Educational Spending: Kentucky Vs
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge CBER Research Report Center for Business and Economic Research 12-2008 Educational Spending: Kentucky vs. Other States William Hoyt University of Kentucky, [email protected] Christopher Jepsen University of Kentucky, [email protected] Kenneth R. Troske University of Kentucky, [email protected] Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cber_researchreports Part of the Economics Commons, and the Education Commons Educational Spending: Kentucky vs. Other States School Choice for Kentucky: Many agree with the concept. Some disagree. And some Prepared By: simply want more information. As the public debate continues Dr. William H. Hoyt to grow about how best to provide a quality education to all Kentucky children, it is Dr. Christopher Jepsen important to know the facts about parent choice, and Dr. Kenneth R. Troske how parent choice programs have had an impact on communities, parents and students around the country. All of this analysis is done with one goal in mind: The best possible education for all of Kentucky’s children. December 2008 Study released jointly by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, Bluegrass Institute and the Center for Business and Economic Research A MESSAGE FROM THE FRIEDMAN FOUNDATION: OUR CHALLENGE TO YOU Our research adheres to the highest standards of scientifi c rigor. We know that one reason the school choice movement has achieved such great success is because the empirical evidence really does show that school choice works. More and more people are dropping their oppo- sition to school choice as they become familiar with the large body of high-quality scientifi c studies that supports it. Having racked up a steady record of success through good science, why would we sabotage our credibility with junk science? This is our answer to those who say we can’t produce credible research because we aren’t neutral about school choice. Some people think that good science can only be produced by researchers who have no opin- ions about the things they study. Like robots, these neutral researchers are supposed to carry out their analyses without actually thinking or caring about the subjects they study. But what’s the point of doing science in the fi rst place if we’re never al- lowed to come to any conclusions? Why would we want to stay neutral when some policies are solidly proven to work, and others are proven to fail? That’s why it’s foolish to dismiss all the studies showing that school choice works on grounds that they were conducted by researchers who think that school choice works. If we take that approach, we would have to dismiss all the studies showing that smoking causes cancer, because all of them were conducted by researchers who think that smoking causes cancer. We would end up rejecting all science across the board. The sensible approach is to accept studies that follow sound scientifi c methods, and reject those that don’t. Science produces reliable empiri- cal information, not because scientists are devoid of opinions and mo- tives, but because the rigorous procedural rules of science prevent the researchers’ opinions and motives from determining their results. If research adheres to scientifi c standards, its results can be relied upon no matter who conducted it. If not, then the biases of the researcher do become relevant, because lack of scientifi c rigor opens the door for those biases to affect the results. So if you’re skeptical about our research on school choice, this is our challenge to you: prove us wrong. Judge our work by scientifi c stan- dards and see how it measures up. If you can fi nd anything in our work that doesn’t follow sound empirical methods, by all means say so. We welcome any and all scientifi c critique of our work. But if you can’t fi nd anything scientifi cally wrong with it, don’t complain that our fi ndings can’t be true just because we’re not neutral. That may make a good sound bite, but what lurks behind it is a fl at rejection of science. Educational Spending: Kentucky vs. Other States Prepared By: Dr. William H. Hoyt Dr. Christopher Jepsen Dr. Kenneth R. Troske December 2008 BLUEGRASS INSTITUTE for public policy solutions About the Authors William H. Hoyt Gatton Endowed Professor of Economics, Director of Graduate Studies and Professor of Public Policy Dr. Hoyt is an economist specializing in public policy analysis with a particular emphasis on state and local public fi nance and cost-benefi t analysis of public programs. Dr. Hoyt’s current research includes work on the impacts of state and local tax poli- cies on employment, educational choice plans and crossover in the use of poverty programs. Dr. Hoyt has served as Principal Investigator on projects funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the United States Department of Agriculture (Economic Research Service). He has served on numerous advisory boards for the Commonwealth of Kentucky and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Urban Economics and a research fellow for Center for Economic Studies (Munich, Germany). Chrstopher Jepsen Associate Director, Center for Business and Economic Research Dr. Jepsen is an economist specializing in public policy analysis. Dr. Jepsen’s current research includes work on the impacts of business incentives on employment, with a particular focus on counties on state borders. He has conducted research for several entities in the Commonwealth of Kentucky including the Governor’s Offi ce of Energy Policy, the Department of Corrections, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, and the Cabinet for Economic Development. Dr. Jepsen’s research has appeared in leading economics journals such as the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Urban Economics, and Economics Letters. Kenneth T. Troske William B. Sturgill Professor of Economics, Director of the Center for Business and Economic Research Dr. Troske is an economist specializing in labor economics and public policy analysis. Dr. Troske’s current research includes examining the effectiveness of the Workforce Development System in several states and analyzing the effect of children on women’s labor force participation rates. Dr. Troske’s research has been funded by the Appalachian Regional Commissions, the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Spencer Foundation. Dr. Troske’s papers have appeared in many leading journals in economics including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Review of Economics and Statistics, and the American Economic Review. He is also a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (Bonn, Germany) and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, dubbed “the nation’s leading voucher advocates” by the Wall Street Journal, is a nonprofi t organization established in 1996. The origins of the foundation lie in the Friedmans’ long-standing concern about the serious defi ciencies in America’s elementary and secondary public schools. The best way to improve the quality of education, they believe, is to enable all parents with the freedom to choose the schools that their children attend. The Friedman Foundation builds upon this vision, clarifi es its meaning to the public and amplifi es the national call for true education reform through school choice. Bluegrass Institute BLUEGRASS The Bluegrass Institute is a research and educational institution offering free-market solutions to Ken- tucky’s most pressing problems. Our mission is to collaborate with supportive partners and leverage INSTITUTE resources toward helping Kentuckians regain their freedom. Center for Business and Economic Research The Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) is the applied business and economic research branch of the Gatton College of Business and Economics. Housed within the Department of Economics, CBER has a long history of conducting applied economic studies and is the leading source of information on the Kentucky economy. CBER conducts applied business and economic research projects, serves as an ex- pert on business and economic data and information on Kentucky, and provides economic and public policy information to interested persons, government agencies, businesses, and media across the Commonwealth. Acknowledgements Funding for this project was provided by the Friedman Foundation and the Bluegrass Institute. Anna Stewart provided excel- lent editorial assistance, and Casey Brasher, Kylie Goggins, and Nola Ogunro provided excellent research assistance. Executive Summary The passage of the Kentucky Educational Reform Act (KERA) in 1990 had a dramatic impact on the funding of primary and secondary education in the state. The amount of money spent on education increased signifi cantly with the passage of KERA with districts in rural areas of the state experiencing the largest growth in spending (Hoyt, 1999). This has led to a decline in the disparity between rural and urban districts in education spending. However, despite the increase in educational spending, Kentucky still lags behind the typical state in the U.S. in spending per student (Troske, 2008). Although several studies examine the impact that KERA had on the level of spending, very little work has been done on the impact of KERA and on how the increase in education money is being spent. What evidence there is suggests that KERA may have impacted the allocation of education dollars in Kentucky. In 1996 Kentucky had the lowest ratio of teachers relative to total public school staff of any state in the country, so Kentucky appears to be spending a much larger share of its educational budget on administrative staff compared to other states (Hoyt, 1999).