New KRC Research Review Finds School Funding Limit Proposal Will Erode the Quality of Education

School Funding Proposals Should Include Quality Safeguards

Harrisburg -- Local school funding limits now being considered by the General Assembly would likely lower the quality of education in many Pennsylvania school districts.

That's the conclusion of the Keystone Research Center's new review of research on how limits on increases in school taxes or funding have affected educational quality across the United States.

The study, released today in Harrisburg and entitled Limiting Learning: How School Funding Caps Have Eroded the Quality of Education, found that school funding limits like those contained in current legislative proposals are associated with increased class sizes, lower student performance, lower-quality new teachers, use of outdated technology and textbooks, cuts in curricular and extracurricular programs, and substandard school maintenance.

"What our review shows is that limits on spending have not led to improvements in educational quality," said Dr. Howard Wial, KRC Research Director and author of the new briefing paper. "The evidence points to the opposite conclusion in states that have adopted similar policies."

For example, research literature reviewed by KRC found that tax limits were associated with:

• a 3.6 percent decline in 10th grade math scores and a 6.3 percent decline in science scores

• a 4.3 percent decline in social studies scores, the same impact as a $28,000 reduction in family income

• 6.4 percent higher student-teacher ratios (a measure of class size)

• a 10 percent decline in the test scores of students who major in education (i.e., of future teachers).

In addition, two different studies indicate that tax limits reduce math scores by higher percentages in lower-income districts. As a result, tax limits exacerbate inequity in educational outcomes.

"A further problem with proposed limits in Pennsylvania," added KRC Executive Director Stephen Herzenberg, "is that the starting point is one of the highest levels of educational funding inequity in the nation. In the absence of improved funding equity, tax limits promise to leave poor children in Pennsylvania permanently behind."

The KRC study suggests that a better route to school budget accountability would be to condition a school district's property tax reduction on its adoption of demonstrated educational best practices. "Unlike arbitrary tax limits," said Herzenberg, "best practices are grounded in an understanding of effective schools and effective teachers."

Copies of the KRC report are available free of charge from the KRC Web site at www.keystoneresearch.org.