A Think Twice Review of:

Review of Public Education at a Crossroads: A Comprehensive Look at K-12 Resources and Outcomes

Think Twice - Apr 09, 2024

Publisher/Think Tank - Reason Foundation

Author(s) - Aaron Garth Smith, Christian Barnard, and Jordan Campbell

A growing and persuasive body of research has established the causal relationship between school funding and academic outcomes. The reality that money matters is not in serious dispute. But a new report from the Reason Foundation uses some superficial comparisons to try again to muddy the waters.

Reviewer(s) - Clive Belfield, City University of New York

Clive Belfield, a professor at the City University of New York and Principal Economist at the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies in Education, University of Pennsylvania, reviewed Public Education at a Crossroads: A Comprehensive Look at K-12 Resources and Outcomes, finding it to use poor methodology and analysis to lead to its vacuous conclusions—most pointedly that there "isn't a consistent relationship between funding growth and outcomes across states."