Bad Schools Aren't Always Underfunded

[Kamaji]

Bad Schools Aren't Always Underfunded

"More money can help schools succeed, but not if they fritter those extra resources in unproductive ways," says one researcher.

EMMA CAMP
2.15.2023

A viral TikTok video of Carmel High School outside Indianapolis, Indiana, has sparked a revealing conversation about school funding and school performance. The video, which had over 34 million views on TikTok and Twitter as of Wednesday morning, shows a group of students giving a tour of their massive and well-manicured suburban campus. The public school's facilities include a sizeable gleaming auditorium, an auto shop, and a planetarium.

Critics quickly argued that Carmel's schools must be better funded than worse-performing Indianapolis City Schools. "[W]hen you see this and then look at the other 'publicly funded' high schools in indianapolis, you realize just how blatantly racist indiana is," wrote one Twitter user in a post with over 9 million views.

"A lot of us know very well what it's like to go to high schools primarily made up of trailers while knowing that those in rich neighborhoods had state of the art facilities," another user posted.

However, Carmel High School spends significantly less per pupil than public high schools in Indianapolis. According to the Indiana Department of Education, Carmel High School in 2020 spent between $3,500 to $6,000 less per pupil compared to the four public high schools in Indianapolis.

Even with this massive spending gap, there are marked differences in performance. At Carmel High School, 71 percent of students are proficient in math, and 89 percent are proficient in reading; in Indianapolis City Schools, only 6 and 26 percent are proficient in math and reading, respectively. Indianapolis public high schools are failing—but it isn't for a lack of money.

As it turns out, the correlation between funding and school quality is extremely weak. According to one 2012 report from Harvard and Stanford researchers, "On average, an additional $1000 in per-pupil spending is associated with an annual gain in achievement of one-tenth of 1 percent of a standard deviation. But that trivial amount is of no statistical or substantive significance."

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Source:  https://reason.com/2023/02/15/bad-schools-arent-always-underfunded/

[Kamaji]

Further:

Why doesn't more money always help schools improve? Mainly, the answer is that failing yet well-funded schools often simply aren't spending their money wisely.

"More money can help schools succeed, but not if they fritter those extra resources in unproductive ways," Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Reason. "There is no one formula for how to spend money correctly in schools. But there are many common ways that schools blow resources. Wasteful schools tend to hire more non-instructional staff while raising the pay and benefit costs for all staff regardless of their contribution to student outcomes. If you fully disconnect compensation from performance, you can raise salaries and benefits endlessly without anyone learning more."

[Fishrrman]

"More money can help schools succeed, but not if they fritter those extra resources in unproductive ways," says one researcher.

Nope.
Completely off-the-mark.

What are the DEMOGRAPHICS of the students at Carmel High School?

What are the DEMOGRAPHICS of the students in Indianapolis high schools?

Somewhere, in those numbers, the answer can be found.
But to say outloud what it is... will be forbidden.

[Kamaji]

"More money can help schools succeed, but not if they fritter those extra resources in unproductive ways," says one researcher.

Nope.
Completely off-the-mark.

What are the DEMOGRAPHICS of the students at Carmel High School?

What are the DEMOGRAPHICS of the students in Indianapolis high schools?

Somewhere, in those numbers, the answer can be found.
But to say outloud what it is... will be forbidden.

Nope.