Leveling the Playing Field: Creating Funding Equity Through Student-Based Budgeting

Karen Hawley Miles, Kathleen Ware, and Marguerite Roza

Published October 2003 in Phi Delta Kappa International

When Cincinnati Public Schools devised a reform strategy for improving student performance, it became clear that the district’s traditional budgeting system was inadequate. This report traces the district’s process of moving to a system of student based budgeting: funding children rather than staff members, and weighting the funding according to schools and students’ needs.