State Funding Strategies to Support Education Innovation

This issue brief highlights case studies and action steps for policymakers to deepen their understanding of state funding strategies to support innovation in K-12 education. In order for public schools and districts to effectively plan, launch and scale high-quality, innovative learning models, a focused approach to funding statewide initiatives and for building educator capacity is of growing interest.

To realize the goal of education system transformation, a sustained commitment to investing in innovation is critical. Innovation funding can provide for important capacity-building activities such as:

• Professional development,
• Technical assistance,
• Professional learning communities, and
• Statewide information dissemination.

In addition to the eight examples of how states approached funding, the issue brief offers state policymakers five action steps to fund state-level capacity-building activities for personalized, competency-based learning.