Money talks, but doesn’t teach.
A stunning new study of more than 12,000 school districts across America obtained by The Post concludes there is no link between increased spending on education and student performance on a key standardized test.
In fact, researchers found a slight negative correlation between education-related salaries and student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, according to the analysis conducted by Open The Books, a pro-transparency organization.
In one case study, education payrolls in Maine rose 19% between 2019 and 2023, but scores on the NAEP plummeted — with state 4th- and 8th-graders falling from 22nd in the US for reading and math in 2019 to 38th in 2024.
Elsewhere in the Northeast, Maryland’s ranking on the NAEP exam table has dropped by eight spots since 2019, despite launching a decade-long, $30 billion Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education spending plan in 2021.
In one example of a success story, Massachusetts students put up the best scores of any state on NAEP exams in both 2019 and 2024, despite education payrolls across the state rising just 4% between 2019 and 2023.
“America’s parents have a right to know that sending more of their tax dollars to education salaries not only does not guarantee better education performance for their kids but is associated with worse student performance,” said Open The Books CEO John Hart.
The study examined payroll data for teachers, administrators and other staff, comparing salaries from 2019 to 2023.
Researchers then cross-checked salary information with state results in the NAEP evaluation. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Christopher Sadowski |
If you think spending more money on America’s schools will lead to greater student achievement, guess again: A new analysis of 12,000-plus school districts shows just the opposite.
Not only does more spending not correlate with better student performance, turns out it coincides with moderately worse performance.
The public-policy watchdog Open the Books looked at payroll growth at 12,531 public-school districts from 2019 to 2023, and compared it to the percentage change in the district rankings on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams, the gold standard for measuring reading and math proficiency of fourth and eighth graders.
Guess what: The greater the payroll growth, the more ground districts lost.
The report sums it up: “Schools may hope that increasing their payroll will help their students outperform other states,” but “there is little evidence” to support that; indeed, “the opposite seems to be true.”
In the six states that boosted payrolls the most — by 23% or more — three were among the top five biggest proficiency losers; another was loser No. 6.
Only one, Utah, which raised spending 62%, showed a gain, and it was small (3%).
Vermont’s 74% payroll boost led the nation, yet it slipped 13% in the rankings, the nation’s third-biggest loss.
By contrast, Hawaii kept payroll growth to just 1.5% — yet shot up 14%, the biggest gain of any state.
Don’t blame COVID, by the way: Though students across the nation lost ground, the changes in rankings show gains and losses relative to other states. --->READ MORE HERE
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