PERSONAL FINANCE: A new report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, "Financing Personalized Learning: What Can We Learn From First-Generation Adopters?" has found that the costs associated with personalized learning—loosely defined—are largely comprised of salaries, facilities and operations, not technology. The group surveyed 16 recently started charter elementary and secondary schools with a number of different of different personalized learning models that had received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. All in all, the study found, expenses at personalized learning schools largely mirror those of traditional schools.
The surveyed schools were also more likely to slash technology spending than the budget for "human capital," i.e. teachers and staff. In addition, the study found that the expenses of starting a school could rise rapidly and were therefore often wrongly forecasted.
