Students' experiences and the opportunities they have to learn rest on the quality of education decisions made in each classroom, in each school, in each district, and in each state, federal legislature, and department of education. The role of research and scholarship more broadly in education finance and policy is to inform these decisions for the benefit of students. Useful education research builds these logics and provides information about the effects of specific choices. Education decisions can be improved through research that increases understanding of decision makers themselves and their access to resources they need for good decision making--knowledge of needs, options, logics, resources, and goals. Improvement in the education system may come more quickly and more easily by changing who makes decisions than by changing the goals and skills of those currently deciding. The use of data in decision making is rarely transparent. Ignoring what seem to be facts in the choices education leaders make may in fact be the result of conceptions--developed with the support of data and research--about how the world works. The role of researchers, then, is broader than providing pieces of information. It is to support effective decision making by providing information on needs and options as well as frameworks for understanding the world. It is also to identify education systems that give decision-making authority to individuals most likely to have access to the resources needed to make good decisions.