Most school people argue that if we want better results from schools, we need to invest more in education. Typically, they mean we need to invest more in what we're already doing so we can do more of it and do it better. But a forthcoming study by Dr. Eric A Hanushek, an economist at the University of Rochester, New York, suggests that our traditional investment decisions may be misguided.
Hanushek reviewed 20 years' worth ofresearch studies -- 187 in all -- that have examined the effects of various educational expenditures on student performance. His startling finding is that there's very little evidence that the way we are allocating money is helping students learn.
Sixty-five of the studies Hanushek reviewed investigated whether over-all per-pupil expenditure improved student performance. The result: 75.4% of the studies concluded that it made no difference, 20% found a positive impact and 4.6% discovered negative results.
Hanushek next looked at what the research said about the effect of pupil/teacher ratio on student performance, a subject of 152 of these studies. About 82% of them found it had no impact on student performance, 9.2% showed positive results and 8.6% found a negative impact. He then reviewed the effect that years of education completed by teachers had on student performance. This issue was covered by 113 of the studies, and 88.5% of them concluded that teachers' level of education had no impact on student performance, 7% showed that it had a positive impact and 4.5% found negative results.
The next question was whether kids achieved more if they had more experienced teachers. About 64% of the 140 studies that examined this found that teacher experience made no difference, 28.5% said it resulted in higher achievement and about 7% concluded it lowered student achievement.
The 69 studies that dealt with teacher salaries also produced results that go against our traditional beliefs. Do districts that pay teachers better get better results with students? About 16% of the studies said yes, 5. 8% said it produced worse results and 78.3% said it made no difference. Nor do administrative inputs seem to make a difference. Of the 61 studies that looked at administrative expenditures, 86.9% concluded they made no difference, 11. 5% found a positive impact and 1. 6% a negative impact.
Finally, Hanushek reviewed the evidence in the 74 studies that examined whether better school facilities resulted in better student performance. The results: 83.8% said it made no difference, 9.5% found it had a positive impact and 6.7% discovered a negative impact.
What does all this mean? As in most cases, the "facts" do not speak for themselves. They will be subject to interpretation. Some people will say that God decides which kids will achieve well or which families kids will be born into and that there's nothing much schools can do about it. Fortunately, these people will be few in number. Others will argue that money doesn't make a difference. But that's much too strong a conclusion to draw from this review because there are lots of questions these studies don't answer.
For example, what does per-pupil expenditure tell us? Not how the money was spent. How many highspending districts spend lots of money on administration and on activities that don't connect directly to teachers and kids? If that's what the money was used for, then per-pupil expenditure might well have no impact on student performance. Did the studies break out districts or schools this way? We don't know.
And what was meant by "student performance" in these studies? In over 70% of them, it was measured by standardized tests. Those certainly tell us something basic about performance, but they don't tell us whether students can write a good essay or have an intelligent discussion or create something.
What about the finding that pupil/teacher ratio doesn't make a difference? This ratio is not the same thing as class size. Lots of teachers are not regularly working with kids because schools or districts assign them to administrative and other duties that make little difference to students. Also, small class size might not lead to better scores on standardized tests, but it makes it more likely that teachers will give more writing assignments and be able to comment on them. Do kids in smaller classes learn to write better? We can't tell from this research.
What does teachers' level of education mean? Years of college or post-graduate credits. It doesn't permit us to know whether the teachers studied or can teach math or history and whether any of this makes a difference to kids. It seems like it would. It might even cost us more to hire and retain such teachers. The research doesn't tell us.
And what do the studies mean by "facilities"? We know that you can get a good education in the old buildings of Oxford, Harvard and City College ofNew York. But can you get a good science education without labs?
None of these questions suggests that these studies should be dismissed. But they don't make the case, as many will say, that money doesn't matter in education. There are more and different kinds of studies that researchers must undertake before the question of what role money plays in education can be satisfactorily answered.
But the available research should also give pause to those who insist that more money for doing things the same way will turn our educational system around. All of these studies looked at schools and districts that operate more or less according to our traditional model of education. If most kids can't learn by sitting still all day, listening to lessons, following prescribed textbooks and maintaining a set pace, doing that in a smaller class with a more experienced teacher and greater administrative support won't help them learn any better.
It's hard to believe that money doesn't make a difference. It's easy to see why it might not in an educational system that isn't structured in ways that help most kids learn.