Decisions on what programs and people to cut from San Diego Unified schools during tough budget times aren’t precisely tied to which expenditures help students achieve, an audit of the district’s curriculum and instruction division found.
The audit was conducted by Curriculum Management Systems, Inc., an Iowa-based corporation hired by San Diego Unified. CMS concluded that the painful process of budget cuts has been divorced from an evaluation of how the programs at stake impact student achievement.
“[T]here is no systematic linkage between funding and board-adopted priorities,” the audit found. “Consequently, decision makers can easily allow themselves to spread district fiscal resources too thinly, stray from the system’s mission and focus, and end up serving the students and community ineffectively, inequitably or inconsistently.”
The full audit is available here. If you’d prefer to see the slideshow that auditors presented to the school board, click here.