School spending
Not about how much, but where
Spending more money for per-pupil allocations and teachers' salaries does not necessarily lead to higher student achievement, according to a recently released report.Findings from the Jan. 30 report by the American Legislative Exchange Council, the nation's largest nonpartisan organization of legislators, suggested "no immediately evident correlation between conventional measures of education inputs, such as expenditures per pupil and teachers salaries, and education outputs, such as the average scores on standardized tests."
The 13th edition of the ALEC report, titled "A Report on American Education: A State-by-State Analysis," ranked the educational performance of the school systems in the states based on average standardized testing results.
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"We can argue until the cows come home about what is enough money," said Rep. Roy Takumi, D-Pearl City-Pacific Palisades, state House Education Committee chairman. "... But, If you squander dollars you are not going to see the results you want -- and that is true of any industry, not just education. What's more important than the amount being spent is how the money is being spent."
Although Hawaii spends among the most of all states per pupil, a study by Grant Thornton commissioned by the Board of Education found the Department of Education to be grossly underfunded. Using a model for adequate education, Grant Thornton concluded that Hawaii needs another $278 million to provide an "adequate education."
"Increasing spending for education is something we've heard a lot at the Legislature," said Sen. Russell Kokubun, D-Waiakea Uka-Volcano. "We've also heard that low student to teacher ratio is beneficial. Unfortunately, we don't have a bottomless pit of money to draw from. We need to rely on DOE to find the best way to spend this money."
Kokubun said legislators are looking into spending more money for facilities and maintenance, early childhood education and keiki health care.
Hawaii State Teachers Association President Roger Takabayashi said per-pupil spending figures in studies such as ALEC's may not provide for fair comparisons across states. He said some states receive county funding in addition to state funding, while Hawaii's centralized system relies solely on state funding.
Takabayashi also maintains that increasing teachers' salaries does affect the quality of education through teacher recruitment and retainment.
"The salaries in education have not kept pace with other professions," he said. "... Teaching is one of the most difficult jobs. You have to be on your game 100 percent of the time."
ALEC report author Andrew T. LeFevre suggests that giving parents educational choices, such as charter schools and private scholarships, may eventually have more impact on student achievement than increasing spending.
"... (B)y forcing the veritable monopoly that is our public school system to compete in an open educational market, we can harness the immense power of the free market system to bring about improvements in our nation's education," LeFevre wrote.
Kokubun said the benefit of having choices is something being proven by public charter schools.
" Some (charter schools) have helped certain student populations tremendously," he added. "At the same time, I have great confidence in the Department of Education to help our students succeed. The superintendent has set a good course for education."
LeFevre wrote that of all the educational inputs measured in the study, only lower pupil-to-teacher ratios, fewer students per school and a lower percentage of state's total budget received from the federal government have a positive impact on education achievement. He cautioned, though, that the results were weak at best, and do not hold when measured as changes over the past two decades.
To many involved in the debate about funding and accountability, studies like ALEC's begs the question of whether standardized tests results should be the sole indicator of school success.
"One thing we're using so much of nowadays are the results of (the No Child Left Behind Act)," said Kokubun. "But that may not be the most appropriate way to measure school success."
Takabayashi, like many, said schools should be permitted to use growth models to measure academic improvement.
"Every child develops at his (or) her own rate. Sometimes something comes along where suddenly (the student) just takes off," he said. "It's hard to expect every child to be a certain place at a certain time. I think that's really unrealistic, and that doesn't happen. Every child is different, every child has different learning styles."
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