The six papers in this publication discuss how reasonable planning processes can be established and how budgeting procedures can be related to the wider planning process. In the first selection, K. George Pedersen establishes the current context of educational planning and decisionmaking with emphasis on economic implications, and he outlines several formalized approaches to the planning function. In his first paper, Donald M. Levine describes systems analysis procedure and establishes its relationship to program budgeting. In a second paper, he identifies objections to the application of a planning programing budgeting system to education and responds to these objections by outlining a plan for balanced implementation. T. Barr Greenfield provides a specific example of how a system analytical approach can be applied to educational planning and policy analysis. Jack R. McCarthy points out that, in a quest for accountability in education, those concerned should not overlook some limitations that planning techniques borrowed from industry may have when applied to educational operations. In the closing paper, John C. Croft focuses on the human problems that arise in using complex planning systems. (Editors)