The Price of Opportunity project includes a process for identifying and then pricing out the school-site programs and resources necessary to ensure that every child, regardless of circumstance, has an approximately equal opportunity for academic success. Currently, societal inequalities are often amplified by school inequalities. Yet, the notion that public schools are society’s “Great Equalizer” persists. The Price of Opportunity project takes that notion seriously and literally, asks, “What resources are necessary within public schools to overcome the opportunity gaps created by larger societal inequalities, and what would be the cost associated with pursuing this ‘Great Equalizer’ approach?”

This project will take place across multiple phases. Phase 1 began with funding from the Education Justice Network to conduct a preliminary literature review of the approaches that have been used to conduct school finance “costing-out” research and the approaches that have been used to conduct “costing-out” work for policy reforms outside of schools. In order to understand how these approaches might be used, Phase I also required that data be compiled on the current state of spending on public schools and other social welfare programs in the United States to position our study within the current American social and policy context. This first phase of work was a partnership between CU Boulder’s National Education Policy Center, The Schott Foundation for Public Education, the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE), and Research for Action.

While national in scope, the second phase of the study starts by engaging Colorado communities and educators in this critical dialog. We will work with our partners to host a series of community conversations across the state to ask parents, community leaders, educators, and other educational stakeholders to identify the programs and resources that schools need if they are to provide an excellent education that fully compensates for (equalizes) social inequality. We will then engage a series of experts in refining and costing out this list.

This project engages CU faculty, research staff and graduate students. We will reach out to education and community leaders around the state. In addition, we are fortunate to have several consultants volunteering significant time.

Kevin Welner, Michelle Renee Valladares, Sarah Lacour, and Chris Saldaña at CU Boulder, are partnering with Allison Brown from the Schott Foundation for Public Education, Frank Adamson from California State University Sacramento, Kathleen Gebhardt (school board member in the Boulder Valley School District and president of the Colorado School Boards Association), and John Myers (expert in costing-out educational resources, formerly with Augenblich, Palaich, and Associates, and currently with JL Myers Consulting).

• Community and Statewide Outreach

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  Location

  in colorado

  Haxtun

  Dates

  Ongoing

  Public or Private

  Private Program (by request only or for a specific audience or group)

  Program Fee

  Not Applicable