Is return on investment achievable in K12?

As the superintendent of Morgan County (AL) School District for the past eight years, I experience the same challenges as most of today’s school administrators. Every year, our district has to balance the diverse needs of low-socioeconomic rural students with higher-performing feeder patterns, transient student populations, a growing English learner population, educator and student retention, and annual budget pressures. Every year we are asked to do more with less while still maximizing student outcomes with limited resources.The dynamic needs of Morgan County’s students are not going away. We realized that the key to solving this complicated equation was to put into place a system that captured, tracked, and managed our educational ROI, or EROI. Managing our EROI by identifying ineffective spending and re-deploying those resources back into more effective tools, resources, and programs for our students incrementally boosts student achievement by definition. All of us like to think we do a great job at managing our EROI, but the truth is, very few of us actually do. In large part, it’s not our fault. Data silos create logistical challenges, and traditional processes and heuristics cloud our ability to extract meaningful insights from our educational activities.