school resources & student outcomes

Researchers at the Public Policy Institute look at how resources vary among schools, whether schools serving disadvantaged students receive fewer resources and how existing inequalities relate to student achievement.

Since the early 1970s, ballot initiatives and court rulings have sought to equalize funding across California schools. Yet 30 years later, substantial variations in funding remain both across and within school districts. Moreover, although "funding per pupil" provides a readily available and understandable measure of school resources within a district, it provides little insight into how individual schools spend their revenues. For example, one school might choose to have smaller class sizes, financing this choice by hiring less experienced teachers. Another might have higher administrative costs and might choose to economize by hiring fewer teachers, thereby increasing class size.

Statewide surveys conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California in 1998 and 1999 found that Californians consider schools and education the most pressing problem facing the state. In light of this ongoing concern, three PPIC researchers undertook a study to answer several critical questions about California's K-12 schools:

1. How do school resources -- measured in terms of class size; curriculum; and teachers' education, credentials and experience -- vary among schools?

2. Do schools serving relatively disadvantaged populations tend to receive fewer resources?

3. Do existing inequalities in school resources contribute to unequal student outcomes?

Researchers Julian R. Betts, Kim S. Rueben and Anne Danenberg also examined how school resources and student outcomes vary by geographic location throughout the state. Their report, "Equal Resources, Equal Outcomes? The Distribution of School Resources and Student Achievement in California," includes separate analyses for three grade spans -- K-6, 6-8 and 9-12.

The report presents detailed measures of resources at the school and classroom level and relates these resources to student achievement, as captured in the first statewide administration of the Stanford 9 achievement test in 1998.

Equal resources?

Average class size differs little across schools. However, teacher preparation and high school curriculum vary considerably. The graph at right shows how certain teacher characteristics differ among K-6 schools with and without a shortage of teacher skills. (The researchers identified the schools with and without skills shortages by ranking schools on the given skill shortage and identifying the schools ranked 75th and 25th out of 100, respectively.)

The three measures in this figure point to much variation across schools in teachers who have low levels of preparation. Lack of full certification is especially striking -- among schools with little or no skills shortage, all teachers have full certification; among schools with a significant skills shortage, nearly 20 percent of the teachers lack full certification. Among middle schools and high schools, variations in teacher preparation are similar but slightly smaller.

Like teacher preparation, high school curriculum varies considerably in terms of the percentage and number of advanced course offerings -- i.e., courses that satisfy entrance requirements at the University of California (the "a-f" courses) and Advanced Placement courses.

The absence of advanced courses at a school could reflect a lack of supply, a lack of demand, or both. The school may simply be failing to provide these classes, or the students may not be demanding such courses. Lack of demand could have several causes. For example, poor preparation in their earlier schooling may mean that students are not ready for advanced courses in high school.

Geographic variations

Analysis of teacher preparation and curriculum offerings in urban, rural and suburban schools revealed that urban schools, by most measures, have a far higher percentage of teachers with low preparation levels. For example, 26 percent of the teachers in urban elementary schools have only a bachelor's degree or less, compared to 11 percent of the teachers in rural schools and 12 percent in suburban schools. Similar disparities exist in middle schools and high schools. At the high school level, rural schools tend to offer considerably smaller percentages of a-f and AP courses than do urban and suburban schools.

Disadvantaged students

Schools serving relatively disadvantaged populations of students receive fewer resources. To conduct this analysis, the researchers divided elementary schools into five socioeconomic status groups, based on the proportion of students participating in free or reduced price lunch programs.

The median percentage of teachers not fully certified was 22 percent in the bottom SES quintile and 2 percent in the top quintile. Twenty-four percent of the teachers in the bottom group had two or fewer years of experience, compared to 17 percent in the top quintile. Thirty-three percent of the teachers in the bottom quintile had only a bachelor's degree or less, compared to 9 percent in the top quintile.