AROI


Moving beyond the “budget dance”

Here is the link to an article on improving district budgeting that is published in Kappan’s March issue. Abstract The annual budgeting process is a valuable opportunity for districts to systematically examine both resource use and programming and use the findings to inform and drive change to optimize resource use and improve program efficacy that will lead to increased student achievement. Bo Yan and Thomas Aberli discuss three root causes for districts’ inability to accomplish the goals (reliance on problem-driven needs as the dominant factor of budgetary decisions, disconnect between financial management and performance management, as well as human nature). […]


Academic Return-on-Investment (AROI) and School Improvement

Three years ago, we started working on an IES funded research project in collaboration with Dr. Fiona Hollands at Teachers College of Columbia University and Dr. Robert Shand at American University. The goal was to explore: 1) whether A-ROI metrics, developed as a compromise between rigor and practicality, can be used to improve decision-making regarding education programs, and 2) how to embed A-ROI results into district operations through a Cycle-based Budgeting model. This report shares our lessons learned from that project. https://www.jefferson.kyschools.us/sites/default/files/IES_AROI_Brief_3_Final_Dec_2021.pdf In this report, we talked about how we applied some of the lessons learned when developing a new version of our […]