More of the available money is spent and controlled by schools, and less by the bureaucracy. Though at first schools gained control only over the funds spent on site (e.g. for salaries), over time the share of all funds spent by schools increased. These dollars came in part from foundations and private donors, but mostly from the New York Department of Education itself. Schools gained increasing control over funds for teacher professional development, curriculum and instructional advice, teacher substitutes, and administrative services.

Schools were also increasingly free to trade one expenditure for another, e.g. reducing use of teacher substitutes in order to increase instructional time or buy better teaching materials. Schools were also free to get services by choosing independent support networks or other providers, and to target teacher training on subjects where students were not learning enough.

The new Innovation Zone allowed many schools to spend dedicated funds in unique ways to increase individualization and instructional time, support teaching with technology, and form partnerships with innovative school design groups. As this is written all schools are invited to imitate practices demonstrated by iZone schools.

Schools can decide where they get teacher training and other help. Before the reforms, New York like most other cities ran a company store system: Schools could get any form of assistance and teacher training they wanted, as long as they wanted what the central office could provide. All schools were taxed in advance for help; some of it was good and some not; and some schools couldn’t get help on their most pressing problems.

Pupil-based funding meant that funds previously skimmed off by the central bureaucracy instead reached the school, and schools could pay for what they needed from a provider of their choice. Some paid assistance is now available from school support networks operated by the Department of Education, but much is newly available from universities, consulting firms, and quality nonprofits like New Visions. Schools can join in a network of schools adopting similar instructional programs, or they can hire different providers for different purposes.

Of equal importance, schools could stop paying providers that didn’t deliver quality or keep promises. And, as Department of Education data and forthcoming studies show, schools do transfer their business from lower- to higher-performing assistance organizations. Nine out of 10 principals report being satisfied with assistance received from support networks – a higher satisfaction rate than for services still offered by the Department of Education.

Yet, hundreds of principals think the help their schools get could be more effective in improving instruction. Expectations have changed. Principals, not the Department of Education, have the money and are responsible for results, so they should not have to take whatever is on offer, whether from the department or existing support networks. Relative to these higher expectations, many schools would still like to get more and better help than is available. For them the glass is more nearly full than ever before, but it still partly empty.