A study of the correlation between instructional expenditures and student achievement in Illinois public schools

This study provides insight into the relationship between per-pupil instructional expenditures and student achievement in Illinois public schools. Numerous events relating to school funding and the issues concerned from the early 20th century, scholarly debates, and recent litigation are referred to in this study to increase the scope and perspective. The implementations of various acts during the times of various governments are briefly reviewed. Five school funding variables: (1) instructional expenditures per pupil, (2) noninstructional expenditures per pupil, (3) administrator salaries, (4) teacher salaries, and (5) school-wide Title I funding levels, and their relationship to student achievement in Illinois public schools are analyzed using the Pearson r correlation formula and reveal that a positive statistically significant relationship exists between most of the variables studied. A perfect "rule-of-thumb" methodology that leads to effective ways of utilizing funds has not been developed to date. This study is an integrated effort to lay a foundation for further studies in finding an optimum relationship between school funding and student achievement in Illinois schools.