The Relationship between Local Fiscal Capacity and Student Achievement in Virginia Public School Divisions
Open AccessAre there definitive relationships between finance and student achievement? Researchers have studied this question since the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare published the comprehensive Equality of Educational Opportunity, known as the Coleman Report (1966). The economic downturn that began in 2007 (Federal Reserve Bank, 2010) caused paradigm shifts in government policies, political ideologies, and personal habits. As policymakers continue to grapple with the difficult choices surrounding educational funding, the decision-making process in the Commonwealth of Virginia is conducted largely independent of empirical evidence regarding the impact of local fiscal capacity on student achievement. This quantitative, nonexperimental study explored potential relationships among measures of division characteristics, local fiscal capacity, and student achievement among the population of Virginia school divisions using secondary data analysis.Descriptive statistics and Pearson product-moment correlations were calculated. Hierarchical regression was conducted using two models to describe the relationship between selected independent variables and advanced studies diploma attainment. Model 1 produced a statistically significant result and included six sociodemographic control variables: student count, poverty, race, English proficiency, disability status, and urbanity. Model 2 added predictive variables for local fiscal capacity: mean-adjusted gross income, real estate property tax, and sales tax, but did not yield significance. A review of the standardized coefficients indicated that only poverty contributed significant effects on advanced studies diploma rates in Model 2.
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