Studies looking at single states have also found largely encouraging results. “One of the takeaways from this newer literature might be that schools are more wise than we thought.” “Money used wisely clearly matters,” said Lori Taylor, a Texas A&M school finance researcher who praised Jackson’s study. Jackson identifies just one national paper without clear positive effects.
States that increased school funding between 19 saw substantial gains on federal exams soon after, another analysis found.Ī separate paper found that 12 percent increases in school spending boosted graduation rates by several percentage points.Īnd another study found that cutting funding in the wake of the Great Recession hurt student test scores and graduation rates. Studies of more recent changes tell a similarly encouraging story. The gains were largest for low-income kids. A 10 percent increase in spending across a student’s 12 years in public school led students to complete an additional one-third of a year of school and boosted their adult wages by 7 percent. The results of the 13 studies are remarkably consistent, even though they span different time periods.įor instance, students saw big gains in school districts where spending jumped between 19, one study found. This is critical, because policymakers like DeVos often focus on correlations between spending and test scores. In the paper, which was released Monday through the National Bureau of Economic Research and has not been peer-reviewed, Jackson looks at attempts to pin down the effects of school spending. “Researchers should now focus on understanding what kinds of spending increases matter the most.” “By and large, the question of whether money matters is essentially settled,” Northwestern economist Kirabo Jackson concludes.
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