Funding, administration and social goals are aspects of school policy that are highly interrelated. No country has achieved universal primary education without relying mainly on taxes. This had profound consequences for educational administration. As soon as schools were no longer subsidised by private backers or ecclesiastical funds, administrators and inspectors had to learn new cultural techniques. Since early modern times and in international comparison different ways of interrelating school funding and administration can be observed. To date there is no unique method of educational organisation even though global trends play a role in national developments. In this introduction to the special issue on entangled histories of funding and educational administration an overview is given on the current state of research and an effort made to address certain questions that still remain to be answered.