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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Students in small and rural Oregon districts that get the most tax money outperform those in similar districts that receive less, a new study shows.
Researcher Jerry Johnson of Ohio University said it was surprising that money was so obviously a factor because its influence is usually difficult to spot in academic studies.
The report from the Rural School and Community Trust concluded that efforts at the state level to equalize spending on education aren’t working as intended.
“The state funding mechanism is intended to level the playing field, but it does not do so among all rural Oregon school districts,” it said.
The findings cover 132 districts, about two-thirds of the districts and slightly more than a third of the students in the state.
The report said it considered four factors in comparing achievement in small and rural Oregon schools: financial resources, teacher quality, poverty, and community education levels.
It said money matters most. The districts that had the best performance as measured on state assessments in mathematics and language skills came from the districts that put the most local money into the schools.
Secondarily, the report said, the districts that did best had the most qualified teachers, as measured by the number of teachers with provisional or emergency certificates.
Robert Duncan, superintendent of the Corbett School District in east Multnomah County, said achievement suffers at the high school level when small districts can’t afford to hire specialists for disciplines such as English, math, science and social sciences.
The authors of the report painted a rich-get-richer picture of well-to-do districts in which students do better and the gaps between well-off and disadvantaged districts grow wider.
They called it “a pattern in which the distribution of resources appears to be compounding, rather than mitigating, socio-economic disparities.”
Researcher Jerry Johnson of Ohio University said it was surprising that money was so obviously a factor because its influence is usually difficult to spot in academic studies.
The report from the Rural School and Community Trust concluded that efforts at the state level to equalize spending on education aren’t working as intended.
“The state funding mechanism is intended to level the playing field, but it does not do so among all rural Oregon school districts,” it said.
The findings cover 132 districts, about two-thirds of the districts and slightly more than a third of the students in the state.
The report said it considered four factors in comparing achievement in small and rural Oregon schools: financial resources, teacher quality, poverty, and community education levels.
It said money matters most. The districts that had the best performance as measured on state assessments in mathematics and language skills came from the districts that put the most local money into the schools.
Secondarily, the report said, the districts that did best had the most qualified teachers, as measured by the number of teachers with provisional or emergency certificates.
Robert Duncan, superintendent of the Corbett School District in east Multnomah County, said achievement suffers at the high school level when small districts can’t afford to hire specialists for disciplines such as English, math, science and social sciences.
The authors of the report painted a rich-get-richer picture of well-to-do districts in which students do better and the gaps between well-off and disadvantaged districts grow wider.
They called it “a pattern in which the distribution of resources appears to be compounding, rather than mitigating, socio-economic disparities.”
