New Study Shows School Spending May Be Wasted
Salaries for teachers and school administrators appears to have a negative effect on student achievement in several states.
According to a nation-wide study of more than 12,000 school districts, spending more money on schooling has a negative effect on student achievement.
Conducted by Open The Books, a public-policy watchdog, the study examined payroll growth from 2019 to 2023 in 12,531 public school districts and compared it to the percentage of change in their rankings on the National Assessment of Education Progress exams: which is the standard bearer for measuring reading and math achievement among fourth and eighth graders.
“Schools may hope that increasing their payroll will help their students outperform other states,” but “there is little evidence” to support that, read the summary; indeed, “the opposite seems to be true.”
In the six states which boosted teacher pay the most — by 23% or more — three were among the top five biggest proficiency losers. Another district came in at sixth place.
However, Utah raised spending 62% and showed a gain of merely 3% in achievement. Indeed, Vermont had a 74% payroll boost, but fell 13% in the rankings, the nation’s third-biggest loss for the country’s biggest spender on salaries. Hawaii kept payroll growth at 1.5%, but rose by 14%, the biggest gain of any state. New York’s schools pay more per student than any other state but student scores remain poor.
According to the New York Post, there are studies showing that when extra money for teachers is tied to improved student achievement, better results are shown.
The study showed that spending on non-teaching personnel has soared. While payrolls in Maine increased 19%, it showed the biggest drop in NAEP scores. In Portland, Maine, the largest district in the state, the number of salaries over $100,000 increased more than four-fold, from 30 to 137, going mostly to principals and administrators. In Maryland, a $30 billion, 10-year plan can show no improvement. The state spent much of the money on “fat pride” and “eating without guilt” instead of academic proficiency. In crime-ridden Baltimore, teachers comprise less than 50% of school personnel. High-salary administrators with titles such as senior executive director of equity,director of equity, director of equity-centered principal development, and staff associate for equity. Baltimore’s senior executive director of equity earns $213,550, while there are 29 other staffers earning in excess of $200,000.
“The relationship between teacher pay and student performance has been studied for decades. A 1986 study from the Journal of Education Finance found that while the relationship between increased school spending and student outcomes is “minimal,” some “direct instructional expenditures” like teachers’ salaries do have a positive impact. Researchers at Stanford University and the University of California at Davis estimated in 2000 that increasing teacher pay by 10% reduces high school dropout rates by 3% to 4%. This research suggests that an increase in administrator pay is a more likely cause of the negative correlation with student achievement. Administrative bloat in public schools is not new. Benjamin Scafidi, an Economics of Education professor at Kennesaw State University, found that the number of non-teaching staff at U.S. schools increased by 702% from 1950 to 2009, while the number of teachers increased by only 252%. Meanwhile, student scores on the NAEP fell.”
The study cited other causes for bloated budgets in public schools:
“Skyrocketing expenses for staff benefits, which are not included in Open the Books’ payroll figures, are also redirecting resources away from students, as school districts spend more and more money paying off pension debts. Christian Barnard, assistant director of education reform at the Reason Foundation, previously reported that per-pupil spending in the U.S. increased by almost 21% from 2002 to 2019, but 64% of the increased spending was used to pay benefits for instructional and support staff. Barnard found that if benefit pay had instead only kept pace with inflation, U.S. schools would have saved nearly $70 billion in 2019 — enough to give every teacher in America a $20,913 raise.”
While the COVID-19 pandemic has often been blamed for decreased achievement, the study methodology sought to eliminate that factor by ranking states, not according to numerical exam grades, but based on how their exam scores compared to other states. Therefore, even though Alabama students’ test scores fell between 2019 and 2024, their ranking increased from 48th in the nation to 43rd.
Open The Books called for greater transparency on the part of school districts so that citizens know how much teachers and administrators are being paid.