Where Does the Money Go?: Resource Allocation in Elementary and Secondary Schools

Policymakers and the public in general want to know how schools and districts spend the tax funds they receive. Even though the real dollar amount spent on each pupil is going up, performance measures have remained flat or declined. Until now, there have been few comprehensive sources for understanding how educational resources are used. This unique book provides educators with an understanding of how tax dollars are spent--from the district level all the way down to the students in the classroom. The authors of each chapter, all distinguished educators, give you the facts and show you what effect those expenditures actually have on the school lives of pupils and classroom teachers. Picus and Wattenbarger have created an invaluable tool that will help educators, and other proponents of our public schools, explain the flow of educational resources. Here are the statistics and the research results that can help inform the debate over how much should be spent on our children′s education and how those funds should be used. Sixteenth yearbook of the American Education Finance Association (AEFA).

Lawrence O. Picus is professor of education finance and policy at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. His current research interests focus on adequacy and equity in school finance as well as efficiency and productivity in the provision of educational programs for K-12 school children. Picus is past president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) and is the president of the board of EdSource, a California-based education research organization. Picus is the coauthor of School Finance: A Policy Perspective (5th edition) with Allan R. Odden. He has authored, coauthored, or edited several other books including Where Does the Money Go? Resource
Allocation in Elementary and Secondary Schools (1995), In Search of More Productive Schools: A Guide to Resource Allocation in Education (2001), Developing Community-Empowered Schools (2001) coauthored with Mary Ann Burke, and Principles of School Business Administration (1995) with R. Craig Wood, David Thompson, and Don I. Tharpe. He has also published numerous articles in professional journals. Picus studies how educational resources are allocated and used in schools across the United States. He has conducted studies of the impact of incentives
on school district performance. Picus maintains close contact with the superintendents and chief business officers of school districts throughout California and the nation and is a member of a number of professional organizations dedicated to improving school district management. He is a former member of the Editorial Advisory Committee of the Association of School Business Officials International, and he has served as a consultant to the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, the National Center for Education Statistics, and WestEd. He served as the principal consultant for the design of school funding systems in Wyoming and Arkansas and has conducted equity, adequacy, and resource allocation studies in Arizona, Arkansas, Washington, Vermont, Oregon, South Carolina, Louisiana, Kansas,
Kentucky, Montana, New Jersey, Nebraska, Texas, North Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Maine. Picus holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Reed College and master’s degrees from the University of Chicago and the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He received his PhD in public policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School.