Money Can Matter in Education, But Where?

Mitch Pearlstein says more money doesn't make a difference in school performance, so we should not leave Minnesota's K-12 budgets uncut while taking "bloody chunks" out of higher education.

There simply is no body of first-class research demonstrating any consistent tie between K-12 budgets and academic achievement. Yes, some studies show a positive correlation. But the great bulk of credible studies show either no correlation or even negative ones.

Certainly, if you believe everyone should share the burden of cuts — and that hampering university research is a bad bargain — then part of Pearlstein's argument makes some sense.

But his blanket statement about money and academic achievement is carefully worded to weave around the obvious point. Of course more money — especially when measured at the macro level — will not necessarily make a difference in any endeavor.

More money can't buy happiness, either. What really matters is how the money is spent, for what result.

As Babak Armajani says in the same edition of the Strib, "The bottom line of government isn't dollars. It's results per dollar."

We're much better at calculating the economic impact of university R&D on our community, in part because higher education is at the end of the pipeline, and the dollars that flow from it are easier to count.

In the years ahead, Minnesota will also need better results from its K-12 spending if it hopes to reap the benefits of higher education.

But how can we cut intelligently — any more than we can spend wisely — if we don't know what produces the results we want for a specific population of students? And when do we decide we've cut enough?

The studies Pearlstein opaquely cites as the argument for less spending apparently don't answer these questions. That's not necessarily because there's no connection between dollars and results; rather, there is not enough outcomes-based research and analysis being done to identify which specific interventions do produce a positive payback — and how they fit together over time. (Growth & Justice's Smart Investments in Minnesota's Students [Education Report PDF] provides an overview of the research and establishes a framework for how to invest to achieve better outcomes.)

Inconclusive findings from unnamed studies may be enough for those who simply want government to spend less. But if we want better results, we have to sharpen our thinking, not just our pencils.