Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

Public Education is under attack as to whether or not it is meeting the needs of the American children or failing them. Educators are tasked with the responsibility to answer the call as the expectation is for all students to succeed. There has been an increased focus on student achievement on both national and state levels. Schools are being graded on how well students do on a one time per year, high stakes test. Although there has been an increase of the expectations on schools in the area of student achievement, funding is of great concern to public schools. Public school superintendents in the state of Indiana continue to set financial goals to best utilize general fund dollars to improve student achievement. This study sought to discover if the four school financial factors—funding per average daily membership (ADM), dollar amount per student spent from General Fund on instructional expenditures, average teacher salary, and average principal salary—had influence and effect on student achievement. The methods and procedures of the study were designed to measure these factors and determine if there was a statistical relationship between these factors and student achievement demonstrated by the outcomes of the Algebra I and English/Language Arts 10 end of course assessments (ECA). Answers were sought to these two questions: 1. Does funding per ADM, dollar amount per student spent from General Fund on instructional expenditures, average teacher salary, and the average principal salary explain a significant amount of variance in the achievement of students on the mathematics ECA when the free and reduced (F/R) lunch status of the student is factored out? 2. Does funding per ADM, dollar amount per student spent from General Fund on instructional expenditures, average teacher salary, and the average principal salary explain a significant amount of variance in the achievement of students on the English/Language Arts ECA when the F/R lunch status of the student is factored out? In order to better examine each of the different predictor variables, the schools were grouped into three categories—the bottom one-third, the middle one-third, and the top one-third—which allowed the different groups to be compared to the whole sample results. This descriptive data provided rich evidence into the nature of the impact for each of these variables prior to running the inferential tests. Based on the findings, this study found a significant negative impact on student achievement on the Algebra I and English/Language Arts 10 ECA in relationship to the amount of dollars given in total funding per ADM given to a school district/corporation. When the variance of F/R lunch was removed, student achievement was found to decrease as dollars given to a school district/corporation go up. Teacher salary did not demonstrate a significant difference in Algebra I or English/Language Arts 10 ECA. Principal salary did not demonstrate a significant difference in Algebra I or English/Language Arts 10 end of course assessments.

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