| Purpose. This study examined the effect of school district expenditures on student achievement. Four research questions guided the inquiry: (1) Are there differences in school district ratings (“exemplary”, “recognized”, “academically acceptable”, “low performing”) based on school district expenditures, broken down by eight functional expenditure groups: instruction, school leadership, student support services, general administration, non-student services, ancillary services, debt service, and facilities acquisition? (2) Are there relationships between student achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics, as measured by the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TARS) tests and the eight functional expenditure groups? (3) Are there relationships between selected school demographic factors: percent of economically disadvantaged students, percent of limited English proficient (LEP) students, percent of minority populations, percent of special education students, percent of gifted and talented students, percent of career and technology students, pupil-teacher ratio and the eight functional expenditure groups? (4) Are there relationships between assessed property value per pupil (high, medium, low) and the eight functional expenditure groups?; Methods. The entire population of public school districts in Texas (n = 1,041) provided the sample for the study for the school years 1999–2000 and 2000–2001. Data on student achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics (n = 3,991,783) were retrieved from the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS), and data on the eight functional expenditure groups, student demographic factors, and property wealth were retrieved from the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS), both of which are compiled by the Texas Education Agency's (TEA'S) Division of Performance Reporting. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to examine the four research questions.; Findings. There were four specific findings of the study. First, of the eight expenditure categories, expenditures for instruction, student support, general administration, non-student services, and ancillary services were found to be significant in terms of their influence on a district's AEIS rating. However, post hoc analyses did not produce consistent significant differences among “exemplary”, “recognized”, “academically acceptable”, and “low performing” school districts, and effect sizes were small. Second, school districts that allocated more resources for instruction had higher performance on the TAAS reading, writing, and mathematics tests. Although significant, the R Squared was low. Third, “exemplary”, “recognized”, and “academically acceptable” school districts differentiated their expenditures for instruction when higher percentages of Hispanic, White, Other, Economically Disadvantaged, Special Education, Bilingual, Career and Technology, and Gifted and Talented subpopulations of students were present in their school districts. However, “low performing” school districts did not differentiate their expenditures for instruction to accommodate these different subpopulation groups. Fourth, districts with the greatest property value spent more for non-student services, general administration, and community services. Debt service expenditures were found to be negatively related to property value. This suggests that the more wealthy a school district, the less it expends on debt service, and the more it expends on non-student services, general administration, and community services. The combination of these four expenditure categories accounted for 57.2 percent of the variance in school district wealth. |
