New Albert Shanker Institute Report Shows Financial Investment in K-12 Schools Definitively Helps Student Outcomes

“Does Money Matter in Education?” Highlights the Risks of Trump Administration Education Policies That Would Cut K-12 Funding, Impact on Students Experiencing Poverty and Historically Underinvested Schools

WASHINGTON—A new, comprehensive research review from the Albert Shanker Institute shows definitively that increasing funding in K-12 schools improves student outcomes, while cutting funding hurts those outcomes.

The third edition of the institute’s “Does Money Matter in Education?” reviews decades of high-quality empirical studies of school funding and student outcomes and stands in stark contrast to the current administration’s policies to defund public schools with a voucher system that drains crucial funds from the schools that 90 percent of American children attend every day.

The report’s research is led by professors Bruce Baker (University of Miami) and David Knight (University of Washington), who focused on a group of very important studies published over the past decade.

Based on this review of the evidence, Baker and Knight conclude:

• More investment in K-12 schools helps students, while reducing funding harms students.
• Those effects occur regardless of whether funding changes stem from legislation, reforms in response to litigation, economic downturns or local democratic processes such as bond elections.
• New K-12 funding consistently yields benefits, whether the money goes toward current school operations (e.g., teachers, supplies, etc.) or toward capital investment, such as school construction and modernization.
• The effects, positive or negative, are particularly pronounced among students who experience poverty and those living in communities in which states have historically underinvested.

According to Baker, “The evidence that money matters in public schools has been quite solid for a long time, but the steady flow of rigorous studies over the past 10 or so years has clarified the impressive size and consistency of that impact. Increases in K-12 funding, if sustained over time, are a safe investment. They will work if we see them through.”

In addition to the studies about the overall impact of funding on student outcomes, the report also reviews the evidence on the specific types of policies that yield benefits for students. Those investments range from increasing teacher pay and class size reduction to ensuring that school buildings have proper heating, ventilation and air conditioning. More funding helps students because the things that school districts spend money on help students.

Mary Cathryn Ricker, the Shanker Institute’s executive director, notes, “During this time of aggressive efforts to dismantle public education, the evidence reviewed in this report confirms what teachers, administrators and parents have always known: When we give public schools what they need, students do better, particularly the students who need the most help.”

Randi Weingarten, the president of the AFT and the Albert Shanker Institute, offered, “This report echoes what teachers and families already know—money matters. Proper funding correlates to better student performance and helps schools become the safe, welcoming environments where students develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills as well as develop resilience and relationships—all the skills they need in this diverse and complex world. And cutting off funding for our foundations like public education and healthcare will take a hatchet to opportunity. Americans did not vote for that; they want to see public schools strengthened and their children’s progress properly supported.”

According to the report’s authors, the newer studies over the past decade have helped to fuel a growing consensus about the importance of adequate and equitable funding, even among those who were previously skeptical. Baker explains: “For a long time, there was partially manufactured doubt that negatively impacted state capitals and courts regarding the benefits of K-12 spending. Many policymakers and advocates hid behind that doubt to justify harmful cuts and resist new investment.”

“Those days are over,” Baker continues. “State lawmakers can either ignore this data or let it guide the long-term process of really improving our public schools and the lives of their students.”