3 ms·

Failing schools, in part because of their lack of funding.

InclinedPlane 15y ago
That's an old saw, but can you prove it? Can you prove a correlation between per student funding and student scores, graduation rates, or some other measure? Can you even prove that schools have reduced per student funding over the last years?
jcnnghm 15y ago
http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/education-spending-in-us-states-and.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/education-spending... Looks like there is a correlation between test scores and funding, but it's not statistically significant. According to a review of over 400 studies, "there is not a strong or consistent relationship between student performance and school resources, at least after variations in family input are taken into account," according to a paper published in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. This chart, http://www.heritage.org/static/reportimages/796DF8C7C231CFFE366308277E88CF57.gif http://www.heritage.org/static/reportimages/796DF8C7C231CFFE..., would seem to suggest while per-student education spending has doubled between 1970 and 2005, scores haven't really improved. Do you have any evidence that increasing funding will improve results?
- leot 15y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13kristof.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13kristof.html Pay particular attention to the McKinsey report results, which found that a teacher that is a standard deviation better than the norm adds $20k to a student's lifetime earnings. Two standard deviations gets you $32k, or $640,000 for a class of 20. Teachers' starting salaries are $39k/year in the U.S., but in educationally top performing places like South Korea and Singapore teachers earn more on average than lawyers and engineers.
protomyth 15y ago
The school district that spends the most (D.C.) per pupil is one of the worst. Adding money to something with a broken process doesn't really help. Heck, there are a number of startups to use as examples.

That's an old saw, but can you prove it? Can you prove a correlation between per student funding and student scores, graduation rates, or some other measure? Can you even prove that schools have reduced per student funding over the last years?

jcnnghm 15y ago

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/education-spending-in-us-states-and.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/education-spending... Looks like there is a correlation between test scores and funding, but it's not statistically significant. According to a review of over 400 studies, "there is not a strong or consistent relationship between student performance and school resources, at least after variations in family input are taken into account," according to a paper published in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. This chart, http://www.heritage.org/static/reportimages/796DF8C7C231CFFE366308277E88CF57.gif http://www.heritage.org/static/reportimages/796DF8C7C231CFFE..., would seem to suggest while per-student education spending has doubled between 1970 and 2005, scores haven't really improved. Do you have any evidence that increasing funding will improve results?

leot 15y ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13kristof.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13kristof.html Pay particular attention to the McKinsey report results, which found that a teacher that is a standard deviation better than the norm adds $20k to a student's lifetime earnings. Two standard deviations gets you $32k, or $640,000 for a class of 20. Teachers' starting salaries are $39k/year in the U.S., but in educationally top performing places like South Korea and Singapore teachers earn more on average than lawyers and engineers.

protomyth 15y ago

The school district that spends the most (D.C.) per pupil is one of the worst. Adding money to something with a broken process doesn't really help. Heck, there are a number of startups to use as examples.