More money can't be the only answer but can help improve K-12 schools, Kansas audit finds

Nonpartisan auditors for the Kansas Legislature found that increasing spending in certain areas can improve student outcomes, but the state's K-12 public education system needs more than just more money.

"The short answer ... is that no amount of increased spending will result in all students meeting state standards, but targeted increases may improve some students' outcomes," Heidi Zimmerman, who supervised the audit team, told the Legislative Post Audit Committee last week.

The Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit reported to lawmakers on the finding of its "Estimating the Cost of K-12 Education." The auditors were tasked by state law with estimating what the cost would be all K-12 public school students to have the educational opportunities "to achieve the performance outcome standards adopted by the state board of education." Instead, the auditors evaluated the relationship between spending and outcomes.

The audit did not identify how much money would be needed for all students to meet state standards, concluding that money alone will never ensure student success.

"Measuring opportunity is subjective, and it varies from student to student," Zimmerman said. "And further, it is unlikely that all students will meet state standards even if provided the opportunity to do so. So building a cost model that assumes a subjective and ultimately unreachable outcome will not lead to a reliable or realistic answer."

Because of that, the auditors created their own model with about 70 different variables to better reflect the various complexities.

The auditors concluded that "general spending increases are unlikely to significantly improve student outcomes," though targeting increased spending in certain areas "may have a moderate to significant impact on the number of students who meet state standards."

"However," the auditors wrote, "even this targeted spending approach appeared to fall far short of closing the achievement gap and leaves significant numbers of students not meeting state standards. It is likely that strategies beyond just spending more money are needed to give Kansas schoolchildren the best chance at academic success."

Education spending has increased, enrollment and achievement decreased

The audit used used 2017-22 data from various agencies, including both pre-COVID and post-COVID assessment results, plus input from various organizations and experts.

They determined the state's school districts had $7.9 billion in local, state and federal funding in 2022. About 64% of the funding came from the state government, about 24% was local taxpayers and 12% was federal money.

After controlling for inflation, school districts spent 12% more in 2022 than 2017, and the jump was largely due to federal funding related to COVID-19. Meanwhile, student enrollment declined while staffing increased.

Student performance also declined. The audit's evaluation of English, math and science state assessment scores found that only about one-third of students met state standards in the three subjects.

The auditors did estimate a cost to provide special education services. But the cost is tied to students meeting the goals of their individualized education plans and not necessarily meeting state standards.

At about $1.2 billion, school districts are spending at the low end of what is required for special education.

The state's school need to have between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion a year for the approximately 88,400 special education students to meet IEPs, the audit found. About 90% of the costs are for staff salaries and benefits, and the auditors noted that their estimates assume district can hire more staff than what is actually available.

The auditors also suggested their cost estimate is understated "because we assumed more efficiency than can actually exist in special education."

Across-the-board spending increases aren't effective

While part of the audit's purpose was to determine what funding level is needed to provide educational opportunities where every public school student can succeed, the auditors acknowledged that not all students will meet state standards when given the opportunity because students have different abilities, motivations and home lives.

"It is unlikely that any amount of additional spending will result in all students meeting state standards because student outcomes are the result of many factors beyond spending," the auditors concluded.

Across-the-board spending increases were associated with little to no improvement. The model suggested that a 15% increase in per-student spending at a cost of $650 million would result in almost no additional students meeting state standards.

"Not every increase in spending has an impact on student outcomes," Zimmerman said. "When spending is spread over all types of categories and all types of spending, some amount is spent on things that have little impact on student outcomes, and then often not enough is spent on the things that really matter."

Targeted spending increases, like higher teacher pay, can help students

Any spending increases should be targeted to areas most effective at helping students, the audit found.

"Targeted increases in spending were associated with improvements in the number of students who met state standards, but significant numbers of students would still be unlikely to meet state standards," the audit said.

Targeted spending increases were associated with a 17% increase in students meeting state standards and a 43% increase in disadvantaged students meeting state standards.

The auditors found that spending on administrative activities was consistently associated with improved student outcomes, but they did not discover what kind of administrative spending increases are most effective.

"We can tell you that that relationship exists, I can't tell you exactly why or what that spending would look like," Zimmerman said. "We can see here that there is something about that administrative spending and something about improving the quality of your building leadership, like your principles and your district leadership."

The audit suggested that paying good teachers more money is good for students, but paying to have more teachers or more paraprofessionals and teacher aides is not a worthwhile investment.

Higher teacher pay was associated with more students meeting state standards. But so was having a slightly higher ratio of students per teacher.

"The combination of these seem to indicate that students likely benefit from higher quality teachers even if class sizes are slightly larger," the audit said.

Zimmerman said the student to teacher ratio findings go "counter to the prevailing wisdom." While the audit wasn't saying that smaller class sizes are bad, it indicated that the hiring of more teachers in order to achieve smaller class sizes can create "a tradeoff between quantity and quality of teachers."

"So over time, what happens is whatever benefits you might have gained from smaller class sizes, essentially it gets lost because you're putting lower quality teachers in those classrooms," she said.

Having fewer paras and aides compared to the number of teachers was also associated with better student outcomes.

"This may indicate that students benefit more when teachers deliver content than when paraprofessionals do," the audit said.

Zimmerman added that "this model should not be interpreted that paras are not important or not valuable."

Increased spending on English as a second language services and free lunch were both associated with significant improvements in outcomes for disadvantaged students. But disadvantaged students still lagged far behind in the model.

Auditors said it would likely take another $2 billion in order to get disadvantaged students to perform more similarly to other students.

How will legislators use audit findings?

The audit acknowledged that increased spending in areas that help students can come through reallocating existing funds and doesn't necessarily require an increase in funding. Auditors noted that "it is the districts' responsibility to direct funding to specific spending categories."

Despite improved outcomes from targeted spending increases, there would still be a significant number of students not meeting standards. Auditors also emphasized that they are only "associated with improvement" and "increased spending in these areas cannot guarantee improvements."

"First of all, spending matters," Zimmerman said. "But not all spending has the same impact on students, and even a targeted spending approach still fell far short of closing the achievement gap and still left significant numbers of students behind. So it is likely that strategies beyond just spending more money are needed to give Kansas kids the best chance of academic success."

It is unclear how state lawmakers will use the audit amid ever-present debates over education funding, student achievement and school choice.

"I'm kind of struggling to figure out what is the legislative piece," said Sen. Ethan Corson, D-Fairway. "Because really, it seems like a lot of the decisions that you're talking about that do have an impact on student achievement are really more made by our local school district."

"How the Legislature chooses to interpret and use the report is obviously up to you guys, and we we won't weigh in on that," Zimmerman replied.

Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Shawnee, said, "The reality is spending has gone up, performance has gone down" and there needs to be more examination of what is being taught.

"If we're going to examine increasing one thin dime of funding, we have to be sure that what we're doing is going to work," Thompson said. "And that means examining everything. What is being taught? Why aren't we able to teach kids math, English science, things of that nature? How do we justify to the taxpayer spending more money and getting less results?

"That's my big concern about all this. I think the whole thing has to be examined from the top down before we decide to put one more penny in into this and continue to throw good money after bad."

Jason Alatidd is a statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@gannett.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas audits whether more money would help students meet standards