Dr. Marguerite Roza on K-12 School Finance, Spending, & Results

Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share on

LinkedIn

This week on “The Learning Curve,” Gerard and Cara talk with Dr. Marguerite Roza, Research Professor and Director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. Professor Roza describes the three distinct phases of how American K-12 education has been funded over the last 40 years, and implications for equity and overall student achievement. She offers perspectives on the productivity of America’s $800 billion annual spending on K-12 education, with 90 percent funded by state and local governments. Professor Roza shares thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of federal K-12 spending and policymaking, given that NAEP scores and achievement gaps remain largely unchanged after Race to the Top and ESSA. With only about half of total K-12 spending allocated to student instruction, she shares concerns about the growth of bureaucracies and non-instructional staffing at all levels – especially in larger urban school districts, where per pupil spending surpasses $20,000, yet achievement gaps and low graduation rates persist. Lastly, they explore the role of philanthropy in K-12 education’s ongoing struggles to deliver better results for schoolchildren, and criticisms by Diane Ravitch and the teacher unions.

Stories of the Week: Harvard Professor Cornel West laments Howard University’s decision to dismantle its Classics Department, noting the influence of ancient thinkers on Frederick Douglass and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Private schools have remained open for most of the past year while their public counterparts have stayed closed – is that a sign of the imbalance in power between parents and teachers unions?

Guest:

Dr. Marguerite Roza is Research Professor at Georgetown University and Director of the Edunomics Lab, a research center exploring and modeling complex education finance decisions to inform policy and practice. She leads the McCourt School of Public Policy’s Certificate in Education Finance, which equips participants with practical skills in strategic fiscal management, policy analysis, and leadership. Dr. Roza’s research traces the effects of fiscal policies at the federal, state, and district levels for their implications on resources at school and classroom levels. Her calculations of dollar implications and cost equivalent tradeoffs have prompted changes in education finance policy at all levels of the education system. She served as a Senior Economic Advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy teaching thermodynamics at the Naval Nuclear Power School. Roza is author of the highly regarded education finance book, Educational Economics: Where Do School Funds Go? She earned a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Washington and a B.S. from Duke University, and studied at the London School of Economics and the University of Amsterdam.

The next episode will air on Wednesday, May 5th, 2021 at 12 pm ET with guest, Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman Fellow in Education at The Heritage Foundation.

Tweet of the Week:

Part of the history of today's education choice movement: Booker T. Washington and Sears head Julius Rosenwald joined forces to build almost 5,000 schools for Black students in the South. https://t.co/SJj66lrsX5 via @WSJ

— Doug Tuthill (@DougTuthill) April 24, 2021

News Links:

Cornel West/WaPo: Howard University’s removal of classics is a spiritual catastrophe

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/19/cornel-west-howard-classics/

Colleen Hroncich: School Closures Highlight The Need For Parental Choice

https://www.iwf.org/2021/04/22/school-closures-highlight-the-need-for-parental-choice/

Get new episodes of The Learning Curve in your inbox!

Study Calls for Reinstating Passage of U.S. History Test as Graduation Requirement

January 25, 2013

The Massachusetts Legislature should require the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to reinstate passage of the U.S. history MCAS exam as a high school graduation requirement and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education should provide teachers in grades 6-10 with examples of specific texts that could be assigned to prepare students to read a seminal historical text such as Federalist #10 in grade 11 or 12, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

Low Dropout Rates at Voc-Techs

January 22, 2013

New Pioneer study finds that greater autonomy is a key to low vocational-technical high school dropout rates

Lots of art, little science in transportation plan

0 Comments

January 15, 2013

Rich Davey’s attempt at recreating the magic of Steve Jobs…

Consumer Driven Health Care a Proven Cost-Saving Strategy

0 Comments

December 11, 2012

As part of a push to contain health care cost growth, business leaders, state administrators, and policymakers should focus on Consumer Driven Health Care (CDHC) plans that involve consumers in making health care decisions.

Enter the Better Government Competition for Your Chance to Win $10,000

December 4, 2012

Enter Pioneer Institute's 2013 Better Government Competition for your chance to win $10,000. Read the contest guidelines and details about the topic.

2013 Ruth & Lovett Peters Fellowship Opportunity

0 Comments

October 11, 2012

Pioneer Institute is thrilled to announce the second annual Ruth and Lovett Peters Fellowship, an opportunity for a current or recent graduate student with a passionate interest in education policy and strong entrepreneurial and analytic abilities.