More Money, Dumber Kids

I'm going to throw a lot of numbers at you, so lets get the jargon out of the way. Student-teacher ratio is the number of students per member of the full-time teaching staff. The per-pupil spending is the amount of money spent at the school per student attending. This is the most effective way to measure funding because it accounts for how many students are paid for in each school making it unbiased across the board. Also, I'd like to note that, for estimates of student abilities, I'm going to use SAT scores. I choose these scores because they are the most effective way to measure student abilities across the nation. Some schools use different grading ruberiks and the ACT varies from state to state. SATs are the only flat score across America for an unbiased estimate of student abilities.

In any case, the question presented today is: Does increased funding, produce better students? To find this out, lets compare per-pupil spending and SAT scores among schools. First, we can look at our own state, Florida. In 2002/2003 we spent $6,439 per student and produced SAT scores (in 2003) averaging 498 Math and 498 verbal, or an overal score of 996. This seems pretty average, so lets compare it to another school. Georgia, just north of us spends $7,774 per student and produces 491 Math and 493 Verbal, or 984. It looks like we spend less per student and produce higher SAT scores.

Teachers argue that it is not based as much on funding as student-teacher ratios in schools. As such, we'll study the ratios at these schools. Georgia has a student-teacher ratio of 15.1. Does Florida have a lower student-teacher ratio? Actually, we have a higher ratio of 18.4. Are we perhaps an exception to the rule? Perhaps lower ratios are prevalent elsewhere. Alaska, with per-pupil spending of $9,870 has a student-teacher ratio of 16.7. They ultimately provided SAT scores of Math 518 and Verbal 518, or an overall average of 1036. This is higher than both Florida and Georgia. In fact, California, with one of the highest student-teacher ratios in the country of 20.5 produces similar SAT scores of 519 Math and 501 Verbal, or 1020.

We're seeing higher spending here than in our previous example and higher SAT scores. Perhaps this is where we have found an anomaly. I'm pitting the highest per-pupil spending district in the nation, the District of Columbia (Washington DC - $11,009), against one of the lowest, Tennessee ($6,118). Washington DC also has the lowest student-teacher ratio in the nation, 13.1 while Tennessee has about an average ratio of 16.2. So, the moment of truth. Drum roll please... Tennessee produces some of the highest SAT scores in the country, averaging 560 Math and 568 Verbal, or 1128. That's gonna be tough, but this is the place that represents America. Surely everything that can be done, has been to improve SAT scores. Washington DC provides SAT scores of 474 Math and 484 Verbal, or 958. That's right, DC has given some of the lowest scores in the country. Clearly, something is wrong with increasing spending to improve student performance.