Education cut-backs are likely to worsen in the short run. This makes it imperative for policy makers to reverse trends toward lopsided cutbacks that decimate efforts to address factors interfering with learning and teaching. Furthermore, it is essential to move forward in more cost-effective ways by unifying student and learning supports and braiding remaining categorical funding in ways that reduce redundancy and counterproductive competition for sparse resources. This brief highlights these matters. An appendix discusses why schools should develop a unified and comprehensive system of student and learning supports. (Contains 1 exhibit.)