeholders, elevating the voices of underserved communities and utilizing their input in strategic resource decisions, and strengthening LEAs’ ongoing planning processes.

This policy brief offers five strategies that state and local education agency leaders can use to follow through on the intended use of federal relief aid – including measuring, monitoring, and disseminating information on the impact of local investments in order to meaningfully support students most impacted by the pandemic.

Identifying Resource Inequities

SEAs have a tremendous opportunity to leverage the RAR in supporting LEAs and schools to adopt a systemic approach to equitable resource planning and alignment. This brief provides a systematized approach for conducting a meaningful resource allocation review (RAR).

As a result of an intensive four-year design process, field research, and piloting, the Region 15 Comprehensive Center offers state education agency leaders concrete examples of resource inequities, decision-making considerations, and ways to reduce the RAR burden on LEAs and schools.

Resource Allocation Strategies to Support the Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement

Despite national attention on the need for school turnaround, many school districts across the United States are struggling to fund even the basic costs of school district operations, despite increases in funding. The fact is, revenues are not keeping pace with expenditures in many school districts across the country. As a result, the fiscal circumstances in local school districts and state education systems are increasingly challenging as costs for pensions, special education, employee healthcare, and other cost pressures continue to rise. Yet the need to support vulnerable student populations and struggling schools remains high. This paper outlines strategies for how school districts can maximize the use of existing resources to support the practices outlined in the “Four Domains.”

7 Recommendations for Using Education Data to Support Equitable Learning Outcomes

While there are many different types of education data, policymakers and education leaders often place heavy emphasis on data from large-scale quantitative measures, such as annual state assessments. But data from these sources alone do not provide a complete picture of learning and are often not well suited to informing improvements at the local level.

This brief provides seven recommendations to help educators, administrators, policymakers, and others use a wider range of data to more effectively support equitable learning outcomes.

Systems Reviews: Building Coherence, Increasing Efficiency, and Improving Workflow at State Educational Agencies

State educational agencies (SEAs) face complex challenges that require both technical solutions and adaptive approaches that shift leadership, structures, and processes. WestEd’s systems review process provides a structured yet flexible framework to help SEAs

  • assess systems and improve coordination to reduce redundancy and enhance productivity;
  • build leadership and staff capacity to navigate both technical and adaptive challenges; and
  • align agency work with long-term state priorities for sustainable, meaningful change.

Drawing on decades of expertise in capacity building, technical assistance, and systems improvement, WestEd partners with SEA leaders to ensure efforts are data-driven, actionable, and impactful. By applying principles of organization development, systems thinking, and continuous improvement, this approach helps agencies realize their full potential.

An Old Idea for a New Age? Aligning Block Grants to Achieve State Goals and Improved Outcomes for Students

Many indicators point to block grants as a mechanism that the Trump administration may use to help achieve government efficiency in many areas of the federal budget, including public education.

As state education leaders adapt to an evolving funding landscape, block grants offer an opportunity to align resources with states’ goals to support students.

This policy brief provides state education leaders with an overview of how block grants work and presents four recommendations for how states can maximize their use:

  • Set clear goals and outcomes that lead to meaningful allocation.
  • Reimagine accountability through rapid innovation and engineered quality improvement.
  • Communicate clearly with the public about the value and impact of block grant funds.
  • Build systems for interagency collaboration.

Strategic Use of One-Time State and Federal Resources

With billions of dollars in one-time state and federal investments in education, California’s education leaders are working to invest strategically in staff, plan for sustainability and transformational change, and ensure that funds are allocated and spent equitably.

These efforts are aimed at accelerating equitable learning opportunities and, in particular, ensuring students who have faced the highest barriers to learning during the pandemic receive additional support.

However, decisions about how to invest this one-time funding are complicated by COVID and other challenges. To support California’s education leaders, the California Department of Education (CDE) partnered with WestEd to offer an interactive, three-part series of virtual learning sessions focused on how to strategically use the one time-funds in combination with ongoing resources to strengthen supports.