5 days ago
Study finds higher federal COVID money failed to improve test scores
Since 2001, student enrollments drop while spending shot up
This graphic from the latest Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy-requested report analyzes how student enrollment in public schools fell by 21% since 2001 to 2024 while spending went up 45%.
A new study from a conservative free market think tank concludes that the hundreds of millions in federal COVID-19 grants for school districts failed to improve test scores in New Hampshire.
Entitled 'Falling Students, Rising Spending II,' the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy (JBC) commissioned the report to examine the impact the COVID relief had on public schools.
'The big picture really is that while all that Washington money helped power an enormous increase in spending on public schools, it didn't translate into improvement in student achievement,' said Drew Cline, JBC's president.
Benjamin Scafidi of Kennesaw State University authored the report which examined public schools from 2020 through 2024.
An earlier report in 2023 from JBC looked at similar trends during the period of 2001 up to 2019 when the pandemic began.
'The conclusions are pretty consistent with the first report, namely that more spending does not equate to better test scores for students,' Cline said.
According to the report, spending in public schools went up from $3.3 billion in the 2020 academic year to $4.06 billion.
On a per-student basis, the expenditures increased during those four years from $19,947 to $26,347, a 32% increase.
Hirings went up
The report noted that compared to 2001, public schools in the state served 43,379 fewer students, a 21% decline.
Despite that drop in enrollment, Granite State public schools employed 153 more teachers, 898 more administrators and 1,904 more employees performing other roles in 2024 relative to 2001.
By percentage, the increase in teachers over that period was only 1% while administrators saw a 78% hiring increase and 'other staff' grew by 15% from 2001-2024.
Similarly, total expenditures adjusted for inflation went up by $1.25 billion — or 45% — from 2001-2024, but the average teacher salary increased by only 8% above cost-of-living during that period.
Since 2020, enrollment dipped by 6.3% while the number of staff declined by 2.6% over those four years.
Also from 2020 to 2024, local property taxes to support schools went up by an average 17%.
Josiah Bartlett Center report chronicles higher spending, lower achievement in N.H. schools.
Drew Cline, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, said the latest report it commission confirmed the continuing trend that higher spending on public schools hasn't translated into better student achievement on assessment tests.
Over that same period, federal grants went up seven times over the rate of inflation while state spending for public schools went up 19%, just above the 17% cost of living over the four-year period, the report said.
On test scores across the four exams, New Hampshire students in 2024 averaged about a half-year less learning in both reading and mathematics in grades 4 and 8 relative to New Hampshire public school students in 2001, the report found.
All told, New Hampshire students experienced a cumulative drop of 17 points from 2020 to 2024, which was better than the national drop of 22 points, the report said.
'This was one of the silver linings of the report which showed that by getting our students back into school quicker after COVID started than many other states, this resulted in less learning loss here,' Cline added.
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