Policy Priority 3: Spend Taxpayer Resources Wisely to Get Better Results for Students

Districts should use resources efficiently to ensure sustainable spending that puts students first. Districts should be managed through structures that ensure a focus on student results rather than adult interests.

StudentsFirst believes that district governance and funding decisions must be made through the prism of student learning and family empowerment rather than adult political and parochial interests. For too long schools have suffered as the result of misdirected accountability. All spending should tie to student achievement and the structures in place should be directly accountable for the results.

StudentsFirst will support laws and policies that support smarter resource allocation and governance designed to consistently prioritize students and student learning above all other choices. We will focus on the following policy objectives:

• Ensure that strong accountability systems are in place.
• Support transparent budgeting at all levels and ensure that public resource expenditures maximize student benefit.
• Ensure that the government exercises discipline in pension and benefit programs.

While per-pupil funding for public education in the United States has more than doubled over the past 40 years (accounting for inflation), the most recent international data shows that U.S. students are lagging far behind students in other industrialized nations. U.S. students scored "below average" in math on the PISA examination, placing the U.S. 25th out of the 34 OECD participant nations. Despite this significant increase in spending, student achievement in the U.S. has remained relatively flat.

In today's challenging fiscal climate, states must consider the possibility that school districts long accustomed to budget growth must now learn to reallocate the resources they already have — in particular toward uses that effectively promote student learning and raise the standards of the teaching profession. But first, we need to examine the governmental structure in place to make these important decisions.

Outdated governance structures have long been exploited to serve the interests of adults above those of children. Far from providing expert guidance, local school boards are often obstacles to real reform and properly aligned spending priorities. Communities with failing schools deserve governance structures and budgeting policies that put students first.