The project, which explores the total costs for proven education interventions, is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Baltimore (October 26, 2023) – Allovue, a technology provider for K-12 finance solutions, is building a comprehensive database of evidence-based Teaching & Learning (T&L) strategies, and it will include information on the resources needed to implement and sustain each strategy. This project complements similar repositories that provide summaries of intervention effectiveness, but do not offer a meaningful summary of costs or intervention steps. Ultimately, the project aims to increase adoption and continuation of T&L strategies shown to improve outcomes for Black and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds. Allovue was awarded funding for this project from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“By providing greater context around the resource implications of research-based strategies, we can assist all districts in more effective and equitable budgeting,” said Jess Gartner, CEO & Founder of Allovue. “We are grateful for the foundation’s support to create resource planning tools for school leaders that will bridge the divide between research and practice,” she said.
Allovue’s open-access database will present information in a simple, actionable format so that district leaders can easily analyze the all-in costs and resource requirements for desired interventions. Beyond creating and releasing the database to the public, Allovue will pilot a small study to assess its efficacy. During their annual budget season, a volunteer group of K-12 administrators will use the database to tie budget line items to T&L strategies and calculate the total cost of an instructional intervention they wish to pursue. Allovue will then observe and report on implementation progress in the following school year.
Allovue’s project commences at a critical time in public education, as the ESSER grant period winds down and districts grapple with how to equitably prioritize different learning interventions. “This database will help administrators choose and carry out research-driven strategies with greater fidelity,” said Jason Becker, Chief Product Officer at Allovue. “We look forward to seeing the impact it will make for school leaders, and most importantly, their students,” he said.
Allovue was founded in 2013 by a team of educators, technologists, education finance experts, and data specialists who realized the impact budgeting decisions could have on student success. Together, they worked to build innovative education finance solutions to maximize student outcomes. Their mission is to empower educators to strategically and equitably allocate resources to best support the needs of students. Allovue’s goal is to help educators make better decisions about their budgets and spending by giving them dynamic, up-to-date, and user-friendly data. To date, Allovue has worked with districts and state departments of education across the country to budget, manage, and evaluate their spending—supporting workflow, analytics, and decision making for more than $50 billion of K-12 spending.
Mallory Kwiatkowski
Senior Executive Manager