A Comparison of Three Methods for Providing Local Evidence to Inform School and District Budget Decisions

ABSTRACT

School and district leaders make annual decisions about investing their budgets in a multitude of educational programs. Policy directives set expectations for investing in programs that show evidence of improving student outcomes. However, evaluating many simultaneously-implemented programs under typical school operating conditions is challenging. We investigated three methods – cost-effectiveness analysis, program value-added analysis, and academic return on investment – to assess how each one fares against three criteria: rigor of methodology, difficulty of execution, and usability of results for decision-making. We apply each method to three programs implemented in a large, U.S. school district: Reading Recovery, Restorative Practices, and school nurses.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The large difference in cost per student arises because Simon (2011) assumes one Reading Recovery teacher per school, serving eight students, while Hollands et al. (2013) used the national average statistics for Reading Recovery of 1.6 teachers and 12.9 students per school.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported here was supported by theInstitute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education,through Grant R305H180003 to Teachers College, Columbia University. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.