Citizens for KPS

Local public radio station WMUK did a story on April 30 on the millage. A transcript of the story can be found at http://wmuk.org/election.htt?select_race=t&pkeyElectionRaceID=76 . This link also includes links to an audio version of the story, and links to interviews with: Tim Bartik of Citizens for KPS; Shirley Johnson, President of the Portage School Board; and Ray Wilson of the Kalamazoo County Taxpayers Association.

In his interview, Mr. Wilson repeats an argument that is sometimes made against the millage. The argument goes as follows, to quote Mr. Wilson: “...[I]n the 3 years of the KRESA tax, funding from the state has gone up 7.5%, the foundation grant, which is roughly the cost of inflation. Now, that’s not a huge increase, but it is an increase. And it takes away the original justification that they hadn’t had any increase in funding. The schools have had increases in funding from the state during those 3 years, so it gets rid of the justification for the KRESA tax.”

Several points refute this argument: 

1. Inflation during the past 3 years has been 9.8%. 7.5% is not “roughly the cost of inflation”, but 2.3% less than inflation. (See previous post , "The Real Level of School Funding Per Student".)

2. Although most school districts in Kalamazoo County received an increased foundation grant of 7.5% from 2004-05 to 2007-08, Kalamazoo Public Schools only received an increase of 6.3%.

3. Finally, there is a point of logic. Three years ago, county voters decided by a majority that the funding per student received from the state was inadequate, and should be supplemented by the enhancement millage to ensure adequate services to students. Even if the foundation grant increase for all school districts had been as great as the rate of inflation (which it was not), this would imply that the real funding from the state would have been unchanged. The need for the millage funds to maintain adequate services to students would be the same in 2008 as in 2005. Because the rate of increase in funding was actually less than the rate of inflation, the need for millage funds to maintain adequate services to students is greater in 2008 than it was in 2005.

Point 3 can be illustrated by an extreme example. Suppose all prices doubled, and the state foundation grant per student doubled. Could anyone legitimately claim that the schools would be able to afford to provide better services? The schools would have twice as much in dollars, but if prices have doubled, the schools need to spend twice as much to provide the same level of services.

In other words, once one adjusts for inflation, schools have NOT received a real increase in the state foundation grant per student. In fact, the real per student foundation grant has been reduced in the three years since the enhancement millage was passed.

One anti-millage renewal website recently posted the following statement by one of their readers:

“[T]here is no evidence that spending more money makes schools stronger.”

This is a commonly held belief. However, the research evidence does not support this belief. More spending on schools, if that spending is focused on the classroom, has been found by rigorous research to significantly improve student achievement.

The best recent review of the research on school resources and student achievement is by Alan Krueger, Professor of Economics at Princeton, in a paper entitled “Economic Considerations and Class Size”. http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/447.pdf . (This link is to a free working paper version of this paper; the paper has since been published in the Economic Journal.) Class size, or pupil-teacher ratio, is one of the most important factors in determining school district spending per student. In addition, class size is easier to measure in similar ways across different school districts than is the case for other school spending variables, which may be reported in different ways across districts or certainly across states.

What Professor Krueger finds, in reviewing 59 studies of the effects of class size on student achievement, is that although these studies include a wide variety of results, the average effect of lower class size on student achievement, if all studies are given “one vote”, is to significantly increase student achievement. There are almost twice as many studies that find that lower class size has significant positive effects on student achievement, compared to studies finding that lower class size has significant negative effects on student achievement. The effects of lower class size in improving student achievement become even stronger when we place greater weight on studies that appeared in more highly regarded academic journals.

More importantly, the most rigorous scientific study of the effect of class size on student achievement finds effects that are statistically significant and large. Only one study, Project STAR, has randomly assigned both students and teachers to large and small class sizes, and then followed students to see what effects different class size has on student achievement.  Students were randomly assigned to class sizes during grades K-3 that averaged 15 students per teacher for the “treatment group”, and averaged 22 students per teacher for the “control group”.

A random assignment experiment has some significant methodological advantages over the usual social science study that attempts to estimate the “effect” of lower class size. In the usual social science study, lower class size is not randomly assigned to students. Lower class size may occur for many reasons that may bias the estimates. For example, if the government tries to make class size lower for schools or school districts with many students from low-income families, then students with lower class size will tend to come from families with lower incomes. Because lower family income is associated on average with lower test scores, this correlation may make it appear that lower class size is “causing” lower test scores, which is a mistaken inference. In contrast, in a random assignment experiment such as Project Star, because students and teachers are randomly assigned to different class sizes, there will on average be no expected difference between students in low class sizes, and students in higher class sizes, except for the class size difference.

The best recent summary of the evidence from Project Star is a paper by Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an assistant Professor at the public policy school at the University of Chicago, entitled “What Have Researchers Learned from Project STAR?” The paper is available at http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/About/publications/working-papers/pdf/w... .(This link is to the working paper version of the paper; the paper has since been published in Brookings Papers on Education Policy.)  

What Professor Schanzenbach and other researchers have found is that lower class sizes in grades K-3 significantly increase student achievement, both during grades K-3 and subsequent grades. In addition, lower class size in grades K-3 seems to have long-term effects in increasing the percentage of students who take college entrance exams such as the SAT or ACT, which suggests that more students who were in lower class sizes end up being interested in going to college and attending college.

Schanzenbach and other researchers have used these findings to estimate how the costs of lowering class size compare with the benefits of lower class size. Benefits are measured as the predicted increase in earnings for students due to lower class sizes, which can be predicted based on studies that predict students’ future earnings based on their test scores during school. The finding is that spending more money on lower class size has an estimated “real rate of return” (after adjusting for inflation) of 5 to 10 percent, which compares very favorably to most investments.

In sum, there is significant research evidence that devoting more resources to the classroom can pay off in increased student achievement. This increased student achievement then pays off in higher earnings and an expanded economy.

On behalf of all the students in all nine school districts in Kalamazoo County, we first of all want to thank the voters for their support of this millage renewal.

The 57% margin for the millage reflects broad countywide support for the millage. Our preliminary analysis suggests that not only was there strong support from KPS and Portage Public Schools for this millage renewal, but that support from the rest of the county significantly increased compared to 2005. We believe this greater support throughout the county reflects greater voter awareness of how this millage provides better services to students in all county school districts.

We also want of course to thank our many Citizens for KPS volunteers and supporters. Hundreds of people worked many volunteer hours for this campaign. And it paid off. The estimated Yes margin for the KPS district was about 67%.

This millage renewal allows all nine school districts in the county to continue their forward momentum. All nine school districts in the county face the challenge of moving forward to meet society’s higher expectations of our schools. For example, all nine school districts must make sure all students can meet Michigan’s new, tougher high school graduation requirements. This millage renewal will be a great help in that effort.

KPS faces the unique opportunities and challenges of the Kalamazoo Promise. We must make sure that each and every student in our district graduates from high school with the skills they need to have the OPTION of taking full advantage of the Kalamazoo Promise. This means that each student’s skills when leaving high school must be sufficient to be successful in post-secondary education. Students may choose other options, such as the military or civilian employment, but they should have sufficient skills that successful completion of post-secondary education is a real option. The millage renewal helps continue the financial support needed for KPS to keep moving forward and improving the achievement of all our students, at all levels.

For the broader Kalamazoo community, this millage renewal means that it is realistic to talk about this community being committed to better education and skills as the route to economic success. As we have argued throughout the campaign, this is the best way for the Kalamazoo region to survive and thrive in a global economy.