TY  - JOUR
AB  - Understanding the impact of K-12 spending on student outcomes has become increasingly important as our nation deals with the economic and social cost of COVID 19. A forthcoming Jackson, Wigger, and Xiong (2020a, JWX) paper provides evidence that education spending reductions following the Great Recession had widespread negative impacts on student achievement and attainment. We replicate JWX as a first step in modeling the potential effects of the pandemic on K-12 spending and outcomes. This paper describes our process of duplicating JWX and highlights a variety of tests we employ to investigate the nature and robustness of the relationship between school spending reductions and student outcomes. Though per-pupil expenditures undoubtedly shifted downward due to the Great Recession, contrary to the JWX study, our findings indicate there is not a clear and compelling story about the impact of those reductions on student achievement. Moreover, we find that the relationship between K-12 spending and college-going rates is likely confounded with contemporaneous higher education funding trends. While we believe that K-12 spending reductions may have negative impacts on student outcomes, our results suggest that estimating generalizable causal effects remains a significant challenge.
AU  - Goldstein, Jessica
AU  - McGee, Josh B.
DA  - October 2020
DO  - 10.26300/qzrd-0323
PY  - 2020
ST  - Did Spending Cuts During the Great Recession Really Cause Student Outcomes to Decline?
T2  - EdWorkingPapers.com
TI  - Did Spending Cuts During the Great Recession Really Cause Student Outcomes to Decline?
UR  - https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-303
ID  - 278
ER  -