School Spending & Outcomes Snapshot: Supporting Conversations on Equity and School Improvement

Logo that reads School Spending and Outcomes Snapshot

The School Spending & Outcomes Snapshot allows users to view and print data visualizations to explore spending and outcomes data in order to foster thoughtful conversations to improve equity and outcomes in their schools communities.

Resources for education leaders and advocates and examples of SSOS in Action are linked below.

 

School Spending & Outcomes Snapshot

Select a state and district under Get Started, then select which data display you want to see.

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The following information was developed to help you get more of the SSOS.

Questions to Explore

 

The School Spending & Outcomes Snapshot (SSOS) allows users to view and print data visualizations to explore spending and outcomes data based on location, year, grade band, and more. The following are questions, organized by user, to supplement the data and foster thoughtful conversations to improve equity and outcomes in school communities.

Select one of the following groups or dowload the full list of questions to explore.

District Leaders

Display #1

  1. Which school spends the most per student? The least?
  2. Are variations in spending aligned to student need? Why or why not?
  3. Do you think changes are needed in how the district allocates resources to schools?

Display #2

  1. Is there a school that spends less than the average but is higher performing?
  2. Is there a school that spends more than the average and is higher performing?
  3. Is there a school that spends more than the average and yet is lower performing?
  4. Is there a school that spends less than the average and is lower performing?
  5. Does each of our principals know which quadrant they're in?
  6. Does this information provide any ideas about how to manage the district's schools?

Display #3

  1. How do your elementary schools compare to others in the state with similar poverty levels?
  2. Are any in the lower right quadrant (meaning it spends more but gets lower outcomes than similar peers)? Does the school know that it is relatively expensive and yet is producing lower outcomes than peers?
  3. Are any in the upper left quadrant (meaning it is better at leveraging its dollars to do more for students than similar peers)? Does the school know that it beats the odds for its students with the money it has?

Display #4

  1. How do your middle compare on spending and math outcomes to others in the state? Do your middle schools get a fair amount of money? Is there a school where the district should be making a push to improve outcomes?

Display #5

  1. How do your high schools compare on spending and outcomes to others in the state? Do your high schools get a fair amount of money? Is there a school where the district should be making a push to improve outcomes?
School Leaders

Display #1

  1. How does your school's spending compare to others in the district and to similar schools in the district?
  2. Does the spending seem fair? Are variations in spending aligned to student need?
  3. Do you think changes are needed in how the district allocates resources to schools?

Display #2

  1. How do your school's outcomes compare to similar schools?
  2. How can you use this information? What would you say to your teachers/parents?
Parents, Advocates, Community Members

Display #1

  1. How does your school's spending compare to others in the district? To similar schools in the district?
  2. What trends do you see across the district? Does anything surprise you?
  3. Does the spending seem fair? Are variations in spending aligned to student need?
  4. Do you think changes are needed in how the district allocates resources to schools?

Display #2

  1. How do your school's outcomes compare to similar schools?
  2. How, if at all, could this information help district and school leaders improve student outcomes?
  3. How could this information be used to make decisions about how the district distributes money to its schools?
School Board Members

Display #1

  1. What trends do you see across the district?
  2. Which school draws down the most per student? The least?
  3. Are variations in spending aligned to student need? Why or why not?
  4. Do you think changes are needed in how the district allocates resources to schools?

Display #2

  1. Is there a school that is higher performing and spending more than the average?
  2. Is there a school that is lower performing and spending more than the average?
  3. Are any schools "beating the odds" with the money they have? Are there any promising spending practices across types of schools?
  4. Does this information give you any ideas about how to manage your schools?
  5. To what extent, if at all, could this information be used to make or change decisions about how money gets allocated to schools in our district?

Display #3

  1. How do your elementary schools compare to others in the state with similar poverty levels?
  2. Are any in the lower right quadrant (meaning it spends more but gets lower outcomes than similar peers)?
  3. Are any in the upper left quadrant (meaning it is better at leveraging its dollars to do more for students than similar peers)?

Display #4

  1. How do your middle compare on spending and math outcomes to others in the state? Do your middle schools get a fair amount of money? Is there a school where the district should be making a push to improve outcomes?

Display #5

  1. How do your high schools compare on spending and outcomes to others in the state? Do your high schools get a fair amount of money? Is there a school where the district should be making a push to improve outcomes?
State Education Agency

The data have informal and formal application for the management and improvement of schools. Most notably, state education agencies (SEAs) could use the displays to conduct Every Student Succeeds Act-required periodic resource allocation reviews (RARs) in districts that serve low-performing schools. With these displays and this discussion protocol, SEA teams can facilitate a critical conversation around data on resources and outcomes.

SSOS in Action

 

An illustration depicts a variety of data visualization techniques

Recipe for High Impact Research

State, district, and school leaders want-and need-help translating data and research findings to inform decision-making. In this blog Edunomics Lab, shares lessons learned from designing data tools including SSOS with end users in mind, toward helping other researchers maximize the impact of their own work.

Read the Blog

A screen grab from a website reads "Edunomics Lab Design Challenge Proposal"

Future of Ed Data Challenge

In this winning proposal, Edunomics Lab describes a set of policies designed to disrupt business-as-usual routines in school districts (like developing and passing an annual district budget) by getting leaders to use productivity data (like shown in SSOS)-that is, data that pairs spending with existing data on outcomes at each school.

Read the Proposal: How Public Education Can Use Productivity Metrics to Drive Continuous Improvement

Communicating About Spending and Outcomes

 

Looking at school-by-school spending data is new. These resources guide leaders in using the data visualizations to foster thoughtful conversations with different stakeholder groups on topics of financial strategy and management, equity, and using resources to improve student outcomes.

This information is also available as a downloadable resource: Leading Thoughtful Conversations on Resource Equity Using School-by-School Spending Data.

 

Four Common Communication Pitfalls to Avoid

1. Focusing solely on what we don't know

"We'd need to know what programs the school Implemented"

"Is there a problem with teacher hiring"

"How well did the school perform the year before"

2. Focusing only on metrics, e.g. flaws/details

"Test don't measure everything -- including mental well-being" and "Does this adjust for special education spending?"

3. Avoiding saying the obvious

"Crickets" vs. "Our larger investors in this school aren't working for students."

4. Explanations that don't acknowledge that the district made spending choices

"This school costs more per student because it's smaller" vs. "This district chose to subsidize smaller schools with one-per-school staffing"

 

If or When This Happens: What Discricts Can Say (and do)

Leader:

"Yikes I don't know how this happened or how to fix it."

"Looking at the district's expenses from the school lens is new to us and reveals some noteworthy patterns. We're eager to engage with our principals/community/boards to explore how to best deploy out limited funds to do the most for all the district's students"

School Board Member:

"Wow - teacher seniority seems to be driving up spending at some of our schools."

"We use a salary scale based on experience, so we spend more on schools that attract senior teachers. That leaves fewer dollars for schools with junior teachers. We're eager to engage with our principals/teachers/community about options that might both retain our teachers and work better for all out students"

Parent:

"Why is this magnet school so expensive"

"The extra funds we've been applying to our special programs do leave fewer dollars for other schools. This is a good time to explore whether there are ways to protect those programs without drawing funds from other schools and students."

Parent:

"Why is the district giving more money to higher-poverty schools?"

"Our approach to equity means delivering more resources to students with higher needs. Going forward, we'll try to make that clear by clarifying allocations by student type."

Principal:

"If the school is so small, why is it so expensive per student?"

"The district does deploy more dollars to its smaller (or under-enrolled) schools, leaving fewer dollars of all the other schools. Given the limited district resources, it may be time to explore how we can construct a budget that better serves all out students where they are at."

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Below you'll find answers to the most common questions you may have on the School Spending & Outcomes Snapshot (SSOS). Select any of the items to lean more.

Why the School Spending & Outcomes Snapshot?

The new ESSA requirement to report school-by-school spending provides a unique opportunity to inform policy, management, and improvement about the financial elements of schooling. However, the current financial transparency reporting requirement is far from sufficient to ensure that the data will be accessible to and used by school leaders, school board members and parents. As the initial June 2020 deadline for reporting these data approached, state education agency staff scrambled to design visualizations to communicate the data to key stakeholders, and many states still have no visualizations available at all.

This project focused on designing visualizations such that key stakeholders could understand answers to questions like “Is my school leveraging dollars to do the most for students?” and “How equitable is a particular district’s allocation method?" Working over two years with 26 districts, we piloted numerous displays, gathered feedback, and designed this tool. The Tool’s goal is that stakeholders at all levels can access educational financial and outcomes data in a visual manner that fuels thoughtful conversation among district and school communities on financial strategy and management.

Districts participating in the pilot received communications training and conversation protocols to support their use of the displays. Results of the pilot were shared at STATSDC 2021 and NAESPA 2022.

piloted data visualizations to understand what displays work to fuel thoughtful conversation among district and school communities on financial strategy and management, ultimately informing the design and usefulness of this tool.

What does the "Median" line represent?

The median is the point where half the schools have spending/test higher and half have spending/test scores lower than that point. For the district-only scatterplot, the median line represents the median for that district. For the other two scatterplots, the median represents the median spending or proficiency for all schools in display (e.g., all high, middle, or elementary schools in the noted poverty quartile).

What does the color represent?

Color is used to show the relative level of economic disadvantage among students in a given school. The default color palette marks low poverty schools as green, middle poverty schools as yellow, and high poverty schools as red. Users can choose to view the displays in an alternate color palette or grey scale. For each state, we used the poverty metric utilized by the state, which is often free and reduced-price lunch data.

Where are the data sources?

The financial data is the state reported per student expenditure published on school report cards. Poverty and proficiency data are drawn from individual state data files published online. Where states do not post statewide poverty rates we use NCES.

Why are some schools missing from the displays?

If a given school or its district was flagged for a concerning financial value in NERD$, it has been excluded from all displays for FY19 only. Schools without outcomes data have been excluded from the scatterplot. The scatterplots also may be missing schools that have total per pupil expenditures less than or greater than a cutoff for that state. The cutoff is a subjective design choice meant to maximize the usefulness of the scatterplots by showing more variation among non-outliers.

Where can I find the list of missing schools?

Please find the list of missing schools here.

What years of data are used?

Data used varies by state. The axes labels list the years used for both financial and outcomes data.

Can I navigate the tool with only a keyboard or screen reader?

An accessible version of the tool can be accessed. Users can toggle between menu items using the Tab key. The menus can be operated by arrow keys and text entry. The tool is built with screen reader usage in mind. Below each data visualization is a table with the same data (the table renders as transparent so it only visible to screen readers).

My data seems implausible or I have other unanswered questions?

Please reach out to edunomics@georgetown.edu.