Does school spending matter? The new literature on an old question.

Abstract

T here has been a long-standing debate regarding whether increasing the financial resources available to public schools can improve child outcomes in general and low-income children's outcomes in particular. Shedding light on this issue, in 1966, James Coleman and coauthors conducted the first large-scale U.S. study to link student achievement outcomes to family background and school characteristics. The report used data from a cross section of students in 1965 and examined the cross-sectional relationship (i.e., at a given point in time) between school spending, family background, and test scores. The report concluded that "it is known that socioeconomic factors bear a strong relation to academic achievement. When these factors are statistically controlled, however, it appears that differences between schools account for only a small fraction of differences in pupil achievement" (Coleman et al., 1966, pp. 21-22). Since Coleman et al. (1966), many social scientists have estimated the relationship between school spending and student outcomes in order to better ascertain whether increased financial resources for public schools improve child outcomes. THE OLD LITERATUREPrior to 1995, all U.S.-based studies relating student outcomes to measures of per-pupil spending were observational (i.e., correlational) in nature. These studies either (a) estimated the relationship between school spending and

Do School Spending Cuts Matter? Evidence from The Great Recession

“…While per-pupil spending growth slowed during previous recessions, the Great Recession represents the largest and most sustained decline in national per-pupil spending in over a century (NCES 2017;Jackson et al 2014). 2 While compelling recent evidence based on localized quasi-experimental variation indicates that increased school spending typically improves child outcomes (Jackson 2018a), the sheer magnitude of this historical episode allows for a unique examination of the extent to which large-scale and persistent education budget cuts may harm students in general, and poor children in particular. In this paper, we exploit plausibly exogenous reductions in public school spending induced by the Great Recession and examine the effect of school spending cuts on student test scores, and college-going rates.…”

Reconstructing Sociogenomics Research: Dismantling Biological Race and Genetic Essentialism Narratives

“…For example, in a recent forum intended to inform UK policymaking, he claimed that schools do not “make a difference in [children’s] educational achievement” and that education polygenic scores could eventually be used for “personalized” education (Plomin 2019). These are demonstrably false and overstated claims (Jackson 2018; Mills et al 2020). Yet genetic determinism, as applied to education, has infiltrated policy debates in the UK.…”

Who Chooses DonorsChoose? Submission and Funding Patterns on the Nation’s Largest Education Crowdfunding Platform

“…Recent years, however, have produced a steady stream of studies reaching the conclusion that money does matter. Indeed, analyses that leverage variation evidence from court cases (e.g., Jackson et al, 2016;Candelaria & Shores, 2019), referenda (e.g., Kogan et al, 2017;Abott et al, 2020), and statutory provisions (e.g., Kreisman & Steinberg, 2019;Guryan, 2001;Lee & Polachek, 2018) all conclude that increased funding improved student outcomes (see Jackson, 2020 for a review of this recent work).…”