School Finance Elections: A Comprehensive Planning Model for Success

(Paperback, Second Edition)

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Description

Whether it is requests for bricks and mortar or more operating money, each election type and context is unique with no guarantee that a set of campaign strategiessuccessful in one districtwill not fail in another community. If successful campaigns were not such a delicate balance of science and art, the key to success would have long since been discovered, resulting in significantly more school districts winning at the ballot box.

As members of the baby-boom generation collectively watch their last child receive a diploma from our nation's public schools, passing school finance elections is going to be even more difficult, promising tougher battles with the electorate and tighter margins between success and failure. School Finance Elections represents a marriage of research and successful practice, presenting a comprehensive planning model for school leaders preparing for and conducting school finance elections. Information presented emphasizes systems and strategies rather than specific campaign tactics. Avoiding a myopic focus on tactics allows school leaders to elevate their thinking to a more comprehensive and long-range vision of election planning. Each of the chapters elaborates on one of the ten elements in the authors' comprehensive planning model. Use of this model has reaped success in all types of school districts from New Jersey to California, and the authors aim to bring readers success at the ballot box as well.

This second edition builds on the first with expanded sections about the attitudes of voters whose children have grown and graduated, research into the nature of organized opposition, and new material highlighting the Internet in campaigns. The authors provide school leaders with important resources to guide their planning and execution of school finance referenda.

Reviews

Every school leader needs to build community connections and at no time are these relations under greater scrutiny than leading a school finance election. A citizenry with increased expectations for schools in an era of turbulent financial uncertainty means that school funding is increasingly in jeopardy. This book is the perfect blend of solid research proven strategies combined with practical tactics garnered from the decades of experience the two authors have invested in assisting hundreds of schooldistricts to acquire their necessary funding through success at the polls. It is the only textbook that I would ever use in my University of Minnesota school finance elections class, and it has provided me with practical, research proven strategies in designing successful bond and levy referendums in the school districts that I served a principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent.. -- Ted Blaesing, Ph.D., retired superintendent and educational consultant, Cape Coral, FL
School Finance Elections served as the blueprint for our district's last successful campaign. This second edition offers very helpful techniques for addressing specific target audiences through a variety of media channels; as well as ways to handle organized opposition. This book will serve as our primary resource as we plan for future campaigns. -- Rolf W. Parsons, member of the White Bear Lake school board and the Minnesota School Boards Association Board of Directors

Every school leader needs to build community connections and at no time are these relations under greater scrutiny than leading a school finance election.
A citizenry with increased expectations for schools in an era of turbulent financial uncertainty means that school funding is increasingly in jeopardy. This book is the perfect blend of solid research proven strategies combined with practical tactics garnered from the decades of experience the two authors have invested in assisting hundreds of school districts to acquire their necessary funding through success at the polls.
It is the only textbook that I would ever use in my University of Minnesota school finance elections class, and it has provided me with practical, research proven strategies in designing successful bond and levy referendums in the school districts that I served a principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent.

-- Ted Blaesing, Ph.D., retired superintendent and educational consultant, Cape Coral, FL
School Finance Elections is a thorough guide to planning and successfully receiving voter approval of essential school funding initiatives.Their framework provides a practical checklist that school leaders will find useful in devising their next school finance election campaign. * School Administrator *

Author Bio

Don Lifto is senior vice president and director of the Public Education Group at Springsted Incorporated, a public finance and consulting firm based in St. Paul. Previously, he was as a school superintendent in Minnesota for twenty-five years serving in rural, suburban, and intermediate districts.
J. Bradford Senden has twenty years of experience working with school districts that must win voter approval for school finance proposals both for construction, renovation and modernization, and operation. Much of Senden's experience with survey research, voter file preparation, and campaign planning involves tax proposals requiring supermajority approval.