The impacts of school resources on student achievement have been debated for half a century with no consensus reached among scholars. This topic has received increasing attention under the backdrop of both the educational accountability movement and the economic downturn of recent years. Using student and school-level longitudinal data from Florida, this study examines the impacts of school resources on student achievement in math. The study also examines whether and how the impacts of school resources vary for students with different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and whether the marginal effects of school inputs diminish with input levels. Overall, this study does not find consistent evidence showing a causal relation between added school expenditure and student achievement in math within school-and-principals. However, the results indicate that differences in per student expenditures are statistically related to differences in student achievement in math across schools and principals at the elementary and middle school levels. Since these correlations may stem from the impacts of unobserved characteristics of students, schools and principals, further investigations are necessary to make firm conclusions. This study calls more attention to the way current resouces are used. More specifically, neither a reduction in class size nor an increase in average years of teacher experience may improve student academic performance. However, an increase in the percentages of teachers with advanced degrees may raise student achievement in math at the elementary and high school levels. The percentages of classes being taught by in-field teachers also matters for student achievement at high school level. This study also indicates that the impacts of per student expenditure and class size may vary for students with different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, thus more attention should to be given to the special needs of these disadvantaged groups. However, since some conditional funding programs are not considered in this study, further investigations need to be conducted for more definitive conclusions. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2011. / February 24, 2011. / school resources, principal, educational expenditure, accountability, achievement / Includes bibliographical references. / Patrice Iatarola, Professor Directing Dissertation; Tim R. Sass, University Representative; Jeffrey A. Milligan, Committee Member; Peter Easton, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_254333 |
| Contributors | Gao, Jian (authoraut), Iatarola, Patrice (professor directing dissertation), Sass, Tim R. (university representative), Milligan, Jeffrey A. (committee member), Easton, Peter (committee member), Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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