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School Inputs and Educational Outcomes in North Carolina: Comparison of Static and Dynamic Analyses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2015

Michael L. Waiden  and
Mark R. Sisak
Michael L. Waiden
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Mark R. Sisak
Affiliation:
Graduate Program in Economics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
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Abstract

The relationship between student achievement and school inputs has long been a subject of academic research. The general conclusion of past research is that school inputs, such as the number of teachers relative to pupils, has little impact on student academic outcomes. This paper provides a fresh look at this issue. Seventeen alternative measures of student performance in North Carolina school districts are related to a wide array of school policy inputs and socioeconomic characteristics of students and their families. Both static and dynamic analyses are performed. The key findings are (1) the school policy inputs significantly related to student achievement vary by the measure of student achievement used, (2) the joint contribution of school policy inputs to student achievement is relatively small, and (3) the results differ between the static and dynamic analyses; in particular, changes in the number of teachers relative to the number of pupils in the district have a much stronger association with student achievement in the dynamic analysis.

Keywords

public educationstudent achievement
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , December 1999 , pp. 593 - 609
Copyright
Copyright © Southern Agricultural Economics Association 1999

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