Add the voice of Ben Chavis to those critical of public school leaders. Dr. Chavis spent seven years as principal of the American Indian Public Charter School, transforming it from the worst middle school in Oakland into a high-performing organization. He uses that platform to argue that public schools don’t need more money; they need competent administrators who are held accountable for their performance. (CNN, “Commentary: Who says public schools need more money?” September 9, 2009)

Systems thinking tells us that the system is responsible for 85-95% of an organization’s problems, and since the leaders control the system, they are responsible for those problems. They need to understand how their system works, set goals, identify opportunities to improve, and develop processes that will close the gap between their goals and current performance.

Money is not the answer to these problems, but inadequate financial resources can make it difficult to address them. Schools are being asked to do so much more than in the past to address social and economic issues that have a direct bearing on their ability to educate. Dr. Chavis has given us an example of how this can be done. Other schools, including the five school districts that have received the Baldrige Award, provide more examples.

Yet the question remains: How much money does it take to educate students? “More” is not a good answer, since more money has been invested in education and it has not produced better results. Examples of this are everywhere, including in the experience of Dr. Chavis: His school spent less than $8,000 per student compared to the Oakland Unified School District average of $16,270 per student.

How can we hold school leaders accountable for the money they spend? What are the metrics we can use to correlate spending per student with student achievement?

Because the days of getting more money just because you say you need it are fading.

Help grow our community:

(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

 Loading ...