Lisa Snell was the director of education and child welfare at Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank advancing free minds and free markets.
Snell has frequently testified before the California State Legislature and numerous other state legislatures and government agencies. She has authored policy studies on school finance and weighted student funding, universal preschool, school violence, charter schools, and child advocacy centers.
Snell is a frequent contributor to Reason magazine, School Reform News and Privatization Watch. Her writing has also appeared in Education Week, Edutopia, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Orange County Register, Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications.
Ms. Snell is also an advisory board member to the National Quality Improvement Center for the Children's Bureau; is on the charter school accreditation team for the American Academy for Liberal Education; and serves as a board member for the California Virtual Academy.
Before joining Reason Foundation, Snell taught public speaking and argumentation courses at California State University, Fullerton. She earned a Master of Arts in communication from California State University, Fullerton.
-
Center for Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, September 2017
“IPS believes the school is the unit of change in a school district. IPS is moving from a “directive” district - making decisions at the central level in a “one-size” fits all - to a "collaborative" district that shifts decisions to the school level."
-
Center for Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, July 2017
“Between fiscal years 1992 and 2014, inflation adjusted (“real”) per-student spending increased by 27 percent. However, real average salaries for public school teachers actually fell by 2 percent during this time period."
-
Center for Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, June 2017
"There has been a growing understanding that school budgets are less about properly populating Excel spreadsheets and more about how to get great outcomes for kids."
-
Center for Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, May 2017
"Our results support the funding of students directly, using a weighted student funding formula, a.k.a. "backpack" funding."
-
Center for Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, April 2017
"If we seize the unprecedented opportunity this sleeper provision in the Every Student Succeeds Act offers, we will be better equipped to tackle some of education's most pressing issues"
-
Center for Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, March 2017
"The state's neediest students should actually receive the tax dollars that voters and the Legislature intended to spend on them."
-
Center for Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, February 2017
"How have we managed to make efficient choices and simultaneously invest in our classrooms?"
-
Center for Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, January 2017
"We believe in allowing families to choose the school that's the best fit for their children."
-
Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, November 2016
"Many superintendents don’t have access to the financial data they need to make critical budgetary decisions.”
-
Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, September 2016
“When districts pay for teachers using average salaries, it creates a loophole that allows for vast differences in dollars spent per student at the school level."
-
Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, August 2016
“Education finance is one of the big civil rights issues of our time."
-
Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, July 2016
“If you expect us to do something different you have to give us the opportunity to craft something.”
-
Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, June 2016
“So, while the research continues to focus on aggregated finance databases, the answer to the problem of why funds are poorly linked to student outcomes lies more in how funds are realized at the school level.”
-
How to Fix the Hiring Process for Teachers
To help solve teacher shortages, school districts need to improve the ways they identify and select the talented teachers of tomorrow.
-
Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, March 2016
"We believe instructional needs should drive funding and budget decisions, not the other way around."
-
Student-Based Budgeting Newsletter, January and February 2016
“So where the public hears about efforts to close achievement gaps between minorities and white students or between higher-performing and lower-performing students, in truth different parts of the finance system are directly at odds with those stated obje
-
Green Benefits of School Choice
School choice offers emerging evidence that it can benefit students and their communities.