Delayed Benefits: Effects of California School District Bond Elections on Achievement by Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

Contradictory evidence of the relationship between education funding and student achievement could reflect heterogeneous effects by revenue source or student characteristics. This study examines potential heterogeneous effects of a particular type of local revenue—bond funds for capital investments—on achievement by socioeconomic status. Comparing California school districts within a narrow window on either side of the cutoff of voter support required to pass a general obligation bond measure, I use dynamic regression discontinuity models to estimate effects of passing a bond on academic achievement among low- and high-socioeconomic-status (SES) students. Results consistently suggest that passing a bond increases achievement among low- but not high-SES students. However, these benefits for low-SES students are delayed and emerge six years after an election. Effects are larger in low-income districts and in small districts, where benefits of capital investments are experienced by a larger proportion of students.

How Does Minority Political Representation Affect School District Administration and Student Outcomes?

“…There is also evidence from prior literature that increased capital expenditures have a positive effect on student achievement. For example, Rauscher (2020) finds that the passage of local school bonds in California improves the achievement of economically disadvantaged students during the same time period as our analysis. This is a particularly plausible mechanism because of the timing of achievement effects we observe.…”

“…The estimates are less precise if we include in the analysis outcomes of the new exams administered 2015-19 (see Section D of the SI). Besides the change in the tests themselves, this imprecision may be due in part to California's deemphasizing test-based accountability in this period and changes in state funding that potentially affect one of our main mechanisms (see Rauscher 2020).…”

“…Specifically, we investigate policies that the academic literature has identified as having substantively important effects on student achievement, particularly for minority students, and issues on which we expect important demographic differences in preferences. We examine the racial and ethnic composition of teaching staff (Dee 2004), school-level segregation (Angrist and Lang 2004;Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin 2004), English language learner reclassification (Carlson and Knowles 2016;Shin 2018), and capital expenditures (Cellini, Ferreira, and Rothstein 2010;Rauscher 2020). As we discuss in Section E of the SI, there are theoretical reasons to believe that each of these policies has the potential to increase student achievement.…”

Does Money Matter More in the Country? Education Funding Reductions and Achievement in Kansas, 2010–2018

“…Evidence indicates larger benefits of education funding for socioeconomically disadvantaged students and districts (Biddle & Berliner, 2002;Candelaria & Shores, 2019a;Jackson et al, 2016;Lafortune et al, 2016;Rauscher, 2016Rauscher, , 2020Shores & Steinberg, 2019). Education funding may also have heterogeneous implications by geography, given geographic variation in resources and variation in the relationships between resources and achievement (Miller & Votruba-Drzal, 2015;Miller et al, 2019).…”

“…Education funding improves student outcomes, particularly for children in socioeconomically disadvantaged contexts (Candelaria & Shores, 2019a;Jackson et al, 2016;Lafortune et al, 2016;Rauscher, 2020). Less is known, however, about the consequences of education funding reductions for student outcomes (Jackson et al, 2019;Shores & Steinberg, 2019) and particularly whether the consequences of funding cuts differ in rural and urban contexts.…”