Using Academic Return on Investment for Smarter School Budget Decision-Making

Abstract Information: School districts around the country are working on their 2025-2026 budgets while considering multiple lingering challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic—staff shortages, high rates of absenteeism, mental health issues affecting students and educators, decreasing student enrollment, and significant decreases in academic achievement in reading and math (Education Recovery Scorecard, 2024; NWEA, 2023). School district budgets are facing funding shortages as ESSER funds are no longer available for the first time in 5 years. Therefore, school boards across the country wanting to do what is best for kids are working harder and smarter to allocate their funds to uses that generate learning gains in the most cost-effective way. Have you ever wondered if your district is spending its funds smartly? Imagine if these funds were used to keep only programs that were effective at improving student outcomes in your district. You don’t have to imagine it! In fact, you can do it, and in this session we will show you how to. We will first define academic return on investment. Next, we will focus on the 5 steps of the academic return on investment process and how it relates to your school district’s strategy. Finally, we will model implementing the academic return on investment approach in the budgeting process of a sample district.