ABSTRACT
The importance of resources for schools is highlighted by debate about the government’s annual decisions on public expenditure on education and its consequences for spending by schools. It is a debate which manifests genuine concern about the level of spending on education and it is a concern we share. This book, however, is not about that debate but what is, in many ways, the more challenging task of whether we use existing resources as effectively as we might. Difficulties in articulating the link between resource decisions and learning are a general problem, as identified in the annual report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools:
Inspectors judged the evaluation of cost-effectiveness by governors and head teachers unfavourably in nearly two-thirds of the primary and nearly half of secondary schools. Few of the primary schools had, for example, procedures to monitor the effectiveness of their deployment of support staff; and while awareness about cost-effectiveness is increasing in secondary schools, few schools evaluate the cost of their procedures and plans …. Many schools require more rigorous methods for assessing the costs and opportunity costs of alternative plans.
