Where Does the Money Go?

School Administrator, June, 1996 by Philip A. Nathan

Where does the money go? It is a question asked frequently these days by communities as school budgets come under sharp scrutiny. For this reason, school leaders are pressed to grasp the specialized language, concepts, and valid findings of education finance research and make them accessible in the local domain.

In this collective work, Where Does the Money Go?: Resource Allocation in Elementary and Secondary Schools, a diverse group of distinguished scholars and practitioners consolidate the advancing stream of research about allocation of resources in K-12 education.

Edited by Lawrence O. Pincus and James L. Watten-barger, the 16th annual yearbook of the American Education Finance Association addresses resource allocation patterns, district-level and school-level allocation, teacher retention, efficiency measurements, a redefinition of school-based budgeting, and school-level finance data and public policy decision-making.

In the ongoing policy debate about accountability at the school and classroom level, the question--where does the money go?--must be answered by the school finance community, superintendents, and central-office staff.

(Where Does the Money Go?: Resource Allocation in Elementary and Secondary Schools, edited by Lawrence 0. Pincus and James L. Wattenbarger, Corwin Press, 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, Calif. 91320-2218, 1996, 300 pp. with index, $46.95 hardcover)