If you expect us to do something different you have to give us the opportunity to craft something
Empowering principals is the cornerstone of Metro Nashville Public Schools’ new approach to budgeting.
The school system has adapted a student-based budgeting approach that provides principals with the autonomy to decide how money is spent inside their buildings, according to Alan Coverstone, previous director of Nashville’s innovation zone and now an assistant professor at Belmont University.
He said this approach allows the people closest to the school to make a majority of the important funding decisions, knowing they will be held accountable to specific outcomes.
“I tell you what to do and you’re successful or not. Or you decided what to do and you are successful or not,” Coverstone said. “One of them is just a lot easier to use, as far as accountability is concerned.”