Money alone can’t buy better schools
Standard & Poor’s this week released an analysis of Pennsylvania’s public schools that compared the amount of money spent on educating students with scores attained on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test scores. Money can make a difference. As would be expected some schools that spend gobs of money educating children who come from affluent families did well on the PSSA tests. And some schools that struggle delivering an education on a tight budget to students from poor families failed miserably on the tests.
Yet that pattern didn’t hold true across the board as some affluent schools did poorly and some poor schools excelled.
After calculating statewide averages and trends for three years, Standard & Poor’s found, “The state’s data suggest that the impact of spending on achievement is determined in part by how money is spent, not simply how much is spent. Interestingly, 60 percent of Pennsylvania’s districts with above-average PSSA scores had below-average spending. In addition, nearly a third of all school districts with above-average spending had below-average scores.”
This does not mean that money won’t make a difference, just that it doesn’t make a difference all on its own. It is how the money is spent that determines whether schools are fulfilling their mission to teach Pennsylvania’s children.
The Standard & Poor’s analysis of the statewide data should give educators, parents and school board directors something to ponder. If money alone isn’t the answer, what is?
This question is especially important in Fayette County with the highest statewide percentage of children living in poverty. Poor does not equal stupidity, although that attitude has gripped this region for far too long.
Low-income children deserve a chance at a better life and the only sure path to that is through education. The charge then is for school boards, administrators and teachers to make sure that happens. Some of our individual schools are doing well. Districts should look internally at what makes a difference between one of its elementary schools that does well when compared with another building in the district. And they shouldn’t dismiss, as we have all too frequently heard, that the underachieving students come from poorer areas of the districts and that the parents aren’t as involved. Is this really true, or merely a perception that has been repeated enough to become reality? Are districts stacking the better elementary schools with the experienced teachers and assigning the inexperienced to the worst schools? Are class sizes, textbooks, supplies and technology equal? Are parents treated with the same level of respect?
Once districts look internally at what their own best schools are doing well to emulate it district wide, then they must reach out to peers for guidance. Locally, the seeds of this are beginning to germinate with the founding of REACH, which stands for Reaching Educational Achievement with Community Help. REACH is a collaboration of educators and business leaders who are attempting to explore the best practices found in schools and who are defining the knowledge and skills that students need upon graduation to find living wage jobs.
This relationship between the districts in working together rather than in competition is worth encouraging.
But other avenues are also worth traveling. Local school districts already are part of an Intermediate Unit that should allow for networking with other school districts and sharing of ideas that work well.
School board directors, principals, superintendents, teachers all belong to statewide organizations. These organizations often share ideas with members but the structure of public schools with adversarial roles between boards and administrators and teachers, prevents good ideas from spreading. This needs to change. Money alone can’t buy better schools. Perhaps transforming attitudes can.