Making the most of school resources

"How you spend your resources really does speak to the ethics, morals, and values about what is important. I use these ideas each day to help schools leverage their resources in strategic and creative ways to meet students' needs."

-Mary Nash, Assistant Superintendent

Boston Public Schools, MA

"A powerful new lens for looking at school resources by fundamentally changing the question from 'How much money do schools need to succeed?' to 'How well are resources being used to ensure student success?'"

-Richard Murnane, Economist and Professor

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Strategically reorganize school resources to support instructional and performance priorities!

How can schools best use the resources they already have? That question is at the heart of this inspiring book for school and district administrators challenged with increasing student performance without additional funding. Exploring the link between purposeful resource allocation and academic achievement, Karen Hawley Miles and Stephen Frank demonstrate how educational leaders can develop successful and strategic schools by assessing how well they use all available resources-people, time, and money-and by creating effective alternatives to meet goals.

The authors use their extensive research with urban schools and districts to present case studies of schools that successfully reorganized resources to implement the "Big 3 Guiding Resource Strategies": improving teaching quality, creating individual attention, and maximizing academic time. The Strategic School offers planning guides, checklists, worksheets, and strategies aligned with ISLLC standards to help leaders:

- Assess current resource use in new ways that go beyond the typical budget review

- Organize resources more creatively and flexibly

- Craft a master schedule that works

- Connect resource allocation to student and school performance

By encouraging school leaders to set clear priorities for student learning, the authors provide the support and strategies that leaders need to make resource decisions and select smart alternatives that best serve their school communities.