Daily Archives: March 27, 2020


Re-engineer Choice Architecture to Improve Budget Decisions

Each year, district leaders make many decisions about school and district finances. Hidden behind those myriad decisions is a choice architecture, which, explicitly or implicitly, defines and shapes leaders’ decision-making. Learning from behavioral economics, this article offers a new perspective to look at the functions and tasks school business officials (SBOs) perform in relation to the choice architecture and calls for rethinking the role SBOs can and should play in facilitating those decisions. Specifically, three essential components of choice architecture are highlighted: default, anchor, and framing. For each component, prevalent design features and their impact on budgetary decisions are discussed. […]