School Resources, the Achievement Gap, and the Law: Reconsidering School Finance, Policies, and Resources in US Education Policy

by David J. Armor, John R. Munich, Aron Malatinszky

Overview

This book offers a novel and up-to-date exploration of the common belief that increasing conventional school resources will increase academic achievement and help close gaps between various advantaged and disadvantaged students. Taking the scholarship around this question, such as James S. Coleman’s 1965 report on the Equality of Educational Opportunity, as a starting point, it brings in an extensive range of contemporary data sources and statistical analysis to offer an updated, robust, and considered review of the issue. Moving beyond these empirical questions, it also explores how these empirical findings have been utilized in “education adequacy” litigation, discussing the evolving law of adequacy cases, while explaining the challenges of introducing complex data and analyses within a litigation framework. Judges typically have little experience with the complexity of modern education data and the analyses required to draw sound inferences. It will thus be of interest to scholars, researchers, and faculty and jurists with expertise or interest in education policy, the economics and sociology of education, and public policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032505756
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/26/2025
Series:	Routledge Research in Education Policy and Politics
Pages:	182
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

David J. Armor is a professor emeritus of public policy in the School of Public Policy and Government at George Mason University, USA.

John R. Munich is a partner at Stinson LLP, where he chairs the firm's Business and Commercial Litigation division and leads the Education Funding Litigation practice group.

Aron Malatinszky is a PhD student in the Department of Economics at Boston University, USA.

Table of Contents

1. Shock and Awe in Education: The 1966 Coleman Report and the 2020 COVID-19 Crisis. 2. The State of School Resource Research. 3. The State of Education Adequacy Law. 4. Study Approach, Data, and Methods. 5. School Resource Impacts Using US National Assessments (NAEP). 6. The Case of New York State: Achievement and Adequacy. 7. The Case of New Mexico. 8. The Case of South Dakota. 9. School Resource Effects in South Carolina. 10. School Resource Effects in North Carolina. 11. School Resource Effects Using International Assessments (PISA). 12. The Impact of School Composition. 13. What Works if Conventional Resources Do Not? 14.  Summary and Conclusions                                   

Editorial Reviews

“Sure, money matters in education—up to a point. Without some of it, we’d have no schools, but, as this fine book explains, putting in more doesn’t reliably yield stronger student achievement. What the U.S. needs—more urgently than ever, due to pandemic-induced learning losses—is more effective schools, not richer ones. That calls for strategies that produce learning, not shoveling resources in pursuit of a legalistic ‘school-adequacy’ chimera.”

- Chester E. Finn, Jr., former Assistant Secretary of Education, President Emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Volker Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, USA.

"School Resources, the Achievement Gap, and the Law is a terrific book for anyone who wants to understand the effect of greater resources on academic achievement. It is compact, very readable, and a volume every policymaker, lawyer, and researcher who deals with education should have on hand. It does not settle the perennial question, “does money matter?” – no book is likely to do that – but it provides significant evidence that the answer is “probably not as much as you think.”

- Neal McClusky, Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute, USA, and author of The Fractured Schoolhouse Reexamining Education for a Free, Equal, and Harmonious Society.

"This accessible volume offers positive suggestions for how schools could improve. And, yes, those interventions, like all policies, cost money. But simply giving additional money to schools in the hopes that they will find and successfully implement effective reforms has failed over and over again, as this book persuasively demonstrates. The question addressed by this book is not whether money matters but whether blank checks for schools are wise."

- Jay P. Greene, Senior Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation; Former Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Education Reform, University of Arkansas, USA.

“Sure, money matters in education—up to a point. Without some of it, we’d have no schools, but, as this fine book explains, putting in more doesn’t reliably yield stronger student achievement. What the U.S. needs—more urgently than ever, due to pandemic-induced learning losses—is more effective schools, not richer ones. That calls for strategies that produce learning, not shoveling resources in pursuit of a legalistic ‘school-adequacy’ chimera.”

- Chester E. Finn, Jr., former Assistant Secretary of Education, President Emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Volker Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, USA.

"School Resources, the Achievement Gap, and the Law is a terrific book for anyone who wants to understand the effect of greater resources on academic achievement. It is compact, very readable, and a volume every policymaker, lawyer, and researcher who deals with education should have on hand. It does not settle the perennial question, “does money matter?” – no book is likely to do that – but it provides significant evidence that the answer is “probably not as much as you think.”

- Neal McClusky, Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute, USA, and author of The Fractured Schoolhouse Reexamining Education for a Free, Equal, and Harmonious Society.

"This accessible volume offers positive suggestions for how schools could improve. And, yes, those interventions, like all policies, cost money. But simply giving additional money to schools in the hopes that they will find and successfully implement effective reforms has failed over and over again, as this book persuasively demonstrates. The question addressed by this book is not whether money matters but whether blank checks for schools are wise."

- Jay P. Greene, Senior Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation; Former Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Education Reform, University of Arkansas, USA.

From the Publisher