The two biggest spenders of recent years?in American education, namely Arne Duncan and Bill Gates, have come to the realization that a new day has dawned with respect to K-12 budgets.? This week they both acknowledged in public that several decades of steady growth in real per-pupil spending, and the bad habit?provoked by all that lucre?of doing things differently only when there's ?new money? to pay for something to be ADDED to what was already there, are both now ending. Well, the former has ended, not just for the moment but for the long haul, and the latter must?now end. Considering that Messrs. Duncan and Gates are both ardent reformers, but considering also that handing out dollars has been their primary means of inducing change, one must wonder what their reform strategies going forward will consist of. But let us give them both much credit for plainly stating to American educators and policy makers that we must quit spending big bucks on things that don't boost achievement or aren't essential, must substitute rather than endlessly add on, must banish some deeply ingrained assumptions and must begin to innovate in ways that actually save money while boosting productivity. This is going to be quite a ride.
?Chester E. Finn, Jr.
