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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   29014 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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Per their calculations, it takes more funding to get a poor kid to baseline than a rich kid, which is what you'd expect.

That's not a calculation, that's an assumption.

The core purpose of the NECM is to account for the fact, long established in the research literature, that the cost of providing a given level of education is not uniform across districts (Duncombe and Yinger 2007). Perhaps most importantly, districts that serve larger shares of high-need students (e.g., higher Census child poverty rates) will have higher costs. In addition, other factors, such as labor costs (e.g., districts in areas with higher costs of living will need to pay their employees more), size (economies of scale), and population density, all affect the “value of the education dollar.” The model, therefore, first estimates the relationships between district spending and these important factors, including testing outcomes. Importantly, the model accounts for the fact that school funding both affects and is affected by testing outcomes (For example, a district with higher test scores will tend to have higher property values than a district with lower scores. This high valuation allows the former district to collect more property tax revenues, which, in turn, boosts spending and positively affects testing outcomes. The NECM uses econometric methods to account for this endogeneity and tease out the causal relationship between spending and outcomes.)

This initial model yields a kind of “relationship inventory” of how each factor is related to spending. We then use the “inventory” to predict the cost (spending levels) of achieving a common outcome level (e.g., national average math and reading test scores) for each individual district, based on that district’s configuration of characteristics (in a sense, by comparing each district to other similar districts). These “required spending” estimates can then be compared with actual spending levels (total spending, direct to elementary and secondary education) in each district (this same basic process also yields our state-level estimates, which are aggregated district-level estimates). The difference between actual and required spending is a measure of adequacy relative to the common goal of national average scores.

The core purpose of the NECM is to account for the fact, long established in the research literature, that the cost of providing a given level of education is not uniform across districts (Duncombe and Yinger 2007).

Note that Duncombe and Yinger 2007 was about reducing costs through consolidation.

Perhaps most importantly, districts that serve larger shares of high-need students (e.g., higher Census child poverty rates) will have higher costs.

The buried assumption here is that putting more money into schools with larger shares of poor students will improve their education. But that's exactly what we were trying to determine! This is circular.

The buried assumption here is that putting more money into schools with larger shares of poor students will improve their education. But that's exactly what we were trying to determine! This is circular.

I think you're imagining researchers comparing a poor neighborhood to a rich neighborhood and assuming the difference in outcomes is down to funding. They're not, they're comparing poor neighborhoods and finding that the stand out difference between them (after controlling for income, cost of living, demographics, population density) is the better performing poor school has more funding per student. This is a reasonable conclusion. I'm sure there are counterarguments or complaints to be made about their data or something but no one here is providing them

They're not, they're comparing poor neighborhoods and finding that the stand out difference between them (after controlling for income, cost of living, demographics, population density) is the better performing poor school has more funding per student.

The methodology is here I don't think that's what they're doing. And the numbers they come out with are large enough that I don't think they could possibly be doing that, because no high-poverty district would be "adequately funded" by their measures. They determine that the cost difference between a 100% poverty district and a 0% poverty district is, in their preferred model, $41,000 per pupil.

This initial model yields a kind of “relationship inventory” of how each factor is related to spending. We then use the “inventory” to predict the cost (spending levels) of achieving a common outcome level (e.g., national average math and reading test scores) for each individual district, based on that district’s configuration of characteristics (in a sense, by comparing each district to other similar districts).

Per their own words, the 41k number is using the most aggressive model they designed. The very next sentence says their alternative model cuts that almost in half to $26,000. Even still those reflect extreme hypotheticals parameters of 0% poverty and 100% poverty that we don't see in the real world. Again in the same paragraph:

the practical range of child poverty is from near 0% to between 40 and 50%, so the differences in costs per pupil from the actual lowest to highest poverty districts are only about half the estimated range. And, the two models are not strikingly different. For high poverty districts, the more aggressive model (which has more desirable statistical properties) leads to per pupil cost estimates that are about $5,000 per pupil higher in the highest poverty districts (or about 20% higher).

The numbers you get when looking at actual poverty ratios are below, from the EPI paper:

Highest Poverty (poorest)

Actual Spending: $13,093

Required Spending: $18,231

High Poverty

Actual Spending: $10,850

Required Spending: $13,928

Medium Poverty

Actual Spending: $10,499

Required Spending: $11,199

Low Poverty

Actual Spending: $10,532

Required Spending: $9917

Lowest Poverty (Affluent)

Actual Spending: $10,239

Required Spending: $8313

The difference in required spending between the lowest and highest poverty districts is more than half again still, less than 10k. And the amount required to raise the highest poverty districts to hit their required threshold is half again yet again, only 5k, or 1/8th the most extreme hypothetical estimate.

As I've said several times though, I don't really care. I'm just trying to figure out how they got different results from the same data set.

The core purpose of the NECM is to account for the fact, long established in the research literature, that the cost of providing a given level of education is not uniform across districts (Duncombe and Yinger 2007).

They cannot actually demonstrate that a "given level of education" can be provided at any cost, at least for levels of education that are not bottom-percentile.

Perhaps most importantly, districts that serve larger shares of high-need students (e.g., higher Census child poverty rates) will have higher costs.

...And will demonstrate minimal or no gain in outcomes, despite these higher costs.

Their entire logic rests on the assumption that the higher spending is causing higher test scores. That isn't actually true, and so everything they base that assumption on is garbage-in, garbage out.

I'm willing to endorse any level of educational spending for one of these low-outcome schools, provided that the educators are volunteers, and that failure to educate means the people doing the educating and their supporters are personally on the hook for every single thin dime spent on the failure. They cannot do the job. They either know they cannot do the job, or they are so incompetent and deluded that they cannot be trusted with any level of responsability. Their entire system is built around lying about the undeniable facts that have accrued through fifty years of nation-wide policy.

Their entire logic rests on the assumption that the higher spending is causing higher test scores.

If they're taking two neighborhoods and controlling for income, cost of living, demographics, population, pop density, and so on, and find that the difference in the better performing school is more funding per student, this is a reasonable argument to make. As far as I can tell you haven't made a counterargument here. If anyone has any actual objections with the adequacy model they're welcome to raise it, but the entire thing is besides the point because, again, the EPI paper isn't saying "funding is equal but they should be given more for the adequacy score," they're saying "poor districts are funded worse, period." It's also besides the point because my OP isn't some philosophical argument about who deserves what or what's the best way to fund schools; I'm asking a pretty specific question about how these two different think tanks found different conclusions from the same data.

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