SPECIAL REPORT:BEST SCHOOLS
Spending vs. achievement: Doing the math is revealing
Per-pupil costs vary by thousands of dollars in area districts, but are costlier schools better? Probably not
By MARY B. PASCIAK
News Staff Reporter
5/2/2005

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That old saying, you get what you pay for, might be true when you're talking about cars or refrigerators.
But not necessarily when it comes to schools.

Taxpayers in Lancaster spend $6,524 per student to run their schools every day.

In Barker, a rural Niagara County district, taxpayers spend $10,587 per student.

Yet fourth-grade pupils in Lancaster do as well on standardized tests as kids in Barker. Eighth-grade scores in the two districts are identical. High school students do as well on Regents exams in both places.

Throughout Erie and Niagara counties, school districts whose students do the best are not necessarily those spending the most money, a Buffalo News analysis found.

That's the case everywhere, experts say.

"Nationally, we've found very little relationship between what's spent on schools and what the schools contribute to learning," said Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University.

What does seem to make a difference is how much a student's family earns. The wealthier the family, the better a student's test scores, national research shows. But when it comes to money being spent by school districts, that's another story.

The district with the best raw test scores is Clarence, which spends less per pupil than 27 of the 37 other local districts.

Raw test scores in Barker - the highest-spending district - are just above average.

The News analyzed the relationship between state math and English language arts scores and district spending, as well as the relation between test scores and teacher pay and experience. The relationship between teacher pay and district spending also was evaluated.

The only direct relationship The News found was between teacher pay and district spending.





Key cost is teacher pay

Teacher salaries are the biggest expense for any school district.

And the more experienced teachers are, the more they cost. Starting pay in most districts is about $35,000. But pay rises considerably once teachers reach the top of the pay scale, which is about 20 years in most districts.

The base pay for veteran teachers ranges from $65,000 to $85,000 in Erie and Niagara counties and is more than $80,000 a year in more than half the districts.

Teacher experience, though, does not result in better student test scores, The News analysis found.

The most experienced teachers are in Barker, where more than half taught for at least 16 years. The median teacher salary there is $61,822, among the highest in the area.

The next-most-experienced teaching staffs are in the Buffalo and Royalton-Hartland districts, with 15 years. Yet Buffalo's test scores are among the lowest and Roy-Hart's are in the bottom five.

Total teacher costs don't just reflect how long teachers have been on the payroll but how many there are. More teachers often result in smaller class sizes. And small class size can be expensive.

Barker has the smallest class size in the area and spends the most per pupil. Lancaster spends the least per pupil and has some of the largest classes.

An average kindergarten class in Barker has 16 pupils vs. 21 in Lancaster. An average sophomore English class has 15 students in Barker and 24 in Lancaster.

Studies show that classes of 14 students get better results than those with 30 students. But for the large range in between, the difference is nominal.

"Smaller classes are easier to teach, in a very simple way. What you're seeing is that people in these schools would rather have easier jobs," said Hanushek. "Whether or not those smaller classes will lead to better achievement depends on how good those teachers are."





Impact of poverty

The two districts spending the most per pupil, after Barker, are Buffalo - which has the lowest tests scores - and Lackawanna, whose scores are only slightly better than Buffalo's.

Special education drives up costs in both impoverished cities.

Children in poverty are more likely to end up in special education, experts say, for a variety of reasons, ranging from inadequate health care to environmental problems such as lead poisoning.

In Buffalo, 18.5 percent of the students receive special education services, compared with a state average of 11.9 percent. The special education costs increase overall per-pupil spending in Buffalo by 24 percent, bringing it to $9,639, according to state data for 2002-03.

Special education is a term that encompasses many disabilities.

About half of the children getting special education services are categorized "learning disabled," which includes everything from attention deficit disorder to speech impairment.

Some students are pulled out of class a few hours a week for things like occupational therapy. Others are taught in classes of six or 12, each with one teacher and one aide.

Students with severe disabilities can require more extensive care - in rare cases residential placements, such as Gateway-Longview, for emotionally disturbed children, or attendance at a privately run specialized school, such as Summit, a school for children with autism. The price tag for extreme needs can be as much as $70,000 a year, district officials say.

"Special education across the board is more expensive," said Richard P. Brennan, director of special education for Erie 1 Board of Cooperative Educational Services. "The primary reason is that class size is smaller. It's just much more labor intensive."

Barker's tax windfall

The Barker superintendent acknowledges his district spends more than most.

For years, Barker's schools were pretty much like those in any small rural town. Then, about a quarter-century ago, New York State Electric & Gas Corp. built a power plant in the Town of Somerset, which is in the district.

It was a windfall. The $900 million plant, accounting for 80 percent of the school district's tax levy, lifted much of the residential property tax burden.

"It became part of the culture here that, because the power plant was here, we could give our kids things that people in other poor rural districts could not," said Superintendent Steven LaRock. "People wanted that for their children. We have very small class sizes and some other resources other districts don't have."

Taxpayers are getting good value, and students are getting a good education, he said.

"Our kids are achieving extremely well," he said.

In Lancaster, where the district struggles to build additions fast enough to keep up with its growing population, class sizes are among the largest in the area.

But Superintendent Thomas J. Markle does not see that as a weakness and takes pride in the district for its low spending and good academic performance.

The district has hired teaching assistants, who circulate among several classrooms to help. Teacher's aides provide extra assistance in elementary classrooms. The salary of either position is just a fraction of what a veteran teacher would make.

"Good, caring adults can stretch the teachers' academic skills a long way," Markle said. "We're eclectic, and we pick and choose what the best answer is."

Lancaster, which has about 6,100 students, also enjoys the benefits of an economy of scale when it comes to purchasing, unlike Barker, which has only 1,200 students. The cost of bigger-ticket items are spread out across more students in Lancaster.

While that is something Barker cannot control, school officials there are beginning to look for other ways to control spending.

Over the past several years, the power plant has been losing value, to the point where it's now worth only about half as much as it was when it was built.

As the tax burden shifts back to the residents, school officials are looking for ways to bring Barker's spending more in line with other districts while maintaining quality. In the past few years, more than 10 positions have been cut, LaRock said. And more changes are on the way.

"The culture of the school district has to change," LaRock said.

News Researcher Andrew Bailey contributed to this report.

e-mail: mpasciak@buffnews.com