Lifting the Fog of Averages

California’s Unique Law Around School Expenditure Reporting

May 26, 2010, 9:00am - 11:00am

Inequity in the distribution of funds within school districts is an open secret. It's open because teacher mobility patterns and experienced-based salary schedules suggest that teachers in low-poverty schools earn higher salaries, on average, than teachers in high-poverty schools. It's secret because budgets and financial reports do not generally reflect actual expenditures.

The lynchpin of this open secret is the practice of pretending for the purposes of budgeting and reporting that all teachers earn the district average salary. The writing may be on the wall for this practice, however, as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 required that states furnish the Department of Education with a school-by-school report of actual expenditures by March 31, 2010.

Please join the Center for American Progress for the release of two new papers: "Lifting the Fog of Averages" describes the motivation, passage, and enforcement of California Senate Bill 687, which promotes transparency around school-level expenditure reporting; and "Comparable, Schmomparable" explores the data made available by the California law. Lively discussion will touch on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.