| In May of 2010, California followed the pattern of other states regarding educational adequacy lawsuits (Hanushek, 2006a; Hanushek & Lindseth, 2009) when plaintiffs filed suit contending that California fails to align funding with its academic requirement expectations (National Access Network, 2011; Weston, 2010b). According to the Robles-Wong v. California (2010) lawsuit, education has been defined as a fundamental right under the California Constitution which delineates this right through the adoption of academic content standards (California School Finance, 2010). However, California is still being asked to do more with less financial resources and design schools that will enable students to meet the state standards within tighter fiscal constraints (Picus, 2006). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to help identify effective educational strategies and how resource dollars should be allocated for improving elementary schools utilizing an evidence-based model as a framework. Utilizing the Evidence-Based Model by Odden and Picus (2008), school level resource allocations at five elementary schools in Program Improvement (PI) are examined. Through the cross-case analysis of case studies (Appendices D-H) and the triangulation of multiple sources of data (Brinson & Mellor, 2005; Patton, 2002), this study contributes to the discussion of how an evidence-based approach can help identify effective educational strategies for improving elementary schools, recommend resource allocations for practitioners, and suggest implications for future research considerations based on these findings. |
