Education finance has emerged as one of the most pressing public policy issues of the new century. Americans spend more than $500 billion a year on elementary and secondary education, yet neither policy-makers nor practitioners seems to know how to align these resources with student learning goals. In fact, spending increases have outstripped achievement gains. It seems that the connection between resources and learning is growing weaker, not stronger. This ambitious volume poses four critical questions: (1) What obstacles prevent today's education finance systems and resource allocation strategies from supporting student success?; (2) What design principles can help link resources to student learning?; (3) What funding mechanisms are consistent with those principles?; and (4) What conditions are necessary to support effective resource policies and practices? Drawing on the work of the School Finance Redesign Project at the University of Washington's Center on Reinventing Public Education, "Smart Money" brings together research on education finance policy and on the uses of school and district resources, thus providing a uniquely comprehensive analysis of school finance systems. It also sets forth an agenda for developing and supporting successful strategies for school finance and resource-use at the federal, state, district, and school levels. This book contains five parts. Part I, "Making Smart-Money Investments in Public Education", includes: (1) Ambitious Learning Goals Require a New Approach to Educational Resources (Jacob E. Adams, Jr.). Part II, "Removing Impediments to Effective Use of Resources", includes the following: (2) How Federal Categorical Funding Prevents the Effective Use of Resources (Christopher T. Cross and Marguerite Roza); and (3) Allocating Resources Through Traditional Versus Reform-Oriented Collective Bargaining Agreements (Julia E. Koppich). Part III, "Integrating Resources with Learning", includes the following: (4) Organizing School Systems for Continuous Improvement (Joanne Weiss); (5) Making Strategic Resource Decisions (Karen Hawley Miles); and (6) Merging Costs with Effective Resource Strategies (Allan R. Odden, Michael E. Goetz, and Lawrence O. Picus). Part IV, "Expanding Resource Knowledge and Experimenting with New Methods", includes the following: (7) Making Resource Decisions amid Technical Uncertainty (James W. Guthrie and Paul T. Hill); (8) Considering Outside-the-Box Changes in Education Funding (David H. Monk); and (9) Linking Education Funding with Standards-Based Reform and Community-Based Resources (Michael W. Kirst and Lori Rhodes). Part V, "Building a Smart-Money Educational Resource System", includes the following: (10) Creating the Political Conditions for Education Finance Policy Change (Lorraine M. McDonnell); and (11) Choosing the Smart-Money Path to Education Finance Innovation (Jacob E. Adams, Jr.). An introduction titled "Introduction: Smart Money and America's Schools" by Jacob E. Adams, Jr. and an index are included.