Allovue, Inc. and the nonprofit organization Education Resource Strategies (ERS) have partnered to create ACES, a cloud-based tool used to calculate and analyze the breakdown of expenditures at and across district schools. ACES (Attribute Central Expenditures to Schools), allows school districts and states the ability to accurately attribute centrally-reported funds to schools in accordance with the reporting requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
ESSA mandates will require detailed reporting of school-level expenditures for every public school nationwide. For many school districts, this level of financial transparency will require specialized resources beyond their day-to-day accounting software platforms. ACES is designed to help school districts, Local Education Agencies (LEAs), and State Education Agencies (SEAs) understand the dynamics of school-level per-pupil reporting within their own district financial data, and present that information in a ESSA-friendly format.
This partnership is a strong strategic fit, as it leverages both organizations’ respective strengths and experience in working to improve resource equity in schools. Combining the framework developed by ERS with Allovue’s K-12 finance technology expertise, ACES will address two crucial concerns of many school districts and states:
- How are expenditures divided across the three main expense-level types in the district – those that are accounted for directly at schools, accounted for centrally but take place at schools, and purely central expenses?
- How do different approaches to attributing centrally-held funds affect the per-pupil spending variation across schools?
School districts adhering to state mandated reporting rules can use ACES to apply the methodology to their financial data, while districts within states with open-ended methodology requirements can use ACES to create attribution rules that make sense for their district’s needs. States creating custom attribution rules for districts can use ACES to test decisions as they refine their approach to reporting per-pupil expenditures.
“ACES is going to simplify the complicated reporting requirements for districts large and small by allowing them to follow an easy, step-by-step approach to attributing central expenditures,” said Jess Gartner, CEO of Allovue. “With ACES, districts will be able to see how dollars are flowing to their students today and use this knowledge to facilitate important conversations about resource inequity with their communities.”
“Calculating per-pupil expenditures at each school requires a level of nuance in reporting that many state and district leaders have not grappled with before,” said Jonathan Travers, Partner at Education Resource Strategies. “The ACES tool walks users through the key steps to efficiently generate a complete and accurate per-pupil expenditure at each school in their district.”
ACES will be available for purchase in August 2018. Visit acesforessa.com for more information.
About Allovue
Allovue is a K-12 education finance technology company that empowers educators to strategically and equitably allocate resources to best support the needs of students. Their signature software platform, Balance, helps educators budget, manage, and evaluate spending. Allovue also supports district financial strategy through research, training, and equity analysis. The company is headquartered in Baltimore, MD and works with school systems across the country. For more information, visit allovue.com.
About ERS
ERS is a national nonprofit that partners with district, school, and state leaders to transform how they use resources (people, time, and money) so that every school prepares every child for tomorrow, no matter their race or income. ERS has partnered with more than 40 school systems since 2005, as well as several states, focusing on how resources work together to create strategic systems that support strong schools. ERS is headquartered in Watertown, MA with a west coast office in San Francisco, CA. Additional information about ERS can be found at erstrategies.org.
