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Adequacy for Excellence in Kentucky, Report 2 (Financial Change)

Caliber — Fri, 01 May 2015 22:24:17 +0000

These documents describe Picus Odden & Associate’s findings from a contemporary, independent review of Kentucky’s school finance system. Under contract with the Council for Better Education (CBE), the study, conducted December 2013 through August 2014, examines multiple aspects of the KY school finance system, including the following:

An analysis of Kentucky’s education system with comparative states.
A series of models based on prototypical schools and districts that allow KY to determine the adequate cost of bringing students to state standards (2012-13).
An additional study, requested by the Advisory Committee (Appendix A), follows a similar methodology as the comparative states work, but compares Kentucky to the most successful states in terms of academic performance.

Report 2

Adequacy for Excellence in Kentucky, Report 1 (Evidence)

Caliber — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:53:37 +0000

An analysis of Kentucky’s education system with comparative states.
A series of models based on prototypical schools and districts that allow KY to determine the adequate cost of bringing students to state standards (2012-13).
An additional study, requested by the Advisory Committee (Appendix A), follows a similar methodology as the comparative states work, but compares Kentucky to the most successful states in terms of academic performance.

Report 1
Report 2

Resource Alignment Tools (Gates Foundation) 2013

Mike Goetz — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 16:36:33 +0000

As part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Spending Money Smartly project, RSEC undertook the research task of locating, reviewing and assessing various resource alignment tools for inclusion in this report. The goal of this effort was to identify tools that can assist districts in strategic planning, budgeting or expenditure tracking and that have the ability or potential ability to be tied, or aligned, to measures of student academic performance. The material presented here provides descriptive information on several resource alignment tools in an effort to give districts and technical assistant partners a broad understanding of tools available to them as they begin budget alignment reforms. RSEC completed the search and selection of the tools, but the tool designers themselves provided all of the information included in this report; RSEC edited these descriptions for length and style only.

Spending Money Smartly: Resource Alignment Tools

Maine (2012-2014)

Caliber — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:00:03 +0000

Working with Lawrence O. Picus and Associates, RSEC is a partner in performing Equity, Adequacy and School Resource Studies for the Maine Office of Program Evaluation & Government Accountability. These studies seek to analyze whether 1) Maine meets traditional equity standards of school funding, 2) the Essential Program and Services (EPS) formula provides adequate resources for all students to achieve proficiency in the Common Core Standards, and 3) the current spending patterns in high academic growth schools exhibit similarities.

Maine School Finance Adequacy, Part 1

Texas (2012)

Caliber — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:17:55 +0000

Working with the Fort Bent and Calhoun County Plaintiffs, Lawrence O. Picus and Associates, in partnership with RSEC, created a school finance funding model for Estimating the Cost of an Adequate Education for Texas School Districts Using the Evidence-Based Approach. This model and the accompanying final report served as evidence in the plaintiff’s trial.
Texas Final Report

Foundation for Child Development (FCD) (2009): PreK-3rd Parent Involvement

Caliber — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:07:30 +0000

RSEC, through Lawrence O. Picus and Associates, researched the components of effective community and parent engagement programs to estimate the national costs of an integrated PK-3rd Program. Dr. Lisa Dorner, along with then-graduate students June Reineke and Anne Karch, assisted in determining the potential benefits of parent engagement programs at the PreK-3rd level in terms of improved student achievement, both in the PreK and primary levels, as well as in higher grades.
FCD Final Report: Community and Parent Involvement

50 State Adequacy (2009)

Caliber — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:50:51 +0000

Published in Educational Policy, this work, conducted by Allen Odden, Lawrence Picus, and Michael Goetz estimated the costs of school finance adequacy for each of the 50 states given state demographics and geographical cost differences. A 50-State Strategy to Achieve School Finance Adequacy was a necessary step for understanding the results of another paper by the authors: Using Available Evidence to Estimate the Cost of Educational Adequacy.
50 State Final Paper

National Adequacy (2008)

Caliber — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:12:09 +0000

Published in Education Finance Policy, Allen Odden, Michael Goetz, and Lawrence Picus, completed adequacy work at the national level in Using Available Evidence to Estimate the Cost of Educational Adequacy, using a generic version of the Evidence-Based Approach to school finance adequacy.
National Adequacy Final Paper

Foundation for Child Development (FCD) (2008-09): PreK-3rd Adequacy

Caliber — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:10:05 +0000

Subcontracted by Lawrence O. Picus and Associates, RSEC helped design and cost-out an integrated, adequately funded PreK-3rd grade education program. The costs of the program components were then applied to each state, taking into consideration the demographic characteristics of the state as well as their specific regional cost of education.
FCD Policy Brief: Adequacy
FCD Final Report: Adequacy

North Dakota (2007-2008)

Caliber — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:43:31 +0000

Gov. Jack Dalrymple, chair of the North Dakota Education Improvement Commission contracted Lawrence O. Picus and Associates to complete an adequacy study of the North Dakota school finance system. RSEC assisted in completing an adequacy model as well as a school resource use study.
North Dakota Final Study