New Stakes and Standards, Same Ol' Spending? Evidence from New York City High Schools (original) (raw)
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Economics of Education Review, 2000
Increases in high school graduation requirements are prompting interest in the consequences for students, taxpayers, and educators. This study examines the experiences of New York State school districts that increased student participation between 1992 and 1996 in a statewide testing program that historically has been designed for college-bound students. The study includes statistical comparisons based on the universe of school districts in the State as well as the results of an intensive set of selective case studies. The results show that many different types of districts moved to increase participation levels during the study period and that increases in participation levels were associated with (a) modest declines in the percentage of students passing the exams; (b) unchanged drop-out rates; (c) increases in spending that were similar in magnitude to increases found in districts with little or no increase in participation; and (d) increases in professional staffing levels in core instructional areas. Implications for policy are explored.
papers.ssrn.com
Do schools that have been successful at reducing test score gaps between white students and students of color allocate resources differently than unsuccessful schools? This paper aims to answer that question, as there is little work at the school level correlating education expenditures to student outcomes. This analysis benefits from three features of expenditure data available in one New York State school district. The first is that these data are available at the school level, not the district level as is often the case. Second, not only overall levels of spending per pupil are available (i.e., total spending per pupil and total instructional spending per pupil), but also functional areas of spending disaggregated to such line items as professional development, classroom paraprofessionals, and principal compensation. Third, the spending data allow us to analyze expenditures on these line items not only for all students but also for two types of students: full-time special education and general education.
1993
Questions about inequities in educational funding were raised in New Jersey when the legislature enacted the state's second major education-finance-reform law, the Quality Education Act of 1990 (QEA). This paper describes changes in revenues, expenditures, and programs in 11 diverse New Jersey school districts during the first year of implementation of the QEA, the school year 1991-92. The sample included three types of school districts--special needs, transition aid, and foundation aid. District-level data were collected through document analysis and interviews. Site-level data were obtained through visits to at least four schools in each district, interviews with the principal and staff, and a teacher questionnaire that yielded a 60 percent response rate. Findings indicate that the QEA helped poor urban districts make significant but incremental changes in their educational programs. In contrast, the reduction of state aid to wealthy suburban districts did not undermine educational quality. Although the QEA had a modest impact on equalizing expenditures between rich and poor districts, it did produce noticeable increases in revenues and expenditures for special -needs districts. However, substantial disparities in expenditures remain between the special-needs and transition-aid districts. Finally, increased aid given to special-needs districts did not appear to be misspent. Eleven tables and five endnotes are included. (Contains 16 references.) (LMI)
From districts to schools: The distribution of resources across schools in big city school districts
Economics of Education Review, 2007
While the distribution of resources across school districts is well studied, relatively little attention has been paid to how resources are allocated to individual schools inside those districts. This paper explores the determinants of resource allocation across schools in large districts based on factors that reflect differential school costs or factors that may, in practice, be related to the distribution of resources. Using detailed data on school resources and student and school characteristics in New York City, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, we find that schools with higher percentages of poor pupils often receive more money and have more teachers per pupil, but the teachers tend to be less educated and less well paid, with a particularly consistent pattern in New York City schools. We conclude with implications for policy and further research.
Financing Public Education in New York City and the Rest of the State. IESP Policy Brief No. 01-11
2011
New York City (NYC) is home to the largest school district in the U.S., with over one million students and more than 1,600 schools. While it is only one of approximately seven hundred school districts in New York State (NYS), the city educates about one-third of the state’s students. In recent work examining school finance during Mayor Bloomberg’s first two terms, Stiefel and Schwartz (2011) compared NYC’s funding sources with those for the rest of the state in entirety. 1 The NYS statistics presented in that chapter were, therefore, averages for all other school districts in the state including the fiscallystressed “Big Four” (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers), rural districts with their own, unique challenges, and relatively wealthy suburban districts. This brief builds upon that research – describing the changes in revenues for the city, other large urban districts, wealthy downstate counties surrounding NYC, and the
Where Did the $800 Million Go? The First Year of New Jersey's Quality Education Act
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 1994
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 192.12.88.137 on Wed, 01 Apr 2015 18:05:22 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Passage of New Jersey's school finance reform law raised questions about whether it would equalize funding between rich and poor districts, whether poor districts would waste their increases, and whether equalization would impair richer districts. Budgetary and interview data from 11 districts of varying wealth suggest that in the first year the law only modestly increased fiscal equality. Poor districts used new funds to improve other programs and the material educational environment. Wealthier districts experienced only minor cuts, which resulted as much from residents' unwillingness to tax themselves to the level allowed by the state as from reduced state funds.
The Long Road to Recovery: New York Schools in the Aftermath of the Great Recession
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013
Schools play a crucial role in human capital development, and were one of the many elements of government adversely affected by the Great Recession. Using a rich panel data set of New York State school districts and a trend-shift analysis, we examine how the funding and expenditure dynamics of districts have changed in the four years since the recession hit. We find that although the stimulus prevented major cuts to expenditures while it was in place, once the stimulus funding was used up districts faced strong budget constraints and made deep cuts to their expenditures. While state and local funding continue to be below trend, the role of funding schools has shifted more to local governments because of a cutback in state and federal aid. Breaking up expenditure into its primary categories, we see that instructional spending was preserved with the help of the stimulus money in 2010, but by 2012 instructional expenditure experienced a statistically and economically significant downward shift. We also examine heterogeneities in the effects by metropolitan area, looking at the major MSAs of New York. We find that Nassau sustained the largest cuts, while Buffalo sustained the smallest. These findings are instructive in that they shed light on how recessions and fiscal policy can affect school finance dynamics, and provide important lessons/insight for future policy and experiences of schools in financial distress.