In the past decade, controversies about public spending on education have grown as states adopted performance standards pledging that every child will learn enough to become an independent productive citizen and as "No Child Left Behind" ("NCLB") has put teeth into those expectations. Educators say that meeting higher standards requires more money. Some policymakers claim that past spending increases were large enough to pay for higher performance if funds were used productively. Critics of demands for more money point to cases where major spending increases were misspent, with little or no impact on student learning. In this environment, elected officials, especially governors and state legislators, have searched for answers to two questions: How much money will it take for all students to meet standards and how should the money be spent? The School Finance Redesign Project (SFRP) was created to help elected officials better understand how the finance system currently works and to identify options in allocating resources to support K-12 education. The project now includes more than 20 separate projects. This Interim Report explains the question, the research strategies, and the ways how results will be presented. Early findings indicate that educators feel pressures to close achievement gaps and raise overall levels of student learning, but they have a great deal of difficulty changing how they spend money and time and how they select and train staff. (Contains 1 footnote and 1 table.) [This report was produced by the Center on Reinventing Public Education's School Finance Redesign Project.]