Public school critics often point to rising expenditures and relatively flat test scores to justify their school reform agendas. The claims are flawed because their analyses fail to account for the difference in data types between dollars (ratio) and test scores (interval). A cost-benefit analysis using dollars as a common metric for both costs…

This document provides an overview of the critical role of fiscal data in state Part C systems. This information is intended to help state Part C lead agency staff better understand strategic fiscal policy questions, the fiscal data elements needed to address those questions, and the benefits of using these data. Fiscal data provide powerful…

Policy discussions about funding in higher education focus primarily on revenues needed to balance budgets from year to year, rather than on how funds need to be invested to meet strategic priorities. The data in "Trends" show that the incremental approach to fundraising and spending has resulted in a slow disinvestment in core…

In a previous paper, the authors took the first step in their research on measuring the education function of government by estimating real output measures (Fraumeni, et. al. 2004). In this paper, chain-type Fisher quantity indexes for those output measures are calculated to be more consistent with Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) methodology and…

This article describes a method for attributing research expenditures directly to assigned space that avoids the difficulties with traditional approaches that have arisen from the growth of interdisciplinary research activities where the attribution of research to the faculty member or unit is not strongly correlated with the location where the…

In 1998, the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education issued a report calling on the nation's colleges and universities to increase their public accountability and to develop better consumer information about costs and prices. In response, the staff of the National Association of College and University Business Officers began to…

Over the past few decades there has been a rise in the number of federally funded large scientific research initiatives, with increased calls to evaluate their processes and outcomes. This article describes efforts to evaluate such initiatives in one agency within the U.S. federal government. The authors introduce the Evaluation of Large…

The 11th Federal Forecasters Conference provided a forum where 180 forecasters from different federal agencies and other organizations could meet and discuss forecasting in the United States. The theme for this conference was "Forecasting, Policy, and the Internet." In the morning session, a panel presentation featured three speakers.…

The 10th Federal Forecasters Conference provided a forum where 127 forecasters from different federal agencies and other organizations met to discuss various aspects of the conference's theme, "Forecasting in the New Millennium," that could be applied in the United States. A keynote address, "Procedures for Auditing Federal…

Standard & Poors (S&P) uses a measure they call a Performance Cost Index (PCI) as their measure of a school or district?s ?Return on Resources?. The Performance Cost Index is defined as the average cost per measured ?unit? of student performance. In its simplest form, the Performance Cost Index is calculated as per student expenditures divided by…

On September 30, 1993, Far West Laboratory (FWL) and the California Assessment Collaborative (CAC) sponsored a cost/benefit forum to examine cost-analysis issues associated with the development and implementation of instructionally sound assessment. This report highlights the central ideas addressed at the forum, incorporates the audience…

This description of the Vigo County Public Library's implementation of planning, programming, and budgeting focuses on its output measurement system, Complete Service Statistics. Measures of five service categories are developed--lending, facilities, information, production, and staff--to gather statistics for library management. (RAA)

Intended to stimulate further thinking on the part of the community of scholars who must have a voice in selection strategies, this report addresses: (1) the distinction between preservation (saving the content of a brittle book) and conservation (saving the original item); (2) differences in the needs and objectives of preservation across the…

Discussion of collection assessment focuses on academic library experiences. Topics addressed include library accountability; funding shortages; barriers to collection assessment; strategies to aid in assessment, including adequate training and performance incentives; and implications of collection assessment for library budgets, including…

Considers whether libraries should replace bound print journals with full text online versions. Discusses costs; the inclusion of illustrations and tables; whether a journal article can stand alone or if it's part of a thematic cluster which adds important context; vertical context; evaluating context; and explaining compromises to users. (LRW)