Back to school finance
I’ve been making tiktoks about school finance from a left perspective. About two years ago, I started getting requests to look at certain district budget crises.
I’ve done about twenty minute-long videos since then, digging into school district fiscal situations across the country. Some of these have gotten way more attention than I would’ve imagined.
The comments in the videos are wild. Many of them are more requests. In total, I’ve gotten more than 200 of them. I can’t keep up!
Part of my work in this newsletter is educational. I’m wanting to teach and learn how school finance works across the United States so we can transform it.
When I started getting these requests I thought: how can this become a teachable moment?
So with the Debt Collective, I’m co-facilitating a training workshop in a couple weeks called “Back to School Finance,” where I’m going to show everyone how I do what I do when I look into a school district budget crises, along with some comrades who’ll talk about a framework to help us think about thing differently.
I want others to be able to dig into school finance on their own, talk about it with people in their communities, and start asking hard questions, organizing campaigns, and even running for school board.
If you want to know how I look at districts and meet other people who are interested in school finance organizing, register here!
From the event description:
So many educational justice problems come down to money. Why is the district closing schools? Firing teachers and paras and staff? Shuttering programs? Budget shortfalls, fiscal crises, and sky-is-falling updates from the board, superintendent, and business office.
But how do we know what’s really going on? There are always hidden stories and possibilities buried in the numbers. From debt service to reserve funds to pension contributions, the truth about the money is there in public documents but the public rarely gets an opportunity to figure out what it all means.
That’s what this training is all about: how to find and interpret the documents communities, movements, and unions need to understand the real financial situation of their schools and craft campaigns to change those situations.
We invite parents, students, teachers, staff, organizers, community members, taxpayers, and even administrative officials curious about how to transform seemingly unchangeable fiscal realities. We’ll provide concrete tools to access and make meaning of audited financial statements, bond statements, and more. We’ll also present a framework for thinking about healthy school finance in the face of toxic financial practices used today.
And if you haven’t heard already, the inimitable Jennifer Berkshire had me on her progressive education podcast Have You Heard again last week. Check out the episode here! It’s sort of what I’m hoping to encourage with this training.