A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Study Purpose

Some observers have questioned whether current comparability measures, which focus on per-pupil expenditures and student-staff ratios, provide an adequate guarantee of equity among schools. An even broader concern relates to disparities in the funds available to school districts from state and local sources. While Chapter 1 comparability requirements focus on resource distribution within districts, some analysts argue that comparability across districts is even more critical to achieving the goals of the Chapter 1 program. If Chapter 1 funds are used to provide services in poor districts that wealthy districts routinely provide through regular funds, then the federal money may be ineffective in helping to close the achievement gap between high- and low-poverty schools.

In order to probe these concerns, this exploratory study examines the following issues:

• Are Chapter 1 schools comparable to non-Chapter 1 schools within the same district when measured by a more comprehensive set of resources and services?

• How do high- and low-poverty schools differ in the availability and quality of resources? How do differences in district revenues from state and local sources translate into differences in educational resources and services at the school site?

• Does Chapter 1 provide resources and services to disadvantaged students in poor districts that wealthy districts routinely provide to all students through regular funds? How do variations in resources relate to differences in student needs?

Study Design

Fair and accurate comparisons of resources across schools and districts are a complex undertaking. Dollar levels are not synonymous with resources because dollars translate into differing levels of resources depending on local education prices. Consequently, this exploratory study focuses on the nature of services and resources delivered at the school site.

Because the purpose of the study is to explore the impact of extreme differences in school resources, the study used a purposively-selected sample of high- and low-poverty schools in high- and low- revenue districts, rather than a random sample that would be representative of the nation as a whole. Data were collected from a sample of 95 elementary schools and 25 high schools in 30 districts during the 1991-92 school year. Results reported in this summary are for elementary schools. Site visits and teacher and principal surveys were used to measure a wide variety of school-level resources, including staffing ratios, teacher characteristics, instructional materials, and school facilities and equipment.

This approach yielded a wealth of detail about differences in the quantity and quality of resources available in the schools visited. Because these schools were purposively sampled, these findings are not conclusive or nationally representative and should not be generalized beyond this sample. However, these findings may suggest testable hypotheses about the types and magnitudes of differences among these schools.

High-poverty schools are not always found in low-revenue districts; in fact, an analysis of school finance equity nationally found that in 33 states there was a positive correlation between district poverty and revenues, indicating that high-poverty districts tended to receive above-average levels of funding (Schwartz and Moskowitz, 1988). Therefore, this study shows comparisons of poverty level separately from comparisons of schools by district revenue level. However, because there is particular public concern over those high-poverty schools that are located in low-revenue districts, where high student needs are combined with limited school resources to meet those needs, the study also compares needs and resource levels in high-poverty schools in low-revenue districts to low- poverty schools in high-revenue districts.

High-poverty schools were defined as having more than 50% of students eligible for free or reduced price lunches and low-poverty schools as less than 20% eligible for subsidized lunches. High- and low-revenue districts were defined by dividing the sample into three revenue terciles. ****

Key Findings

Are resources comparable within districts?

School districts in this sample had, for the most part, achieved within-district comparability on most measurable aspects of the educational program:

1. cost per student;
2. number of staff;
3. average class size;
4. teaching experience and degree level of teachers; and
5. availability of instructional materials and equipment.

How do school characteristics, student needs, and resources differ among high- and low- poverty schools?

Although the high-poverty schools in the sample had substantially greater student needs, most resource measures showed small differences between the high- and low-poverty schools.

• The high-poverty schools exhibited much greater levels of student need as indicated by achievement scores (with average scores at the 43rd percentile, versus the 75th percentile in the low-poverty schools), limited English proficiency (13% vs. 1%), and identification for Chapter 1 services (42% vs. 3%).
  • Principals in the high-poverty schools were more likely to perceive moderate to serious problems with student mobility (79% vs. 12%), health (45% vs. 7%), drug and alcohol abuse (16% vs. 2%), and violence (20% vs. 2%).

  • Only 47% of teachers in the high-poverty schools said they would want their child to attend the school where they teach, compared to 94% of teachers in the low-poverty schools.

• Both the high- and low-poverty schools were located in districts with comparable levels of funding: cost-adjusted revenues per pupil averaged $5,296 in the high-poverty schools and $5,318 in the low-poverty schools.

• The high-poverty schools exhibited a slight advantage in staffing, with more regular classroom teachers (19.9, vs. 19.3 in the low-poverty schools), more special education classroom teachers (1.9 vs. 0.9), more regular instructional aides (4.5 vs. 3.5), and more aides for bilingual, ESL, and state compensatory education (1.4 vs. 0.5). However, the high-poverty schools had slightly fewer regular resource teachers covering areas such as reading, music, and art (3.0 vs. 3.2) and fewer resource teachers for gifted and talented education (0.2 vs. 0.4).

• Staff qualifications in the high-poverty schools appeared somewhat lower, although the difference in principal ratings of their own teachers was much greater than the difference in teacher characteristics that can be measured more objectively (such as years of experience, degree level, standard teaching certificate).

  • Principals in the high-poverty schools were much less likely to give their teachers a high rating relative to other teachers in the district (66%, vs. 89% in the low-poverty schools).

  • Staff morale also appeared somewhat lower in the high-poverty schools, with greater teacher turnover (8% vs. 5%) and fewer teachers saying that, if they could do it over again, they would choose teaching as a career (74% vs. 88%).

• The high-poverty schools had less equipment than the low-poverty schools. For example, the high-poverty schools averaged 30 computers in a school of 500 students, compared to 37 computers in a low-poverty school of the same size. This is not surprising in light of the fact that the high-poverty schools had comparable funding levels but spent a larger percentage of their funds on school staffing.

• The high-poverty schools tended to have larger, older facilities that were less likely to be in good condition. Site visitors rated building conditions as fair to poor in 25% of the high- poverty schools, compared to only 2% of the low-poverty schools.

How do differences in district revenues from state and local sources translate into differences in educational resources and services at the school site?

• The schools in the high-revenue and low-revenue districts had comparable numbers of poor students (as measured by eligibility for subsidized school lunches), participants in Chapter 1 and state compensatory education, limited-English-proficient students, while the high-revenue schools had more minority students. However:

  • Students in the low-revenue districts scored lower on standardized achievement tests (with average scores at the 58th percentile in the low-revenue districts vs. 70th for the high- revenue districts).

  • Teachers in the low-revenue districts were more likely to perceive moderate to serious problems with student mobility (51% vs. 39%), student health (25% vs. 15%), student drug and alcohol abuse (11% vs. 3%) and student violence (17% vs. 3%).

• Differences in district revenue levels did not translate into large differences in class size.

  Schools had comparable numbers of regular classroom teachers, although a greater number of special education teachers in the high-revenue districts brought the number of total classroom teachers up to 22 per school of 500 students, compared to 20 classroom teachers for a school of the same size in the low-revenue districts. The low-revenue districts also had fewer regular resource teachers and relied more heavily on aides.

• Classroom teachers in the low-revenue districts had somewhat lower qualifications, with fewer years of experience (12.7 years vs. 15.8 years) and lower degree attainment (40% with masters degrees vs. 56% in the high-revenue districts).

  Principals in the low-revenue districts were less likely to give their teachers high ratings than were principals in the high-revenue districts (71% vs. 90%). Teacher turnover was considerably higher in the low-revenue districts (10% vs. 4%)

• The schools in low-revenue districts had substantially less equipment overall than the schools in high-revenue districts, particularly in terms of computers (38 vs. 24 in a school of 500 students) and printers (15 vs. 10). However, the low-revenue districts had more television sets (11 vs. 7) and overhead projectors (16 vs. 11).

• School facilities in the low-revenue districts were more likely to be rated in fair to poor condition (20% vs. 9%), although the disparity was less striking than the disparity among the high- and low-poverty schools. Facilities were less spacious in the low-revenue districts, although instructional space was comparable.

The high-poverty, low-revenue schools in this sample averaged $3,849 in state and local funding per student, compared to $6,311 in the low-poverty, high-revenue schools — a difference of $2,462. In the high-poverty, low-revenue schools, Chapter 1 provided an additional $933 per Chapter 1 participant, which does not go far toward closing the funding gap between these two groups of schools.

However, for this sample, it was largely untrue that Chapter 1 funds are used in low-revenue districts to meet needs that are routinely met through state and local funds in more affluent districts. Despite variations in the quantity and quality of base-level resources at the sample schools, Chapter 1 resources primarily supplemented regular instructional services and did not alleviate inequities in the base program.

• Chapter 1 schools in the low-revenue districts used about 14% of federal Chapter 1 funds to bolster areas that the high-revenue districts supported at greater levels through state and local funding.

• Nearly 90% of Chapter 1 funds, however, supported compensatory education services, which were provided at substantially greater levels in high-poverty schools in low-revenue districts.

The high-poverty Chapter 1 schools in low-revenue districts received considerably less supplemental program funding per student served than did the low-poverty non-Chapter 1 schools in high-revenue districts ($2,994 vs. $4,209 per special education pupil, $267 vs. $941 per bilingual student, and $108 vs. $1,704 per student served in state compensatory education programs), although the high- poverty schools served more of their students in these programs.

• Principals in the high-poverty Chapter 1 schools in low-revenue districts were much more likely to report that student health was a serious or moderate problem (60%, vs. 12% in the low- poverty non-Chapter 1 schools in high-revenue districts), yet they had only one-third the amount of funding for health services ($16 vs. $39 per pupil).

• The high-poverty Chapter 1 schools in low-revenue districts spent less than half as much as the low-poverty non-Chapter 1 schools in high-revenue districts on psychologists, social workers, and counselors ($82 vs. $29 per pupil) and comparable amounts on administrative services. However, principals in the high-poverty, low-revenue schools were much more likely to report moderate to serious problems in the areas these services are intended to address, including student mobility (80% vs. 0%), absenteeism (50% vs. 0%), discipline (70% vs. 25%), and violence (30% vs. 0%).

Further Information

Additional copies of this report are available by writing to the Planning and Evaluation Service, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 3127, Washington, DC 20202.

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