With federal relief dollars on the way, districts face big decisions

District leaders may be celebrating the $122 billion in stimulus relief Congress approved for K-12 schools last month. But with more money comes more pressure for local leaders to spend those dollars in ways that do the most good for students while avoiding budget pitfalls.

In this commentary, Marguerite Roza and Chad Aldeman suggest that it’s a good time for leaders to employ the classic “would you rather” test to help explore spending tradeoffs and think through the cost and value of competing investments.