Author: schoolfinance101

Bruce Baker is an Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. From 1997 to 2008 he was a professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS. He is lead author with Preston Green (Penn State University) and Craig Richards (Teachers College, Columbia University) of Financing Education Systems, a graduate level textbook on school finance policy published by Merrill/Prentice-Hall. Professor Baker has written a multitude of peer reviewed research articles on state school finance policy, teacher labor markets, school leadership labor markets and higher education finance and policy. His recent work has focused on measuring cost variations associated with schooling contexts and student population characteristics, including ways to better design state school finance policies and local district allocation formulas (including Weighted Student Funding) for better meeting the needs of students. Baker, along with Preston Green of Penn State University are co-authors of the chapter on Conceptions of Equity in the recently released Handbook of Research Education Finance and Policy, and co-authors of the chapter on the Politics of Education Finance in the Handbook of Education Politics and Policy and co-authors of the chapter on School Finance in the Handbook of Education Policy of the American Educational Research Association. Professor Baker has also consulted for state legislatures, boards of education and other organizations on education policy and school finance issues and has testified in state school finance litigation in Kansas, Missouri and Arizona. He is a member of the Think Tank Review Panel, a group of academic researchers who conduct technical reviews of publicly released think tank reports on education policy issues.

More Cartel Garbage! Bowdon still vacuous!

See updated post on this topic: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/cartel-recap/

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Bob Bowdon is once again proving his numerical wizardry with ads for his schlockumentary The Cartel (which I refuse to see because I will likely blow my top in the middle of it, correcting every damn wrong and misguided supposed fact spewed in the film’s narration). There’s a commercial out for the Cartel Movie which lists about 2 or 3 supposed “facts” about New Jersey schools and how they compare to schools in other states – on funding and on graduation rates. 2 or 3 numbers in the commercial, and you’d think Bowdon could get at least one right… or interpret at least one in a way that is not completely misguided schlock. We’re not talkin’ any high level of manipulation here… but rather… at the same childish, buffoon-ish level as previous Bowdon brilliance (the claim that higher state spending lowers SAT scores… Yeah… you go Bob! Awesome. Cool. Freakin’ amazing! https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/idiot-of-week-award-the-cartel-check-this-out/ )  Okay, so what am I complaining about this time?

The claim in the commercial goes… New Jersey is the highest spending state in the nation when it comes to schools… and, even though the NJDOE claims that we are tops in graduation rates, if you count only those kids who actually pass the high school graduation exam we’re really 24th. Yep, we spend all that (first, by a long shot, apparently) and all we can get is 24th in graduation rate.

First of all, graduation rates aren’t particularly a great statistic for comparing across states because graduation is highly dependent not only on varied state standards but varied local rigor. That is partly the (missed) point of the commercial. But the commercial goes on to imply that NJ is necessarily softer on grads than other states. Thus, we must correct those distorted NJ grad rates by the numbers who actually pass the state test… and then and only then… compare against all those rigorous states that really whoop NJ  %$$. Now, if we were going to “correct” New Jersey graduation rates to represent only those kids who can pass the NJ exam, the only legitimate way to compare against other states would be against the same standard – the ability of kids in other states to pass the NJ graduation test. Fun idea… but I don’t think other states are giving the NJ tests.

Hey… you know what… there is actually a report out there (by the gov’t agency charged with doing such analyses) that shows how states’ individual tests compare to specific cut points on the NAEP test (the one national standard assessment)… and thus to each other. But you’d have to do research… reading… actual numbers to find such a crazy thing. You wouldn’t want that kind of thing to taint the “facts” in a “documentary.” Here it is for future reference.

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007482

This particular report shows the NAEP score that would be associated with scoring proficient or higher on each state’s tests. So, for NJ, a proficient student on 8th grade reading would be expected to score 250 on NAEP 8th grade reading (the national test). The standard was higher (NAEP score associated with proficiency on state test) in about 13 states, but a heck of a lot lower in many states (lower in 19). NJ’s position was similar for 8th grade math. So, the state assessments in NJ fall near the upper portion of the pack among states, though certainly not near the top. Sadly there is no direct comparison of which I am immediately aware for the HS tests.

But, in NJ and many other states, these tests really don’t mean a whole lot to individual children, whether the test is rigorous or not. Yes… if we wish for anyone to take these tests seriously and if they are good and rigorous tests, we should expect kids to pass them to graduate. And we should do what we can to compensate for inequities in the preparation of high school students to succeed on the tests. But this has little or no bearing on state-to-state comparisons of graduation rates and is no excuse for Bowdon’s contorted reasoning (putting a generous spin on it).

As I have pointed out in previous posts (https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/vacuous_bowdon/) , when it comes to NAEP assessments, NJ students do very well, in spite of, or perhaps in part because of our funding levels and distribution of that funding. NAEP is the tool we have for making state by state comparisons, of students on average and by subgroups. Also in my previous post (above), I show how New Jersey compares with countries based on an analysis linking NAEP and international assessment scores.

Here’s a tool for comparing state NAEP scores.  Have fun! http://www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/statecomparisons/

Other groups produce indices such as “college readiness” indices, and NJ does very well on these (http://www.edequality.com/content/map/ ), though I’m not fully confident in the rigor of such reports and measures.

Oh… and on that funding thing, when comparing total state and local revenues per pupil by state, without any adjustment for regional cost variation or other factors, NJ actually falls behind NY and VT, and barely ahead of WY based on my own run of the district level Census Fiscal Survey for 2006-07 (most recent year: http://www.census.gov/govs/www/school07doc.html ). After cost adjustment NJ drops lower (cost adj. here: http://www.nces.ed.gov/edfin/adjustments.asp ). So, even using the “bad” version (unadjusted) of the numbers, NJ is not #1. NJ was #1 in Current Expenditures per Pupil (including expenditure of federal dollars) in 2005 with no adjustments for regional cost variation, but fell behind Vermont and Wyoming and in a dead heat with New York and Maine in that year when cost adjustment is applied (the NCES Comparable Wage Index).

The point is that NJ is not the undisputed, year-after-year #1 and does not stand out as this huge outlier on public school spending as Bowdon’s grossly distorted and completely a-contextual references would have one believe. NJ does indeed stand out as a state that has put substantial additional funds into large urban, high poverty districts as a function of years of litigation. But, most rigorous accounts (actual research, with real statistics) find positive effects of the infusion of resources on student outcomes (see: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/real-info-re-nj-and-abbott-districts/ as just one example)

Table 1 and Table 2 of this report on school finances provide some perspective on school funding from the most recent NCES summary of the most recent Census fiscal survey (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009338.pdf).

Here are a few related resources which discuss dropout and graduation rates, based on reasonable (albeit still problematic) approaches for measuring such things and comparing across states.

NCES Freshman Graduation Rates

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2009/section3/table-scr-1.asp

Report on Dropout and Graduation Rates

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009064.pdf

Yeah. I know I’m talking to the wall here. Don’t let data and reasonable analysis get in the way. That’s just too geeky. Wouldn’t want a good number or some relevant context to taint the message of a “documentary.”

Cheers!

Real Info. Re: NJ and Abbott Districts

Here’s a link to a solid, recent dissertation out of the University of Michigan regarding New Jersey’s Abbott School districts and the effects of Abbott litigation on overall outcomes and outcome gaps.

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61592/1/aresch_1.pdf

Here are some highlights quoted from the Intro of the dissertation:

The first essay is an empirical analysis of the e ffects of the Abbott school finance reform on educational expenditures in New Jersey. This reform dramatically increased the funding available to poor, urban schools with the goal of improving achievement in those districts. My analysis suggests that districts directed the added resources largely to instructional personnel. They hired additional teachers and support sta ff.

The second essay asks the obvious next question: Did this increase in funding and spending improve the achievement of students in the a ffected school districts? I focus primarily on the statewide 11th grade assessment that is the only test that spans the policy change. I find that the policy improves test scores for minority students in the aff ected districts by one- fifth to one-quarter of a standard deviation.

Resch’s third essay (following the common 3 essay structure of econ dissertations) is on higher education.

Resch’s analysis is not entirely uncritical of Abbott reforms. Resch expresses concerns that emphasis in later rounds of Abbott on early grades reforms may have diverted resources to early grades education at the expense of upper grades (where early gains had been shown – see above). Resch also questions whether the approach to financing Abbott’s was sustainable, but notes that SFRA introduces significant structural changes to school funding in NJ (I could go on about this part, but not now). Resch is most critical of the state’s own lack of efforts to generate and maintain data useful for evaluating the effects of reforms – either prior Abbott reforms or SFRA.

In any case, if you happen to be trying to decide whether to spend an hour or two with a sound analysis of actual data treated with reasonable rigor, or whether to go see the Cartel Movie filled with misguided and intellectually sloppy assumptions, misleading if not outright fabricated numbers, I would recommend the econ dissertation. Yeah… it’s not as sexy – doesn’t have the slick production – and won’t be in a theater near you. But you can just click and download above, and actually get some decent real numbers and analyses. Cheers.

If you do read my previous posts regarding the Cartel, please see all 3, along with the original materials that prompted me to post (http://www.njecea.org/cartel/?page_id=10)

Post 1: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/idiot-of-week-award-the-cartel-check-this-out/

Post 2: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/i-just-cant-let-go-of-this-one/

Post 3: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/vacuous_bowdon/

Note also that if you disagree with my framing of the film’s objectives, please see the “crisis” page here, where the movie is framed largely as I have framed it.

Dear DOE – Wrong Again!

After starting my day with this NPR brief:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113533704

I am again perplexed by what Department of Ed Officials are thinking, who is advising them and what analyses are actually being done before certain states are identified as “good” and others as “evil.” In this story, DOE officials are chastising the states of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Connecticut for playing a shell game with ARRA funds – filling budget holes with those funds and not using the funds to prop up/increase public education support.

Here’s the link to the report from DOE:

http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2009/10/06/stimulus.pdf

The problem here is that the DOE’s metrics for evaluating whether a state is “good” or “evil” are, well, entirely screwed up and meaningless. I can’t think of  softer way to phrase that. As such, the DOE continues to criticize states like MA and PA, which are doing reasonably well (now that the PA budget is nearing adoption) and the DOE is missing entirely those states which have done particularly “evil” things with ARRA funds.

For example, DOE’s primary concern regarding Massachusetts is that the state percent of total education funding will not be the same as it was in 2006.

In order to meet the requirements for the MOE waiver, a State must show that it is spending at least as much State money on education, as a percentage of total revenues, as it did in the previous year.

Given DOE phrasing, it appears that they mean the percent of total state revenues that are allocated to education. This is hardly a meaningful metric because it has little to do with the availability of resources to children in school districts and little to do with measuring a state’s “effort” for public education. A state could simply have slashed taxes and cut dramatically their total budget, slashing all public services left and right, including public schools – all the while, still spending the same share on public schools. Silly.

A more reasonable perspective would be to look at whether cumulative state, local and ARRA resources are actually assisting districts in maintaining and/or expanding services over prior year. Looking only at the state aid apportionment tells us very little. Based on district by district runs of 2008-09 and 2009-10 Massachusetts Chapter 70 aid program, it would appear for2010 that districts will receive modest per pupil increases in the sum of state and local (with ARRA) funds. The increases are partially funded by expected increases in minimum local contributions (which might easily be considered state resources).

http://finance1.doe.mass.edu/chapter70/chapter_10.xls

Pennsylvania is a unique case since the state was a budget impasse until very recently. However, while at impasse, the high end in the debate included a plan to continue substantial increases to support the new school finance formula which begins to resolve substantial disparities among PA school districts. The low end was to merely hold districts at prior year Basic Education Funding Levels. To the best of my understanding, the final solution is nearer the high end than the low end and does support some significant increases toward the phase in of the new formula. I may be wrong since I’ve yet to see the district by district run of state and local BEF resources. So, even if PA had landed on the low end scenario, it would have been the same as New York for 2010 and 2011. New York, also phasing in a new formula, stopped phase in entirely, and froze foundation funding for 2010 and 2011. So how is PA worse than NY? Should NY be on the hit list for DOE?

Many states did far worse things with their stabilization funds than NY, PA or MA (or perhaps even CT) which used them to… well… stabilize! For example, Kansas actually implemented per pupil cuts in foundation budgets – actual reductions over prior year cumulative per pupil resources – not just failing to meet an increase target. Even worse, the per pupil cuts are systematically larger in higher poverty than in lower poverty districts. http://www.ksde.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=J%2bZiki0vnrc%3d&tabid=119&mid=8049

The poorer the district, the larger the per pupil cut.

How is that better than PA and MA? Alabama also cut districts substantially, though not necessarily systematically by poverty.

Nebraska made a really fun move. Nebraska altered the primary aid formula which ARRA funds were to flow through and then used the modified formula to provide per pupil increases to the affluent and middle class suburban districts around Omaha, but held Omaha roughly constant over prior year funding. So, Nebraska used ARRA funds to restore inequities that had persisted before Omaha fought back in recent years. http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/SchoolFinance/StateAid/Default.htm

Guess what DOE – you can maintain the same state share of funding if you just cut everyone’s budget! Cut everyone’s state aid and their local contribution toward foundation aid and state share can stay constant. Even more fun, you can actually use additional state resources to drive more funds to those districts with less need and create even greater inequities? And you can prop up those inequities with ARRA funds? No harm, no foul under current DOE metrics.

DOE, am I missing something here? I’ll gladly help out for a nominal fee. But this is just getting absurd!

Cordially,

SchoolFinance101

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A quick lesson for DOE. What matters for the operation of local public school districts is the sum of the resources available. In many if not most states, Foundation Aid formulas are the formulas that identify the “sum” of state and local resources to be provided for annual operating budgets. The state share of that sum is backed out after determining the funds that would be raised by applying a specific local property tax or required local effort rate. That local minimum requirement toward the sum may as well be considered state funding (to the extent that it actually is required). What matters to districts and the children they serve, is the SUM here! The foundation budget (and other add-ons), adjusted for various needs and costs.

On a related note, DOE should also recognize that some states actually determine that SUM in an inequitable way (see: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/the-fine-art-of-inequitable-school-finance-policy/).  For states that have foundation formulas that promote inequity, running ARRA funds through their formulas means using ARRA funds to advance inequity (Nebraska pulled a bait-and-switch for 2010).

Should NJ really try to be like DE, MD, MO, GA & WA?

I had relatively modest expectations for the Gannett series in New Jersey on state taxes to begin with. Sadly, this series managed to fall way short of these expectations by trying too hard to construct the point that New Jersey’s taxes are simply way out of line and that, for example, NJ would much better off if it behaved like all of those  smart, business friendly states out there like Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Georgia and Washington. These states are indeed strange bedfellows.

http://www.app.com/article/20091002/NEWS/310020010/NJ+Tax+Crush++How+five+states+keep+their+tax+burden+down

First, lets get some numbers squared away. I like the fact that this article listed in the right margin, the average state and local per capita taxes, the average state per capita expenditure, and the average per capita income. Note that this second number should have been state and local spending. More importantly, the article failed to do the last calculation and related ranking – state and local taxes as a percent of personal income (perhaps I missed it). That is, how does our effort compare, given our income?  http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=531

Typically, when looking at taxes as a share of income, NJ is not among the top few states. Above average, yes, but not the top. More specifically on the question of public education spending… state and local… NJ does rank second in the percent of Gross State Product spent on K-12 public school districts. By the way, Vermont is way ahead of us. But, as I have previously argued, to a large degree though not entirely, you get what you pay for. And the five states listed in the article as model states seem to get what they pay for.

On this previous post, I explain how “small business friendly” states tend to have particularly weak public school systems, if we assume small business friendliness to be only a function of low taxes and not high quality services. https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/state-rankings-small-businesses-school-quality-and-economic-productivity/

As far as I’m concerned, having good schools is probably a critical element of business friendliness at least if you have any dreams of recruiting and retaining well educated employees who want their children to also be well educated.

So, what about those miraculous low tax states identified in this article? Within their regions, all but Georgia (which has less competition for bragging rights, and is relatively average) have relatively poorly funded public education systems and to a large extent, the outcomes to go with it.

Delaware has the lowest percent of school aged children even in the public school system. Only 77.6% of 6 to 16 year olds in Del. attend the public schools according to American Community Survey data from 2005 to 2007.  Delaware’s education spending, however, is relatively average or slightly better than average among states (after adjustments for competitive wages, size, location and relative poverty) and its outcomes are relatively average too. Yes, NJ spends more on schools than Delaware, and NJ serves a large share of its children in those schools, and NJ children generally outperform DE children on a variety of assessments.

http://www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/statecomparisons/Default.aspx?usrSelections=1%2cMAT%2c4%2c0%2cwithin%2c0%2c0

Quite surprisingly, Washington operates one of the least well funded state school finance systems in the nation. And Washington provides negligible additional support for higher poverty and urban schools (not always one and the same). And, Washington also does less well on outcome measures.

(I have some graphs here from an earlier post on LA and MS: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/public-schooling-in-louisiana-and-mississippi/)

Yes, within region, combining South Atlantic and Gulf Coast states, Georgia is relatively well funded (though again, not supporting poor and urban districts) compared to its peers and does outperform many states in its low performing region. But, Georgia performs much less well than NJ (okay… not a fair comparison… but that’s partly the point). GA also performs less well than Texas or Kentucky for that matter (in graphs in LA & MS post above).

Missouri, like Pennsylvania has made some efforts of late to straighten out their school funding mess into a more logical formula. But the fact remains that poor inner urban fringe and poor rural districts in Missouri have been starved of educational resources for decades and have the outcomes to match. On average, Missouri falls into that consistently below average category on inputs and outcomes. The bigger story in Missouri are the disparities – not so much with the major urban centers themselves (though they are part of the picture) but with those others noted above.

Maryland is another state with fewer than 80% of 6 to 16 year olds even in the public school system. Maryland’s spending is relatively average as are its outcomes. Which is, perhaps fine for Maryland.

By contrast, as I have pointed out here – https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/vacuous_bowdon/

New Jersey, perhaps in part because of its high investment in public schooling – a major public expense, has strong performance measures either compared against other states or if treated as a separate country as I discuss in my previous post. Yes, much is cyclical here. NJ is a richer and more educated state that, as a result, values education and has the money to pay for it, compared to these states.

Do we really want to be like DE, MD, MO, GA or WA? I do like the seafood in WA better. I just moved back to NJ (no not the other way) from living a few yards away from the state line with MO and had the pleasure of both working for MO on their formula redesign and testifying against them on the remaining disparities. But I’m glad to be back.

Sadly, I think that one of the main things that would be learned from mimicking the taxing behavior of these states is that you can have lower taxes if you simply want to sacrifice the quality of your public services – primarily public education.

That said, I will continue to rant against certain major organizational inefficiencies in New Jersey public schooling and government services – that is, the multiple municipal madness issue, which I have written about and speak about (slides here)  https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/small-districts-racial-isolation-and-new-jersey/

Indeed there is real progress to be made on reducing organizational inefficiencies in local governance. I’m not sure that I hold out much hope for resolution here.

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PS: I hope at some point in the near future to post some detailed numbers on the characteristics of individuals moving into and out of NJ. Last I checked, while there were net exits of middle to lower income families, there was a net inflow of individuals with graduate level education. This would conflict with the unfounded rhetoric I heard spewed on the radio the other morning that NJ is losing all of its hard working small business types and replacing them will undocumented immigrants. Then again, the undocumented part may be a bit hard to track.

Dollars for Disabilities? What do we know?

In this article, Jay Greene and Marcus Winters present a grossly oversimplified perspective of what we really know about the relationship between state school finance systems – special education aid formulas – and state special education classification rates.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/funding-may-push-special-145257.html?printArticle=y

This supposed problem plays out at two levels. First, it is assumed that states which allocate funding based on local school district rates of classifying special education students will see greater overall growth in special education student populations than states that a) provide flat funding per fixed share of students in each district, b) cap the number of students classified for which funding will be provided or c) use some other better measures of local district resident rates of children with “real” disabilities – a  measure outside the influence of local district classification procedures. Second, some go so far as to assume that not only are state average disability rates different solely because of local responses to differences in state fiscal incentives, but that local rates of disability classification within states also vary largely because of differences in the extent to which local school officials play the special education fiscal incentives game. Green and Winters seem to be speaking primarily on the first point – state average differences and headcount incentives.

There is a small body of research, some of which is pretty solid, that supports the notion that there is a relationship between fiscal incentives and classification rates. That is not to say, however, that such incentives explain most or all of the differences, as implied by Greene and Winters in their absurd Maine to California anecdote. Second, studies that show that classification rates are partially responsive to fiscal incentives do not address whether the incentivised classification rate may actually be closer to the true rate of disabilities than the non-incentivised rate. Without a measure of true prevalence it is difficult to make the leap that the incentive is necessarily a bad one – one that distorts inappropriately the classification rates and services for children with disabilities.

Further, removing the fiscal incentives entirely does not necessarily bring to a grinding halt the overall statewide growth in classification rates or the variations across districts – even if capitation or flat funding does create modest statistical differences in growth rates between states. Pennsylvania has provided flat, census based funding since the early 1990s, yet classification rates grew dramatically since that time and rates continue to vary widely across Pennsylvania districts, from about 5% to over 30%.

Further, as with most demographic characteristics, families of children with mental or physical disabilities are simply not uniformly distributed across neighborhoods, cities and towns within states or across states making it very difficult to say that the typical school district or state should have only X% of such children. Complicating the issue is that the uneven distribution of families of children with disabilities is endogenous to the quality of services available across communities within states and across states. So, for example, if a state provides generous funding based on actual needs of students and that funding leads to higher quality services for students, families of children with disabilities are more likely to consider relocating to those states. The same applies to more local moves where services vary across districts. And parents of children with disabilities may make these decisions based on more than the services provided by the school district alone. Large towns and small cities in otherwise rural areas tend to have elevated disability rates in part because of greater availability of social services and health-care services less available in surrounding areas.

So perhaps a state can export its children with disabilities to a neighboring state by adopting school finance policies that ensure low quality programming and limit district incentive to pursue diagnostic testing. And perhaps some of the differences we see across states – especially between neighboring states – are a function of these programming and service quality differences. This question is yet to be thoroughly addressed in the literature.

In any case, it is a huge unwarranted stretch to argue that state limitation of funding for special education necessarily leads to a more correct identification rate of children in need while holding constant (or even improving) the quality of programs and services and while not exporting children with disabilities.

The problem for state policymakers is to find the correct balance between sensitivity to the needs of individual children as identified by those charged with providing their educational services (local school districts, etc.), and measures of population differences across cities, towns and school districts within states that can serve as a guide in the distribution of resources while avoiding the wrong incentives.

I have written about this topic in the attached research article.

Baker.Ramsey.CBased.JEFSubmit.May28_09

Fact Check: Washington School Finance

I read this today:

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18464

And was especially intrigued by the first bullet point: “Schools receive more than $10,000 per pupil per year, about one-third more than private schools spend per student.”

Having just completed my study of private school tax returns, this statement seemed a bit out of line and there was absolutely no support for it, not even in their main report: http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Centers/education/policybrief/06_finne_schoolfunding.pdf

They do argue (but do not validate) in this report that the typical Washington private school spends about $6,000 per pupil.

So, I went back to my data set of private schools. Note that the main finding of my report was that private school spending varies widely and varies especially as a function of the affiliation of the schools. The lowest spending schools in my set of 1500 tax returns were those which are members of the major Christian Associations. My sample included 26 such schools in Washington state, which spent in 2007, on average about $6,656 per pupil. So, even the lowest spending group of private schools in Washington spend more than $6k per kid. The largest group filing their IRS 990 returns in Washington were private independent day schools. These schools spent, on average, $19,283 per kid per year.  Hey, that’s about twice what the posting said was the allocation for public schools. Sadly, only 2 catholic schools reported their IRS 990 in Washington, and those schools spent about $13k per kid per year, but are not necessarily representative of all Catholic schools in Washington.

A busy day in school finance…

Just checking my news alerts today. A lot going on:

Massachusetts formula review: http://www.wickedlocal.com/gloucester/news/education/x786214932/Lawmakers-seek-review-of-18-year-old-education-funding-formula

Kansas meeting among potential plaintiffs in response to aid cuts: http://www.dodgeglobe.com/education/x402527694/Schools-for-Fair-Funding-meeting-in-Dodge-City

New lawsuit brewing in Arizona: http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=11138528

Comments on these at a later point.

Coulson’s selective reading skills…again!

So… I’m browsing the Cato web site and Andrew Coulson’s blog entries this morning and find  post where Coulson explains that a 2008 study shows that spending more on K-12 education reduces economic growth (9-2-09 post).

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/02/fretting-about-college-costs-dont-forget-k-12/

So, I look at the study. Here are the first two sentences of the conclusion section of that study:

“Overall, our findings indicate that the three most consistent predictors of income growth are expenditures on higher education, highway expenditures, and K12 pupil–teacher ratios. They consequently contribute to the debate over the effects of class size, by supporting the body of research asserting that smaller classes make a positive difference (e.g., Burr 2001; Glass and Smith 1978; McGiverin et al. 1989).”

http://www.springerlink.com/content/26p7q52122326523/fulltext.pdf

Is there a reason why this wasn’t cited? It’s the main conclusion of the study? Does Coulson expect his readers not to actually make the effort to … read the study? and it’s findings? Even a lazy jump to the conclusions (all I could muster this morning) casts a very different light on the study than Coulson’s one liner: “State-run schooling has become so profligate and inefficient, in fact, that one recent study finds higher public school spending is associated with LOWER subsequent economic growth.”

Note that class sizes are perhaps the most significant driver of K-12 education expenditures.Yes, the same study does show a negative relationship between the education spending measure and economic growth, but in a model which also includes the pupil to teacher ratio measure – which makes interpreting the spending measure somewhat trickier. That is higher spending – at constant pupil to teacher ratio (which strongly affects spending) – is associated with lower growth. This is certainly not the same as a bold conclusion that spending more on K-12 education lowers growth.

Coulson still clueless

In his most recent response to my response:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/01/author-of-the-private-school-spending-study-responds/

Coulson continues to miss the entire point of my report and misunderstand methodological detail. First, Coulson assumes that the entire point of the report is to show that private schools spend a lot and that they spend more than public schools. The point is that some do and some don’t. The report is about the variation and factors associated with that variation.

Coulson continues to obsess over the potential bias in the sample of religious schools in particular noting that those attempting to maximize revenue are more likely to file their tax returns and make them public in a timely manner through sources such as Guidestar. Perhaps. But, what I have shown of those schools – the largest group reporting being Christian Association Schools – is that they spend very little. I have triangulated this aggregate spending data with data on class size and teacher salaries (from other sources) to show the relationship among these factors. CAS schools spend very little, have low teacher salaries and teachers with relatively weak academic backgrounds. If this is a select group of upward bias spending CAS schools, I find that somewhat depressing. But it is possible. In any case, it does not compromise the findings or policy conclusions of the report. Note that on certain key characteristics that drive spending, the schools in the IRS 990 sample were comparable to all CAS schools in the NCES Private School Universe. That is the purpose of comparing the class sizes between the two. Again, the CAS schools reporting IRS 990 represented nearly 30% of student enrollment in CAS schools based on the NCES PSU survey (which really isn’t a universe. there are missing schools).

The front end of the report (pages 15 to 23) spends a great deal of time pointing out the distribution of children in private schools by affiliation. I included this front end specifically because I wanted the reader to know what I was and was not able to address in relation to private schooling generally. The report is very clear that Catholic schools are noticeably absent in financial filings despite their enrollment dominance in some regions. Perhaps some financial accountability is in order for these schools if we expect them to play such a strong role in serving the public good. However, in some regions, Catholic schools on average take a back seat to CAS schools and Independent Schools combined, both of which are relatively well represented in the analysis. This is true in the South. See figure 8, page 23. Private Independent schools do include some very elite schools (though I’ve excluded boarding schools from the analysis) but are a more diverse group and larger sector of schools than Coulson acknowledges. And, I was able to compile IRS filings for Independent Schools serving about 75% of the total Independent School population in the states and labor markets in the analysis.

Andrew Coulson should learn to read… Private School Study

I just read this piece from Cato attempting to discredit my recent policy report:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/08/31/union-funded-study-says-private-schools-expensive/

Among other things Andrew Coulson asserts that large degrees of selection bias taint my study of Private School Expenditure and that not only did I ignore this, but I hid it intentionally and skewed the results. Okay, I urge anyone to read the study and check the extent of methodological detail.

http://www.greatlakescenter.org/docs/Policy_Briefs/Baker_PvtFinance.pdf

http://epicpolicy.org/publication/private-schooling-US

Regarding Coulson’s specific claims of selection bias:

Apparently, Coulson failed to read pages 24 and 25 of the report or view Figures 9 or 10 of the report where I detail precisely the extent to which the IRS 990 sample of 1,500 schools is representative of various private school affiliations as reported in the NCES Private School Universe Survey. Here, I show that the IRS filings represent 74.2% of private independent school enrollments for the states and labor markets studied and nearly a third of Christian Association Schools. I acknowledge the possibility of sampling bias, and make additional comparisons in Figure 21 (page 39) of the report, showing that the reported pupil to teacher ratios in the full NCES Private School Universe Survey align well with the pupil to teacher ratios in the schools which reported finances on IRS 990. Class sizes are a primary driver of per pupil spending.

On a more trivial note, elimination of schools with budgets of less than $500k has little or no effect on labor market, state or national averages which are weighted by the numbers of children served. Further, Coulson’s assertion that these schools are systematically lower spending per pupil is incorrect. They are all over the map.

To clarify the parenthetical regarding DC spending on Page 42. Current Expenditures per pupil in that year (2006-07) were about $14,300 in DC, and total about $20,200. It would be relevant to compare the total figure here. Nonetheless, the DC private independent schools in particular still outspent DC Public.

Finally, Coulson appears to totally miss the point of the study, which is not that private schools are somehow invariably high spenders. Rather, the point is that spending among private schools varies. It varies a lot, and it varies largely by religious affiliation with Christian Association Schools in particular spending much less than public schools. As such, when low voucher levels are set in existing voucher programs like that in DC, it should come as no surprise that most vouchers are used at religious schools. They (typical vouchers) simply aren’t even close to sufficient for private independent schools. Perhaps if the DC voucher program did allocate $28k per child (Coulson’s version of DC public schools spending per pupil), this would make a difference.

Also, regarding the sponsorship of the study – The study received a nominal honorarium of $4,000 from the Great Lakes Center and EPIC. Note, however, that from a public school teachers’ union perspective, there’s not much in there to cheer about. In fact, the study finds that even the higher spending privates do not necessarily pay their teachers more than public schools in the same labor market. Rather, the additional expense is in smaller class sizes which are largely a function of more diverse curricular offerings. Indeed the much lower spending private schools do have both larger classes and lower paid teachers.

UPDATE: Coulson updated his post to include the statement: “The religious private schools that do file Form 990 are thus a small self-selected group that is presumably seeking to maximize its revenue from charitable donations, and hence very likely biased toward higher spending schools.”

So, the implication is that my sample of private religious schools is biased toward the higher spending ones. Note that I have a near 30% sample of Christian Association Schools, and that my main conclusion about these schools is that they are very low spending and coupled with that have very weak teachers, relatively larger class sizes (than independents) and very low teacher salaries.  Is he sure that he wants to argue that this group is likely a biased, self-selected group of high spenders among CAS schools. Again, I compare my 990 sample to all CAS schools in the NCES PS universe survey in Figure 21. I do point out that my very small Catholic sample does appear biased in this very way (those few that did report were somewhat different than “average” Catholic schools in Figure 21).