| Student achievement and public school funding are national concerns. Federal, state, and local funding vary across the nation and within systems in each state. In the past several years, Georgia school systems have faced austerity cuts by the state legislature and governor, and function with less money while trying to improve student achievement across all student demographics. The general area of concern of this study was whether or not instructional per pupil expenditures are correlated with fifth grade CRCT reading and math achievement in the 180 city and county school systems in Georgia. This study used a mixed method design. The data utilized in this study were from 2008, 2009, and 2010. A Pearson r correlation was used to analyze the data, and it was determined that instructional per pupil expenditures were not correlated with fifth grade reading and math achievement. Socioeconomic status (free and reduced meals) was determined to have a moderate to strong relationship with reading and math achievement, and percentage of minorities had a moderate relationship with reading and math achievement. In addition, four school systems in the lowest 25% of instructional PPE and highest 25% of reading and math achievement were city systems in rural areas with free and reduced meal participation of less than 40% and a system size between 1,000 and 3,000 students. |
