For the past two decades, John Augenblick Ed.D. ’81 has worked with state lawmakers and education officials
across the nation, evaluating and designing school funding systems. The topic can get so partisan that states often call on a neutral outsider like him to cut through political
logjams.

Prior to taking graduate classes at Rochester, Augenblick had been a fifth-grade teacher. He often says, “The best training I had to deal with legislators was that I taught 10-year-olds,” he says. “That prepared me to deal with people who weren’t paying attention to me.”

After finishing his coursework, Augenblick served as the research director of the New Jersey Commission on Financing Higher Education. Then he moved to Denver to work at the Education Commission of the States. In 1983, he created the consulting firm that bears his name.

Augenblick, Palaich and Associates Inc., consults with legislatures, education agencies, and other state policymakers on education finance, governance, and school improvement issues. For many years the firm’s work focused primarily on equity: equalizing funding differences between schools in wealthier and poorer communities. Over the past decade, however, as most states have moved toward standards-based reform, the focus has shifted to adequacy: whether schools have enough money to meet basic education standards.

“What that did is moved us away from relativism to ‘How much does it cost to meet state expectations for students?’” says Augenblick. “So the standard becomes absolute. It’s a much more rational way of dealing with government. “If a school district is given enough money, then money isn’t an excuse if schools don’t meet performance expectations.”

Even if a state can’t afford to fully fund the needs of school districts in the short run, “it’s always useful to have a target to shoot at,” says Augenblick. “It helps people for years to come. They can say, ‘We might not be able to get here for a while, but we know where we’re trying to get to.’”

Augenblick’s firm has worked with more than half the states in the nation and helped several states create new school finance systems. Most recently, the firm worked with Maryland to review its school funding levels and develop a new funding plan. The result: Maryland legislators passed a landmark bill to increase education spending by more than $1.3 billion over five years. Augenblick is currently working with the Council of Chief State School Officers to set up a framework for estimating the costs of implementing the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The work is fun, and on occasion—when the firm is called upon to enter uncharted waters—terrifying, Augenblick says.

“It’s certainly something that needs to be done,” he adds. “We think the world’s a better place for it.”

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