Balanced Scorecards and Management Data

Successful organizations, public and private, monitor their operations--extensively and intensively. UPS and FedEx know where every package is in transit. Dell is famous for running an extremely tight supply chain, pushing the cost of holding inventory onto its suppliers by having a crystal clear understanding of its immediate requirements and only ordering what it needs when it needs it. Baseball teams employ sophisticated statistical analyses in making personnel decisions.

Compare such approaches to what has long prevailed in public education. In 2007, Michelle Rhee, then the new chancellor of the Washington, D.C. Public Schools, reported that millions of dollars worth of textbooks and supplies had been moldering, unnoticed, in a warehouse for months and years. Few districts understand their true costs of recruiting a new teacher and principals have little idea what their schools' actual budgets are. . .

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Frederick M. Hess is the director of education policy studies at AEI. Jon Fullerton is executive director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.

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About the Author

 

Frederick M.
Hess
  • An educator, political scientist and author, Frederick M. Hess studies K-12 and higher education issues. His books include "Cage-Busting Leadership," "The Same Thing Over and Over," "Education Unbound," "Common Sense School Reform," "Revolution at the Margins," and "Spinning Wheels." He is also the author of the popular Education Week blog, "Rick Hess Straight Up." Hess's work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, National Affairs, the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic and National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on education philanthropy, school costs and productivity, the impact of education research, and No Child Left Behind.  Hess serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, and on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools. He also serves on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University and Harvard University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government, as well as an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum, from Harvard University.


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  • Email: rhess@aei.org
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    Name: Max Eden
    Phone: 202-862-5933
    Email: max.eden@aei.org

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