What Brain Research Can Teach About Cutting School Budgets

Karen D. Olsen

Feb 2010 · Corwin Press

About this ebook

"Karen Olsen has put budget topics into perspective so that school administrators can make decisions based on what is best for children, not what is easiest and most efficient for adults. This book is a powerful guide in helping our principals see through the fog of mandates, policies, and red tape and get to the priority of students!"
—Terri Patterson, Director of Elementary Education
Waco Independent School District, TX

"This book boldly asserts that brain research should be applied wherever human brains are working. Not only can and should brain research inform how and what we teach in the classroom, it should be brought to bear in boardrooms and the school budgeting process as well."
—Linda Jordan, Associate Professor
Hope College

Make objective budget-cutting decisions that will truly impact student achievement!

In tough economic environments, budget cutting is a daunting but necessary task for many school administrators. Karen D. Olsen takes an exciting, unique approach by applying brain research to budgeting. Now educators can make the decision-making process more objective by using analytical thinking in school budgeting rather than responding to emotion, tradition, or outside influences. Providing a strategy-builder chart, this book

• Offers action items for putting the strategies into practice
• Helps leaders determine where money should be reinvested or reallocated
• Provides specific tips for working within a group decision-making setting
• Includes more than 30 analytical charts to aid in gathering needed information

What Brain Research Can Teach About Cutting School Budgets offers principals and district leaders a methodical process for taking subjectivity out of the budgeting process.

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About the author

Karen D. Olsen is author, co-author, and contributing editor of two dozen books focusing on using brain research to create schoolwide change. Her most recent book, What Brain Research Can Teach Us About Cutting School Budgets, is also published by Corwin Press. Her experience includes serving as executive director of the Mid-California Science Improvement Program (MCSIP), a ten-year effort funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to improve science education using the ITI/HET model. She also served as executive director of the Bay Area Middle School Program, a project to create model middle schools. Olsen was one of the original founders of the California Institute of School Improvement, a non-profit organization designed to support schools and districts in a wide range of school change issues. As program director, she conducted seminars on a range of topics including implications of recent legislation, schoolwide planning and program quality review processes, and the role of mentor teachers as change agents. Addtional experience includes planning and development for the California State Department of Education.