As Budgets Swell, Spending Choices Get New Scrutiny
By Michele McNeil for Education Week
3-23-07

Nevada is by no means the only state where increases in funding education are spent in a questionable manner. An even bigger issue is the lack of data available to determine if any funding increases made a difference. Objective, data driven decisions are greatly lacking in the education debate as we’ve seen with All-Day K. We’ve also learned that you can’t trust the school districts to collect and report the data. Michele McNeil reports:

“When lawmakers in Arkansas increased school funding by more than $700 million over the past three years to improve student achievement, they wanted the money to be spent on instructional coaches for teachers, tutors for struggling students, and smaller class sizes in reading, math, and science.
But—in what could prove a cautionary tale for policymakers in other states—that’s not mainly how it was used….

As legislators in many states consider pouring billions of additional dollars into their K-12 systems, they are grappling with evidence that money alone won’t improve student achievement—in part because districts may not be using the dollars where they’re needed most. What’s more, most states don’t have data systems in place even to measure whether more money equals higher student performance.”

You can read the entire article by clicking here.

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