Share School Budgets with the Public
Strategy 3.2: Require budget transparency.
School budgets should be shared with the public in a transparent and intelligible manner. To optimize resources, states and districts should drive budgetary prioritization and decision-making through the prism of student achievement, providing maximum transparency for taxpayers and parents.
At the core of the challenge in driving good budgetary decision-making is obtaining a clear understanding of where districts and schools spend their money now. It is nearly impossible for a parent or taxpayer to understand how the funding going to schools affects students.
A school district's budget should give an average member of the public a clear sense of where the money goes and what the district's priorities are. To that end, budget documents shared with the public should show how individual schools receive and allocate resources. This measure of transparency will enable parents and the public to monitor, question, and comment intelligently on budget proposals.
