Spending

1
Chapter 12

• Spending
• Student Achievement

2

• Questions about financial resources impact on
  education lie at the heart of national education
  reform
• A Nation at Risks publication prompted some to
  seriously question public schools value if
  teaching interventions could not overcome the
  destiny of childrens backgrounds

3

• Does public education make a difference in
  student achievement apart from family influences?
  

4

• Educational leaders need to know where they can
  get the biggest bang for the instructional buck
  in advancing student achievement

5

• The 3rd ISLLC Standard states
• A school administrator is an
• educational leader who promotes
• the success of all students by
• ensuring management of the
• organization, operations,
• resources for a safe, efficient,
• effective learning environment.

6
The Coleman Report,1966

• The Coleman Report changed the countrys attitude
  about public education
• This study focused on questions of racial
  segregation and educational inequality by
  examining
• Physical facilities, curriculum, teacher
  characteristics, and student achievement as
  measured by standardized test scores
• Student self-attitudes and academic goals,
  socio-economic status, and parent education
  levels

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Coleman Study Findings

• The Coleman study findings were interpreted to
  say that schools had little impact
• on student achievement outside of the family
  background

• Educational inputs (such as, student-teacher
  ratio, funding resources, teaching practices,
  quality of school facilities) did not appear to
  contribute much to student achievement

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Coleman Study Findings, cont.

• This studys results led to current thinking
  that spending levels on education do not have a
  significant impact student achievement

9
Coleman Study Findings, cont.

• This finding made the report particularly
  influential in some educational and political
  circles

10
Coleman Study Educational Spending

• The Coleman studys results led to some current
  thinking that education spending levels do not
  have a significant impact student achievement
• To some politicians and policy makers, this study
  justified reducing taxes

11
Other Studies Indicated Positive Spending Outcomes

• Studies concurrent with Coleman indicated
  positive outcomes with school spending and
  student outcomes
• These studies examined later earnings of
  individuals in the labor force and found a
  significant association between adult earnings
  and school spending
• Verstegan states that these findings have been
  strong and consistent over time

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Coleman Study Had Political Impact Momentum

• Unfortunately, Colemans study overshadowed the
  others relegating them rather obscurity

13
Coleman Report Fallout

• The findings made conservative politicians
  seriously question public schools value if
  educational interventions could not overcome the
  destiny of childrens backgrounds

• Many public school educators most college and
  university professors, on the other hand,
  remained relatively quiet, waiting for further
  research findings, believing that classroom
  interventions made a significant impact

14
Eric Hanushek Studies Confirm Coleman

• Continued the education production function
  studies
• Published meta analyses of existing studies and
  found that the relationship between spending and
  student achievement is not strong or consistent
  given the way we fund current education practices

15
Faulty Research to Support Reduced Education
Funding

• States with the highest SAT scores, Iowa, North
  and South Dakota, Utah, and Minnesota, spend low
  amounts on a per pupil basis

• William Bennett, Secretary of Education, cited
  his own 1993 study of per pupil spending and SAT
  scores

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Faulty Research to Support Reduced Education
Funding, cont.

• Students could show high academic achievement,
  Bennett argued persuasively, without influx of
  high levels of school funding
• Public education did not need more money, he
  logically avowed, in order to assure students
  learning gains

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Faulty Research to Support Reduced Education
Funding

• Only those few students interested in attending
  prestigious Ivy League schools take the SAT

• What was wrong with Bennetts study was that
  these five states have a very low percentage of
  students taking the SAT
• Most students in these states take the ACT

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Debate Continues AboutMoney Student Achievement

• Educators envision what additional funds could do
  for student achievement especially in times of
  high-stakes testing

• Politicians increasingly seek re-election on
  platforms of tax reduction, citing limited public
  resources and a lack of research to indicate
  increased funding produces higher student
  achievement

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Coleman Study MethodsProduction Function Study

• Input-output study
• Attempt to show the maximum output that can be
  expected from a combination of inputs

• In other words, how much education can be had for
  a given number of inputs?

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Problems With Production Function Studies in
Education

• Production function studies are inappropriate
  models for education
• For instance, given a productivity rate per line
  worker of 15 widgets per hour (where P is the
  productivity rate), what would happen to daily
  output (where O is the daily output) if working
  conditions changed by lowering summer air
  conditioning temperatures on the factory floor
  from 80 degrees to 75 degrees (where t is the
  temperature)?

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Problems With Production Function Studies in
Education

• Production function studies
• are inappropriate models for
• education
• In this case, the workplace temperature would be
  adjusted, and the increased utilities cost would
  be measured against the anticipated increase in
  widget production. If the increased cost
  resulted in increased profit, the change would be
  affected

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• In most industrial situations, the factorys
  supply of widget parts undergoes a systematic,
  rigid quality control check
• Defective widgets are not accepted in the
  production line
• Through many studies, all widget processes are
  known to take the same average time to assemble
• All widget workers work at approximately the same
  rate
• Workers who produce significantly more widgets
  per hour may receive higher pay rates. Widget
  workers who produce significantly fewer widgets
  per hour are fired
•  

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No Quality Control Factor in Students (Product)
in School

• Students enter with varying levels of reading and
  math preparedness and ability, varying beliefs
  about the value of school, and varied family
  backgrounds
• Some children come to school loved nurtured.
  Others come to school abused neglected
• Some arrive daily, prepared to learn and others
  are frequently absent, unable to benefit from
  classroom learning activities

24
The Production Process in Schools Varies

• Educations production process is not
  standardized
• School cultures vary about teaching
• and learning beliefs.
• Teacher quality varies
• The physical condition of schools varies, class
  size fluctuates, teacher experience education
  levels differ, and financial compensation for
  service does not coincide with student
  achievement

25
The Production Process in Schools Varies,
cont.

• Most importantly,
• per pupil spending varies
• significantly from
• state to state
• from district to district

26

• What reasonable basis exits for making sound
  judgments about education spending inputs and
  outputs?
• What valid and reliable information is available
  about spending and student achievement?

27

• Research on
• Teacher Quality
• Professional Development
• Class Size
• School Size
• Teacher Salaries
• Facilities . Student Achievement

28
Research Money Student Achievement

• Contemporary studies of Colemans 1966 Report
  showed positive associations between school
  spending and financial earnings in the workforce
• One reanalysis of Hanusheks work concluded that
  money does matter to student achievement
• Another study determined that per pupil
  expenditures, controlling for other factors,
  significantly related to student outcomes

29
Teacher Quality School Finance

• We know what constitutes good teaching, and we
  know that good teaching can matter more than
  students family backgrounds and economic
  status.
• There is significant research to indicate it is
  the quality of the teacher and teaching that are
  the most powerful predictors of student success.

30
Teacher Quality Student Achievement

• Darling-Hammond found that teacher quality
  variables, such as full certification and a
  completing a major in the teaching field are more
  important to student outcomes in reading and math
  than are student demographic variables such as
  poverty, minority status, and language background
  

31
Teacher Quality Student Achievement, cont.

• This teacher preparation, according to
  Darling-Hammond, accounts for 40 to 60 of the
  total variance in student achievement controlling
  for the students demographic background

32
Teaching Factors Found Linked to Student
Achievement

• Verbal Ability
• Content Knowledge
• Education Methods related to their Academic
  Discipline
• Licensing Exam Scores

• Skillful Teaching Behaviors
• On-Going Professional Development
• Enthusiasm for Teaching
• Others

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Teacher Quality Adequate Yearly Progress

• With NCLB requirements that all four subgroups
  (disadvantaged, minority, disabled, and English
  language learners) show adequate yearly progress,
  the value of teacher quality is increasingly
  crucial
• Data taken from the 1998 National Assessment of
  Educational Progress (NAEP data) indicate that
  effective teachers make a difference in minority
  achievement

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• At testing time, both Texas and Virginia had
  been high-stakes testing states for several years
  before testing, with harsh consequences to
  schools students who did not achieve at
  predetermined levels
• Arkansas and Mississippi were not
• One can assume that Texas and Virginia teachers
  felt explicit pressures to assure that even
  traditionally lower achieving students mastered
  the standard curriculum used those effective
  practices in their classrooms that brought more
  children across the bar

39
Education Teacher Quality

• Knowing how much high quality teachers contribute
  to student achievement, education dollars appear
  best spent in hiring keeping the highest
  quality teachers possible

• Seeking quality teachers implementing working
  conditions salary structures designed to
  maximize hiring keeping them may be the best
  use of limited education dollars

40
Professional Development Increases Student
Achievement

• Quality professional development programs can
  have a positive impact on student achievement
• Every extra factor that provides teachers with
  techniques for individualizing instruction
  increases student achievement

41
Professional Development Increases Student
Achievement, cont.

• Studies of the 1996 NAEP data indicated that
  professional development in cultural diversity,
  teaching techniques for addressing needs of
  students with limited English proficiency, and
  teaching students identified with special
  education needs are are linked to higher student
  achievement in math

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Effective Professional Development

• Systematic study of learning processes allow
  teachers to reflect and address their own
  teaching and learning beliefs and practices
  analyze improve what they do in the classroom

43
Effective Professional Development, cont.

• Teachers who believe that their instructional
  practices have a direct impact on student
  achievement are more likely to seek out and
  implement new teaching and learning techniques

44
Professional Development Increases Student
Achievement

• Other research has found that when professional
  development is sustained over time and based on
  curriculum standards, teachers are more likely to
  adopt new and reform-based teaching practices
• Subsequently, their students achieve at higher
  levels on standardized tests

45
Class Size Increased Student Achievement

• Salaries consume the largest part of education
  budgets
• Does the increased cost of decreasing class size
  produce enough achievement gain to warrant
  spending limited resources towards that end or
  are there other more cost productive ways to
  increase student achievement?

46
Class Size Increased Student Achievement, cont.

• Effect size measures the change in the
  experimental groups standard deviation units
• An effect size of 1.0 means that students in the
  experimental group would score one standard
  deviation above those in the control group. If
  the students in the control group were scoring at
  the 50th percentile, the students in the
  experimental group would be scoring one standard
  deviation higher, or at the 84.13th percentile

47
Research on Class Size Student Achievement

• Unfortunately, findings in several studies
  indicate that the advantages of small classes,
  defined as 13 to 19 pupils, may not continue in
  later school years
• Likewise, several cost effectiveness studies of
  various strategies for improving student learning
  indicate that reducing class size has a small
  positive effect on achievement compared to many
  less costly strategies

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Research on Class Size Student Achievement,
cont.

• Decreased class size is, at times,
• associated with an increase in the
• cost of additional classrooms
• Furthermore, attempts to decrease class size
  would of necessity require hiring additional
  teachers. Lowering licensure/teacher quality
  regulations to attract additional candidates of
  lower quality could negate the gains of smaller
  classes

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Research on Class Size Student Achievement,
cont.

• The earlier studies seemed to cast some doubt as
  to the efficacy of spending money to reduce class
  size as monies might better be spent elsewhere to
  better effect
• Evidence exists that class size makes a
  difference in math reading achievement for in
  grades 1 3, especially for at-risk students

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Cost Effectiveness at
Various Resource Levels
0.16 0.14 0.12 0.10 0.09 0.06 0.04 0.02 .00
30.00 25.00 21.43 18.75 16.67 15.00 13.64
12.50
Outcome
Class Size
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• As policy makers examine
• the role of decreased class
• size and achievement, it is
• important to understand that other
• variables may well come into play
• Reducing class size without
• simultaneously improving
• teacher and teaching quality
• appears to be both expensive
• and often ineffective

52
Reduced School Size Student Achievement

• Recent substantial grant awards from the Bill and
  Melinda Gates Foundation to large urban school
  districts to create smaller schools suggest that
  reduced school size is associated with increased
  student achievement

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Reduced School Size Student Achievement, cont.

• A 2002 study for the Rural School Community
  Trust found in a 7-state study (Alaska,
  California, Georgia, Montana, Ohio, Texas, and
  West Virginia) that smaller schools reduce the
  harmful effects of poverty on student achievement
  and help students from less affluent communities
  narrow the academic achievement gap between them
  and students from wealthier communities

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Study on Reduced School Size Student
Achievement, cont.

• No consensus on the actual size of a small
  school (600 or fewer students)
• Smaller schools produce better results in student
  attendance, test scores, graduation rates,
  extra curricular participation
• Increased parents satisfaction ratings from
  improved communication participation
• Increased teachers satisfaction in their ability
  to make a real difference in student learning
• Produce a safer learning environment

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Small Schools Are Expensive, but Cost Effective

• Smaller schools appear to be more expensive to
  operate on a per-pupil basis, thereby reducing
  efficiency

• Smaller schools may be more cost effective,
  however, when considered on a cost per graduate
  basis
• Also lower dropout rates

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Small Schools Are Expensive but Cost Effective,
cont.

• Smaller schools organized within a larger school
  may be a way to achieve the benefits of smaller
  schools

• Certainly, there are means for decreasing the
  apparent size of a large school by implementing a
  school within a school concept

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Teacher Salaries Student Achievement

• Virtually no one doubts the common belief that
  higher salaries attract brighter individuals into
  a profession
• Teachers salaries have slipped 15 percent since
  1993 and 12 percent since 1983 after adjusting
  for inflation
• A tradition of low pay salaries paid from
  public coffers keeps teacher pay artificially low
  today even when there is a teacher shortage

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• Teacher salaries are now well below those of
  comparable professions, complicating efforts to
  attract and keep highly qualified educators
• Although teachers tend to receive benefits, their
  health insurance and pensions are not valuable
  enough to offset the wage difference
• Nor do teachers receive paid leave, bonuses, or
  overtime available in other professions

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Teacher Salaries Student Achievement, cont.

• The difficulty of empirically linking increased
  teacher quality with higher teacher salaries lies
  in the fact that most school districts have
  salary schedules based on of years of experience
  and professional degrees
• Salaries are not based on student achievement

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Teacher Salaries Student Achievement, cont.

• Nobody doubts that increasing teacher salaries
  will expand the pool of potential teachers from
  which a district can choose. But the influence on
  students depends directly on the ability of
  districts to choose the best teachers from the
  expanded pool. Research shows that the typical
  school district does poorly in these choices.
  The combination of these factors implies there is
  virtually no relationship between teacher
  salaries and student achievement.

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Teacher Salaries Student Achievement, cont.

• While some school districts do not do a good job
  selecting the highest quality teachers, it is
  false to assume that there is no relationship
  between salary and student achievement
• The evidence is overwhelming that teacher quality
  is related to student achievement
• Salary is a proven method of attracting a larger
  applicant pool. Selecting the highest quality
  teachers from that pool is key

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Teacher Salaries Student Achievement, cont.

• In fact, The Teaching Commission, a non-profit
  group formed in 2003 to improve teaching, has
  recommended raising teacher base salaries as a
  means to make the professions pay more
  competitive and attract higher quality teachers

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School Facilities Student Achievement

• Studies show a 5 to 17-percentile point
  difference in standardized test scores for
  students in good facilities (well-maintained
  buildings with comfortable room and hall
  temperatures, satisfactory lighting, appropriate
  noise levels, good roofs, sufficient space)
  compared with poor facilities (poorly maintained,
  too cold or hot rooms, inadequate lighting, high
  noise levels, leaky roofs, overcrowding)
  controlling for the socioeconomic status (SES) of
  the students

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Facilities Can Help or Hurt Student Achievement

• A schools acoustic quality can permit or hinder
  a students to hear clearly and understand what
  is being spoken
• Rooms maintained within the temperature
  humidity tolerances of 67 degrees to 73 degrees
  and 50 percent relative humidity (to reduce
  incidence of illness) AND
• Above standard school buildings that provide the
  appropriate learning environment conditions are
  all prerequisites for effective learning

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Facilities Can Help or Hurt Student Achievement,
cont.

• In a study of elementary schools in the District
  of Columbia, Berner found that if a school
  district were to improve conditions of its
  schools from poor to excellent, student
  achievement scores would increase an average of
  10.9 percentile points

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Older Buildings Student Achievement

• Many of the building factors necessary for
  proper learning environments are absent in older
  buildings, and student achievement in older
  buildings is lower than that of students in newer
  ones

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Teacher Morale School Facilities

• Teachers in buildings in poor condition stated
  that the facilitys design appearance had a
  negative impact upon the learning climate while
  teachers in buildings in good condition report
  the building had a positive influence on the
  learning climate

• Perception often influences ( perhaps
  creates) reality.

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Teacher Morale School Facilities, cont.

• Working in substandard buildings or in newer
  buildings that were poorly maintained or repaired
  harms teachers morale and increases their work
  frustration
• These attitudes likely transfer negatively into
  their classroom expectations and practices,
  reducing student achievement

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Overcrowded Schools Reduce Student Achievement

• Corcoran et al. (1988) reported that overcrowding
  resulted in high absentee rates for students and
  teachers
• Additionally, overcrowded schools are often
  noisier and create more paperwork
• Stressful and unpleasant learning and working
  conditions, related negative attitudes, and lower
  attendance reduce learning opportunities and
  measured achievement

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Educational Spending Increased Student
Achievement

• Many studies show positive relationships between
  increased spending on education and student
  achievement
• One Virginia Tech study, using an improved model
  for examining production function studies, found
  significant increases in student achievement with
  increases in instructional expenditures

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• The rapidly rising cost of steel, concrete, and
  other construction materials often between 15
  and 30 percent are forcing some districts that
  are building new schools to seek additional
  funds, delay, or redesign projects
• Prices for nearly every construction material
  have been rising at double-digit percentages,
  making serious difficulties for the 29 billion
  school construction industry

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School Finance Student Achievement

• With research clearly affirming that school
  funding carefully targeted on enhancing teaching
  quality, designing appropriate school
  organization, and providing comfortable
  facilities make a measurable difference in
  student achievement, communities and school
  leaders find serious challenges to finding
  additional resources to support public education