Are U.S. school districts spending wisely?

The Center for American Progress has released a new report that examines the productivity of U.S. school districts, and the conclusion is that productivity could be improved.

The authors used the results of 2010-11 state reading and math assessments in elementary, middle, and high schools. They also used three productivity ratings that looked at the academic achievement of districts for each dollar spent, taking into account factors such as cost-of-living differences and concentrations of students with English as an Additional Language or with special educational needs.

The report argues that low educational productivity remains a pressing issue, with billions of dollars lost in low-capacity districts. Problems include inconsistent spending priorities (e.g., some districts in Texas spend more than 10% of their unadjusted per-student operating expenditures on athletics); only a few states taking a weighted approach and distributing money to schools based on student need; funding disparity between different school districts within states; and inconsistent budget practices between different states. 

The authors conclude that school productivity has not become part of the reform conversation, despite education leaders facing increasingly challenging budget choices. They recommend that:

• States should build capacity for productivity gains through targeted grants, assistance teams, and performance metrics;
• Education leaders should improve accounting procedures to make them more transparent and actionable, and create a multi-state initiative that will focus on building more robust education budgets;
• Educators should come together to improve the quality of fiscal data across states; and
• States and districts should encourage smarter, fairer approaches to school funding, such as student-based funding policies.

Johns Hopkins University 

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