Karen Hawley Miles is a nationally recognized and published student of strategic planning in public schools and of district and school resource allocation. Her focus is how to rethink the use of resources to improve instruction. She has spent the last 7 years working with school districts to rethink the use of resources and the organization of schools and she has worked to design school change and planning processes in several urban districts. She currently works with New American Schools Corporation to create and implement "break the mold" designs for public schools. She co-directed the recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, Where Has the Money Gone?, an analysis of the components of school spending over time. Prior to this, she worked at Bain and Company as a Strategy and Management consultant for hospitals and corporations. She has a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and a Doctorate in Education from Harvard University, specializing in school organization, change, and finance.

Linda Darling-Hammond is currently William F. Russel Professor in the Foundations of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University where she is also co-director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST) and Executive Director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. She is actively engaged in research, teaching, and policy work on issues of school restructuring, teacher education reform, and the enhancement of educational equity. This paper was originally published and supported by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE). The work was funded by the National Institute on Educational Governance, Finance, Policymaking and Management, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, grant number R308A60003.