School Resources, the Achievement Gap, and the Law

Reconsidering School Finance, Policies, and Resources in US Education Policy

David J. Armor, John R. Munich, Aron Malatinszky

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781032498744
• eBook ISBN:
  9781003835837
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Policy

This book offers a novel and up-to-date exploration of the common belief that increasing conventional school resources will increase academic achievement and help close gaps between various advantaged and disadvantaged students. Taking the scholarship around this question, such as James S. Coleman's 1965 report on the Equality of Educational Opportunity, as a starting point, it brings in an extensive range of contemporary data sources and statistical analysis to offer an updated, robust, and considered review of the issue. Moving beyond these empirical questions, it also explores how these empirical findings have been utilized in "education adequacy" litigation, discussing the evolving law of adequacy cases, while explaining the challenges of introducing complex data and analyses within a litigation framework. Judges typically have little experience with the complexity of modern education data and the analyses required to draw sound inferences. It will thus be of interest to scholars, researchers, and faculty and jurists with expertise or interest in education policy, the economics and sociology of education, and public policy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Shock and Awe in Education: The 1966 Coleman Report and the 2020 COVID-19 Crisis
• 2 The State of School Resource Research
• 3 The State of Education Adequacy Law
• 4 Study Approach, Data, and Methods
• 5 School Resource Impacts Using US National Assessments (NAEP)
• 6 The Case of New York State: Achievement and Adequacy
• 7 The Case of New Mexico
• 8 The Case of South Dakota
• 9 School Resource Effects in South Carolina
• 10 School Resource Effects in North Carolina
• 11 School Resource Effects Using International Assessments (PISA)
• 12 The Impact of School Composition
• 13 What Works If Conventional Resources Do Not?
• 14 Summary and Conclusions
• Index