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Housing Inequality in AmericaMain MenuThe Generational Illusion: An EssayAn Essay by Collin AndrewsEnvironmental Racism: How Residential Segregation Shapes Environmental InequalityHistoric Preservation Coast to CoastTitle PageNative American Housing: How Poor Housing Harms Indigenous HealthHow Poor Housing Harms Indigenous HealthPets & Housing: It's "Ruff" by Katie ClineHow NIMBYism Exacerbates Housing InequalityWhere's the Wealth!How Housing Discrimination has led to racial wealth inequality in the United StatesImmigrant Housing Inequality in AmericaIswat JinadSurveillance InequalityAn investigation into how poor communities are oversurveilled creating a cycle of more targeted and aggressive forms of surveillance for them and those around them.Post-WWII Urban Flight and the Birth of the SuburbsHousing Discrimination in Suburban AmericaRace, Repressive State Apparatus, and Homelessness: From Colonialism to COVID-19Tina NandiHousing Inequality and Access to Quality EducationMQ: Title PageVisualizing racial housing discriminationSplash page for path that includes interactive resources regarding racial housing discriminationProject information and creditsAndy Schocket278555063cc66428c8eadf42f48d412091c5aaf9Melissa Laddab8653014603439710b65435181f2130cee53400Andrew Bartelc9a57442f34fea7858b734ce98f4ec79bd5565b0Collin Andrewsf69afa6ae7fb0f33058b9e0cb476f7451a667cefTina Nandi6e38643c2c1510534cce4e954f0eeb8108bce699Iswat Jinad196dd805bf51f7a46fbf2d94ab069e97fc004d75Marcus Harris7e23857364c2363b25872718aea81323bdd37773James Cousinoe9398a1542d344c824ddaaf967819ae589cd2b61Katie Cline512add1943f75cbd770d4788dcdea90b706922c4Trisha A Bonham7fa13b399c9331700d719225b96f3bf9e54c4570Rene Oswald Ayalac01cc7385c24c3926f2f03a40860f6a4f703f410Kristine Ketel826fdfc33a24cff2c1e0ab79396dd2ae2bae3ed9Morgan Quinleyc8a47798c223cced64347bc9a7d80f6a64402e45
MQ: First Study Graph Money Matters
1media/First Study Graph Money Matters_thumb.png2022-12-02T18:46:43-08:00Morgan Quinleyc8a47798c223cced64347bc9a7d80f6a64402e45412371A scattered plot demonstrating the positive relationship between spending per pupil and number of teachers.plain2022-12-02T18:46:43-08:00Morgan Quinleyc8a47798c223cced64347bc9a7d80f6a64402e45
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12022-11-30T07:14:50-08:00Does Money Really Matter for Educational Outcomes?13page 3plain2022-12-08T07:42:40-08:00Now that the first pages proved that students are primarily attending their assigned public school and that schools are funded in part by local taxes, it is easy to connect the dots that some schools end up with more money and resources than others. But does this matter in regard to the educational outcomes of the local students? Politicians and others have questioned how much money really impacts education. Some take to blaming parents or society for the poor educational outcomes, insisting that more money would not do anything. Listed below are highlights of several studies that argue the opposite, that money really does matter in the case of educational outcome.
In the first study, the researchers tracked the relative targeting of funding to districts serving economically disadvantaged students for each state from 1993 to 2012. They found that increased funding leads to greater and more fairly distributed educational resources. As seen in the graph to the right, when states and districts spend a greater share of their fiscal capacity on their schools, school spending increases translating to more staff, smaller class sizes, and more competitive teacher wages. With smaller class sizes, more staff, and better teachers, students receive a better education.
In another study, researchers studied the impact of post-1990 adequacy-oriented school finance reforms on the distribution of school spending and student achievement between low-income and high-income school districts. They found that the reforms (court orders and legislative reforms) achieved their goal of improving educational opportunity in low-income school districts. The reforms lead to sharp, immediate, and sustained increases in average school spending. By using test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, it was found that reforms caused gradual increase in the achievement of students from low-income districts. The study also found that states with reform saw decreasing achievement gaps over the 20-year period studied, while states without reform saw achievement gaps increase, as seen in the graph to the right.
In a third study, the researchers focused on the relationship between school funding, resource allocation, and achievement among low-income students. They used more than 20 years of revenue and expenditure data for schools to empirically test the idea that increased investments in schools is associated with greater access to resources. They concluded that when states invest in resources that matter like low student-to-teacher ratios, especially in high poverty districts, there tends to have a higher academic outcome for children from low-income families and smaller income-based achievement gaps. The researchers gave the model to the right to better explain the relationship of schooling resources to children’s measurable school achievement outcomes.
A final paper studied the effects of school finance reforms of the 1970s and 1980s on school funding and student outcomes. The authors linked spending and reform data to data on more than 15,000 children born between 1955 and 1985 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The study found that school funding can lead to improvements far beyond test scores. They saw that the increased spending led to higher graduation rates, greater educational attainment, higher earnings, and lower rates of poverty in adulthood.
These articles debunk the myth that money doesn’t matter in regard to educational opportunities. This means that students who live in poorer areas go to schools with less money which lessens their educational opportunities. Money plays a key role, and it is up to the state-elected officials to ensure that the funds are adequately and equitably distributed across the state.
