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Policy Notes

What We Can Learn from Baltimore City Public Schools

By

Liv Finne, Director, WPC’s Center for Education

, October, 2010

Forward-thinking school superintendents, like C.E.O. Andres A. Alonso of Baltimore City Public Schools, are reorganizing the way they run their schools, and achieving dramatic gains for students. They are implementing Fair Student Funding. This reform shifts control over school spending from central districts to individual school principals. Under Fair Student Funding, school principals are able to control the actual dollars in their school budgets, instead of having to manage a building already staffed by the district. Principals with budget power are then able to customize their programs to meet the individualized educational needs of their students. In return for this new flexibility and control, school principals are held accountable for student performance.

Thirteen other school districts across the nation have adopted Fair Student Funding, also known as Student-Centered Funding, student “backpacking,” or Weighted Student Formula. The idea is the same. Instead of providing funding based on staffing ratios or categorical program, the money follows and funds the child, weighted according to his educational needs. The districts employing this strategy for funding schools include the following: Belmont Pilot Schools in Los Angeles, Boston’s Pilot Schools, Renaissance 2010 Schools in Chicago, Cincinnati, Clark County (which includes Las Vegas), Denver, Hartford, State of Hawaii, Houston Independent School District, New York City, Oakland, Poudre School District in Colorado, St. Paul, and San Francisco.

The story of how Baltimore City Public Schools achieved this reform is well worth telling. It started with a visionary leader: Andrés A. Alonso. He was selected as Chief Executive Officer of Baltimore City Public Schools in the summer of 2007.

Elements of Fair Student Funding

  1. Create a system of great schools led by great principals who have the authority, resources and responsibility to teach all students well.
  2. Engage those closest to the students in making key decisions that impact them.
  3. Empower schools, then hold them accountable for results.
  4. Ensure fair and transparent funding that schools can count on annually.
  5. Size the district appropriately -- schools and central office -- to address the realities of revenues and expenditures.
  6. Allow dollars to follow each student.
  7. Put the resources in the schools.

Read the full Policy Note here