#schoolspending

What Is ESSA's New School-Spending Transparency Requirement, and How Will It Work?

[ad_1] Answering your questions about the federal law’s mandate that states report school-by-school spending data, and what that means for the debate over K-12 funding at the local level.

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Each year the Census Bureau releases data on how much states spend on public and secondary education. In our most recent analysis, we matched that data up against average student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 8th grade math test. Here’s what we found: 

The relationship between school spending and average student performance on standardized tests is very weak. 

Readers should consider a few things in thinking about this relationship. First, school spending is affected by many factors: cost-of-living variation necessitates different spending on teacher and staff salaries. Second, this measure of school expense simply totals all different types of school expenditures, which means that in this data, we can't tell what exactly schools are spending money on. Without a better understanding of where the money goes, we should be careful about assuming that more money will mean better educations.

Finally, average standardized test scores are far from a comprehensive measure of student learning. Schools may be spending more on support systems that improve student socio-emotional and behavioral well being. Or, school expenses may be driven up by specific programs that target high-needs students. Those expenses may not drive up average test scores, but could be considered important investments in students.