School funding and resource allocation: How it impacts instructional practices at the school level

In the 2006–2007 school year, the State of Wyoming adopted an evidenced-based school funding model. The Wyoming funding model reviewed in this study is considered an evidence-based approach, utilizing expert judgment to determine educational funding. In an evidence-based approach, educational strategies are identified and a dollar figure is attached to implementing them. Lawrence O. Picus and Associates along with the Wyoming Legislature's Select Committee on Recalibration, The Legislative Service Office, and the Wyoming Department of Education reviewed evidence-based approaches to educational funding and developed an educational basket designed to help students meet proficiency on the Wyoming standards. Recommendations were made for the implementation of various instructional strategies and staffing levels with the aim of maximizing student achievement.;After the new Wyoming funding model was implemented in 2006, the state of Wyoming commissioned Lawrence O. Picus and Associates to conduct a statewide investigation of the degree to which schools and districts were implementing the model recommendations. The first phase of this study was part of the larger Picus study. Data were collected from 10 schools in two Wyoming districts in 2007. An independent follow-up study was conducted in 2012. The overarching purpose of this research was to determine, six years after implementation of the model, characteristics of the reform practices in the 10 schools in two districts studied in 2007. This study provides allocation details of how the districts/schools have implemented instructional strategies and allocated staffing resources to specific dimensions of the school improvement process.;Specifically, it first explored the instructional improvement strategies used and the alignment of school resource usage practices to the funding model recommendations upon implementation of an evidence-based funding model. It then compared the strategies and resource usage in 2007 to those in place in 2012 to determine if changes had occurred since the Wyoming funding model was initiated. Second, it investigated whether there were resource practices and/or instructional improvement strategies that appeared to be more associated with schools making larger student performance gains as demonstrated by the Wyoming state test, PAWS.;Since implementation of the Wyoming Evidence-Based Funding Model in 2006, schools in this study have made changes in resource allocation and implementation of instructional strategies; furthermore the schools have changed the complexity of the instructional strategies and implemented them with more breadth and depth. This study finds that effective instructional improvement strategies in the areas of restructuring the learning environment, implementing PLCs, providing opportunities for collaboration, and integrating effective instructional leadership practices were important to school improvement and student achievement. Overall, the districts in the study have attempted to align human resource category usage more closely to funding model recommendations although it was not possible to find commonalities in student achievement linked to staffing allocations. Since the Wyoming Evidence-Based Funding Model was enacted in 2006 proficient and advanced performance on PAWS has increased.