Here's the message for this morning:
Most school funding debates sound technical:
Per-pupil amounts.
Staffing ratios.
Categorical restrictions.
Local vs. state control.
But after sitting in enough budget meetings, board rooms, and leadership conversations, I’ve come to believe something simpler is happening.
Most funding debates are not actually about money.
They are debates about what we believe schools are for.
We just argue about dollars because it feels safer than arguing about purpose.
Why funding conversations get stuck
When people argue about funding, they usually argue at the surface level:
“Schools need more money.”
“We already spend enough.”
“Districts waste resources.”
“Teachers aren’t paid enough.”
All of those statements can be true at the same time.
And none of them move the conversation forward.
That’s because funding arguments rarely name the underlying disagreement: What outcomes are we actually trying to buy?
Until that question is clear, every funding conversation turns into useless chaos.
Money becomes symbolic instead of strategic.
Budgets become moral statements instead of instructional tools.
Worst of all, leaders end up defending line items instead of clarifying intent.
Purpose always comes before price
Every dollar you spend is a vote for something.
Not in theory. In practice.
When a system spends heavily on class size reduction, it is saying something about what it believes drives learning.
When it invests in coaching, collaboration time, and teacher leadership, it is saying something else.
When it prioritizes safety staff, counselors, or student advocates, it is revealing what it thinks students need in order to learn at all.
The problem is not that leaders don’t have beliefs.
It’s that those beliefs are often implicit, unspoken, or inconsistent.
So funding debates become proxies.
People fight over numbers because they haven’t agreed on purpose.
The hidden question inside every budget line
Here’s a discipline I’ve had to learn as a principal.
Every time a funding request lands on my desk, I ask one question before I look at the price tag:
What problem is this solving for teaching and learning?
Not “Is this reasonable?”
Not “Can we afford it?”
Not “Will people be upset if we say no?”
Those questions matter, but they come second.
The first question is always about purpose.
If I can’t clearly articulate how a request improves instruction, student support, or professional culture, the conversation stops there.
That doesn’t make me anti-spending.
It makes me pro-alignment.
Why “more money” is rarely a complete answer
One of the most common traps in education leadership is assuming that increased funding automatically produces better outcomes.
It doesn’t, but more money generally has been shown to generally improve outcomes.
Money amplifies intent.
It does not create it.
If a system has unclear expectations for instruction, more money funds confusion faster.
If a system lacks coherence, more money multiplies initiatives instead of impact.
If a system avoids hard conversations about teaching quality, more money buys comfort, not improvement.
This is why two schools with similar funding levels can produce wildly different results.
The difference is not effort.
It’s clarity.
What purpose-driven funding actually looks like
Purpose-driven funding starts with explicit beliefs:
Beliefs about teaching.
Beliefs about learning.
Beliefs about adult development.
And then it asks a harder question:
If we truly believe this, what should we be willing to pay for?
For example:
If we believe strong instruction requires collective planning and shared learning, then collaboration time cannot be optional or unpaid.
If we believe students need consistent relationships with adults, then staffing models must protect those relationships, even when enrollment shifts.
If we believe improvement is a skill, not a personality trait, then coaching must be funded as infrastructure, not treated as a luxury.
These are not technical decisions.
They are value decisions with price tags attached.
Why these debates feel so emotional
Funding debates feel personal because they are.
When someone challenges a budget decision, they are often challenging a belief about what matters.
That’s why conversations escalate so quickly.
One person is arguing efficiency.
Another is arguing equity.
Another is arguing trust.
Another is arguing survival.
Everyone thinks they are talking about money.
They’re not.
They’re talking about purpose from different angles.
Leaders who miss this end up managing conflict poorly.
Leaders who see it can slow the conversation down and reframe it.
Reframing the conversation as a leader
When funding debates stall, I’ve found it useful to pause the numbers and surface the belief underneath.
Instead of responding with spreadsheets, I ask questions like:
“What outcome are we most worried about losing here?”
“What do we believe students need more of, not just less of?”
“If this were fully funded, what would actually change for teachers tomorrow?”
These questions do something important.
They move the group from defending positions to clarifying purpose.
Only after that does the budget start to make sense.
The danger of avoiding purpose conversations
Avoiding purpose doesn’t keep the peace.
It just delays conflict and makes it messier later.
When leaders don’t articulate purpose, funding decisions become reactive.
Short-term fixes overcrowd long-term capacity building.
The loudest voices win, not the clearest ideas.
Over time, people stop trusting the budget process because it feels arbitrary, not because leaders are careless.
But because the logic is invisible.
What this means for your next budget cycle
As you head into budget conversations this year, here’s the shift I’d encourage you to make.
Don’t start with the spreadsheet.
Start with a short list of beliefs you are willing to defend.
Beliefs about:
• What good instruction looks like
• What teachers need in order to improve
• What students need in order to learn consistently
• What kind of professional culture you are trying to build
Then use the budget to make those beliefs real.
Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
But intentionally.
That is how funding becomes a leadership tool instead of a battleground.
A final thought
Every budget tells a story.
The question is whether that story is deliberate or accidental.
If your funding debates feel endless, emotional, or circular, it may not be a finance problem at all.
It may be a purpose problem waiting to be named.
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If this way of thinking is useful, pass it to a colleague who is staring at a budget right now.
Ryan