Disparities in School Resources Across Districts and Time

Open to PhD students and faculty engaged in causal inference in education research.

About CIERS:

The objective of the Causal Inference in Education Research Seminar (CIERS) is to engage students and faculty from across the university in conversations around education research using various research methodologies. This seminar provides a space for doctoral students and faculty from the School of Education, Ford School of Public Policy, and the Departments of Economics, Sociology, Statistics, and Political Science to discuss current research and receive feedback on works-in-progress. Discourse between these schools and departments creates a more complete community of education scholars, and provides a networking opportunity for students enrolled in a variety of academic programs who share common research interests. Open to PhD students and faculty engaged in causal inference in education research.

Abstract:

Much prior work has documented disparities in the resources experienced by poor and non-poor school children in the U.S. and examined the consequences for student outcomes. With few exceptions, this work has focused on disparities across school districts primarily due to data availability; school-level resource measures have not been collected at a national level until very recently. In this descriptive study, we document socioeconomic disparities in three chief resources in K12 – instructional spending, experienced teachers, and facility quality – using administrative and survey data from the State of Texas. Initial findings reveal that the host of equalization measures in place actually result in poor students experiencing greater levels of instructional spending than non-poor students. However, large differences in teacher experience and facility quality remain, even among students in the same school district.

• School Resources
• Districts
• Disparities