VERSION: January 24, 2016
Management of Financial Resources 2016
Maureen W. McClure
EdD Program/School of Education
University of Pittsburgh
ADMPS 3101-1060: CRN: 29103
Posvar Hall 4321
Spring 2016
Contact information
Maureen W. McClure / Associate ProfessorOffice: / 5711 Posvar Hall
Phone: / 412.648.7114
Email: /
Office Hours: / To be determined in consultation with course students and by appointment online (Google Hangout or Skype) or F2F
The course will meet in Oakland four times, on the first Saturdays of the month. January 9
February 6
March 5
April 2
AND ONLINE
INTRODUCTION
The course uses CourseWeb/Blackboard for its online portions. This includes syllabus updates, assignments, readings (both required and recommended), group work, discussions, etc.
The course syllabus will remain in draft form with assurances that there is a “no reneging clause.” Adjustments instead will be made to support class customization, as each class brings different expertise experiences to the table. Students are also encouraged to contribute links and articles they come across in their own reading and in the media. Education finance is almost always in the news. Students will develop an expertise in an area that they can share with the rest of the class and hopefully after.
This year the class will also help design a template and then generate a State of the District report for a local school board and its community. Why? It is a way of showing how a district’s strategic plans are being implemented within reasonable budget constraints.
Right now most of these reports, where they exist, are pretty awful. Why? The problem is that so much attention has been paid to the problems of student achievement that relatively little attention has been paid to the local costs of attainment. Revenue generation problems, however, are an increasing concern in aging communities with currently declining enrollments. These districts, both rich and poor, face increasing difficulties paying for educational services, salary growth and benefits. You can see this in the increased instability of state and federal funding. Also, issues such as aging communities with nontaxable incomes, public pensions, etc., are often reported by advocates of one position or another.
This instability is also in part due to the changing times, as districts shift from a primary focus on policy compliance, to one of economic competitiveness with other districts and charter schools. Currently there are few good templates to help local districts customize their services in order to be more attractive to potential new residents.
MAKING IT HAPPEN
One hallmark of this course is “Don’t believe a word I say…go out and find out for yourself.” So Google (“State of the District” report) to see for yourself what’s out there. And what’s not. Does your district issues an annual State of the District report? Does it show the costs of district progress by integrating strategic planning and budgeting?
One of the more difficult tasks administrators today face is how to invest resources both fairly and effectively. Why? Because fairness and effectiveness are not only different, they can also be contradictory. Can you think of any examples in your own district?
One reason why fairness and effectiveness may not take the same journey is because different stakeholders don’t share interpretations of the same issues. Put simply, different policy issues may mean different things to different people. Resource issues in particular can be contentious when different groups are not only righteous about their own value but they are also in competition with other righteous groups for the same resources. For example, when the “baby boom” generation was either in school or later when they were the parents of children in school, education had strong lobbies at the state level. Now as they age, have less money and need other services, lobbying shifts toward tax relief and sector competition becomes more visible.
In addition to the problems of multiple interpretations by different stakeholders, there is the additional problem of who owns access to tax dollars? Teachers may believe that it is fair that they have earned raises in both their salaries and their benefits. That might be true. At the same time, it may also be true that aging taxpayers claim if taxes are raised, they might not be able to stay in their homes. And that might also be true. Finally, it may also be true the resources many children need may not be the resources that can be provided by teachers and the education sector (health, safety, etc.). And that also might be true. So how can we be fair to teachers, taxpayers and children, all at the same time?
Making good things happen in complicated contexts is something that you have already been doing for a long time. Now the stakes start going up. This course gives you tools so you can improve on what you already have been doing as successful administrators.
LANGUAGE IS FOUNDATIONAL TO FINANCE: MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
What does language have to do with finance? Well, we can’t do finance without it. We need to frame the ways we think and act. In more technical terms, the brain uses metaphors to create ways of knowing (frames or schema or paradigms, the terms vary by disciplines) in order to shape our ideas about things. We use these ways of knowing to create narratives around critical issues. These narratives are made up of assumptions, attributions, expectations, biases, etc. Different ways of knowing can have profoundly different definitions and consequences. And these differences can be a major source of administrative miscommunication.
For example, here are three different metaphorical ways of thinking about the same critical issue: taxes. All three might be represented on the same school board. Or one person may try to balance two or all three of them. This can create dilemmas for adminstrators. First, for some taxes are theft from the makers to give to the takers. Big governments with no regard for their citizens grow fat by forcing people to pay for their lavish and undeserved salaries and benefits. This includes “government schools.” Raising taxes, therefore, should be resisted at all costs.
Second, paying taxes is the price of freedom in a democracy. It is a personal duty everyone needs to share in order to ensure national security and development. Taxes are necessary both for safety and economic stability. These revenues should support our national interests, our troops and free markets.
Third, taxes are the investments we make together as neighbors and nations in the sustainability of our next generations and our planet. In addition to a national security interest, a generational interest also obligates us to invest in the education and health of all of our citizens. A democratic human rights interest also obligates us to those in the greatest needs beyond our borders. Clearly these points of view can be irreconcilable.
Complicating even this dilemma are multiple levels of governments and wide ranges in income. This can lead to large inequalities in school spending, exacerbated by district boundaries. In the past many people lived in cities, so local control was more inclusive because wealthy and poor people often lived within blocks of each other, and saw each other regularly. Today wealth and poverty are concentrated in urban and suburban housing enclaves at some distance from each other. Rich and poor children can grow up with little contact with each other. Today, local control can now exacerbate the differences in school spending.
As US school systems are highly decentralized, it is predictable, ipso facto, that schools with the greatest needs are the most likely to have the least money to meet their needs. Now substantial variances in wealth can be both in close proximity and separated by zoning. In the past, this inequality was seen by some as problematic, the consequences of economic apartheid created by wealthy people to preserve their privilege. The best way to solve the problem was to “level up” poorer districts using a “lighthouse” strategy.
Today, the language has shifted toward referring to the poor’s schools either as the unfortunate collateral damage generated by freedom of choice, or as the result of poor teaching and standards lacking in rigor or relevance. Here the best way to solve the problem is to create greater free market choices for poor parents, using charter schools and vouchers. This market approach frees parents to leave poor schools with poor teachers.
How are you going to manage all of these conflicting narratives?
Me? I have my own opinions, will state them, and have no need for you to agree with them. What I need to hear is your own thoughtful and responsible voice. As a leader you will need to articulate your positions in these matters because they serve as frames for your “organizational vision.” And you will need to communicate with those who disagree. Especially about taxes and budgets.
So what are you going to do about it? And how can this course help?
This course is designed for those seeking the knowledge and skills needed for institutional (and personal career) sustainability. It covers those aspects of fiscal responsibility required for district institutional leadership. Focusing on linking institutional limits and instructional leadership, it links problems of district sustainability with some of the other most important and complex areas of leadership: budgeting, strategic planning and collective bargaining. These are changing rapidly over time as children change. Today’s children are different from their parents’ generation. Many have different needs.
The course pays special attention to education leaders’ needs to coordinate three major district policies: a) budgeting and financial management, b) competitive strategic planning and implementation, and c) personnel support and collective bargaining. And all of these within a highly complex world of growing mandates and compliance, instructional and institutional reformers, and competitors.
Institutional leaders bear the greatest responsibility for a school district’s financial sustainability. In today’s complex worlds of school districts, this can be easily lost behind important concerns for high stakes testing, instructional strategies, curriculum choices, student activities and legal mandates. Until the troubles start. Like how to pay for pensions. Or how to manage attrition created by declining enrollments.
MULTIPLE FORMS OF CAPITAL
This course focuses on the problems of institutional sustainability and the knowledge and skills needed to make it happen. This course takes a complex view of leadership that acknowledges the different kinds of capital central to institutional sustainability. First, of course, is financial capital. Money matters. It matters a lot. But it is not a district’s only source of wealth. District leaders and institutions have at least three other sources of capital investment: human, social and cultural.
Human capital formation is a central function of education. It refers to the knowledge and skills needed for both student and district achievement. In the US, knowledge and skills are at the center of instruction. The focus on basics is technical - on learning literacy and numeracy. (Some other countries emphasize good citizenship, good character through moral education, and/or child development).
Core learning in schools today depends on scaffolding knowledge and skills in the process of development. District leaders acting as instructional leaders need to know how to assess and support teachers in the classroom with multiple forms of capital. District leaders also need to act as institutional leaders, and this means knowing how to negotiate with locally elected school boards or boards of trustees. The tough job is not only knowing what best to do, but also how to pay for it now and in the future, as needed.
Courage is central to the formation of social capital. As you know, the building of trusting relationships (social capital) is at the core of leadership. Those networks of relationships and access are important sources of both personal wealth and wealth for the school district, even though these relationships don’t often translate directly into money. We can, however, recognize their existence. We call it social capital, and it is an important source of wealth for districts and their leaders. For example, close cooperation among teachers and cultural generosity between schools and their communities can support more coherent instruction and success for children.
Today’s realities are also culturally complex. Cultural capital can come in many forms. For example, parental and community understandings of education as critical investments in their families’ future may lead to a high degree of cooperation with schools, leading to the success of children. Or in some communities parents haven’t had good experiences in schools, and may therefore, be reluctant to cooperate with schools.
Finally, it will be difficult for you to learn all of the critical financial skills that you will need in an increasingly resource unstable, competitive and compliance-oriented environment. The course can only get you started on your way, so learning to learn quickly about something you don’t know much about will be an important skill you can use. Some of you will already have considerable experience aligning instructional performance with institutional sustainability. Others may be comfortable with instructional leadership, but have less experience with taxpayers, school boards and institutional sustainability.