Micaela Dawson

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

/in , , , /by Micaela Dawson
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:

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!

Pioneer Institute Mourns the Passing of Tom Birmingham

We at Pioneer Institute mourn the loss of Tom Birmingham even as we are thankful for having had the opportunity to get to know this kind and brilliant man when in office and later, when he spent several years as Pioneer’s distinguished senior fellow in education.

Pulitzer Winner Prof. David Garrow on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement

0 Comments
/
https://chrt.fm/track/4655F8/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/53284998/tlc_davidgarrow.mp3 This…

Sinking U.S. Shipping: Ineffective Law Creates Waves for American Economy

Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Cato Institute research fellow Colin Grabow about the failure of the Jones Act, a law that sought to protect the U.S. shipbuilding and merchant marine capacity. They examine its downstream effects on inflation, supply chain fragility, and energy access that directly affect every American.

First-of-Its-Kind Interactive Mapping Tool Reveals Extent of For-Profit Entities Benefitting from the 340B Drug Pricing Program

Today, Pioneer Institute released a first-of-its-kind, 50-state mapping tool and database highlighting the troubling way in which hospitals and covered entities leverage unlimited pharmacy contracts under the 340B Drug Pricing Program.

Independent Institute’s Dr. Richard Vedder on Higher Education, Skyrocketing Tuitions, & the Student Debt Crisis

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Richard Vedder, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Economics at Ohio University. He shares analysis on the macro impact of COVID on the U.S. labor market, and the long-term economic prospects of American college students. He reviews insights from his recent book, "Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America."

Shopping Hospital Value: Price Transparency Mandate Brings Market Forces to Medicine

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute's senior healthcare fellow Barbara Anthony about her recently released paper, Massachusetts Hospitals: Uneven Compliance with New Federal Price Transparency Law, and how price transparency can empower consumers to shop for better value and encourage hospitals to offer more competitive costs.

Columbia’s Prof. Roosevelt Montás on the Great Books & a Liberal Arts Education

Professor Roosevelt Montás, Director of the Freedom and Citizenship Program at Columbia University, and author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, shares his immigrant story and what inspired his appreciation for the Great Books tradition.

Immigration Unbound: After Title 42 Comes the Deluge

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Todd Bensman, senior fellow at the Center For Immigration Studies, about the conditions for aspiring immigrants and border security officials at the U.S.-Mexico border and the likely effects of the expiration of Title 42, a policy that had denied asylum claims during Covid-19.

Happy Holidays

During this festive season, we want to wish you and your loved ones a joyous holiday and happy New Year.

Pioneer Commends MA Governor-elect Healey’s Step Toward Greater Transparency

Pioneer Institute commends Governor-elect Maura Healey for choosing not to claim a public records exemption for the governor’s office. Governor-elect Healey also pledged to support legislation that would curb exemptions claimed by the legislative and judiciary branches of state government.

UK’s Prof. Michael Slater on Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge, and A Christmas Carol

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-host Gerard Robinson and guest co-host Mary Connaughton talk with Prof. Michael Slater, Emeritus Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London, and the world's foremost expert on Charles Dickens and his works. They discuss some of the main elements of Dickens’ brilliant, prolific, and complicated life, as the 19th century’s most influential, best-selling writer of memorable works, from Oliver Twist to Great Expectations.

Eight Billion Minds: Unsustainable Population Bomb or Infinite Resource?

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Cato Scholar and author Marian Tupy about his new book, Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet, focusing on the contrast in policy perspectives between those who see humans consumers of finite resources and those who recognize the unlimited potential of human ingenuity.