Do more resources for education generate better results?

Responsible researcher: Angelo Cruz do Nascimento Varella

Article title: MORE RESOURCES, BETTER RESULTS? THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN DIRECT SCHOOL COSTS AND PERFORMANCE IN HIGH SCHOOL

Article authors: Andressa Buss Rocha; Bruno Funchal;

Intervention Location: Espírito Santo, Brazil

Sample Size: Socioeconomic data, direct school costs and ENEM exam results for students from 32 state schools

Big theme: Education.

Type of Intervention: Quantitative analysis of the impact of direct school costs and other socioeconomic variables on student performance in the ENEM test

Variable of Main Interest: Performance on the ENEM test in “Language and Codes” and “Mathematics”

Assessment Method: Others

Policy Problem

Academic literature, for some decades now, has indicated the existence of a positive relationship between the provision of quality education and social benefits, such as better wages, greater productivity and less social inequality. In Brazil, the concern with offering quality public education begins with the Federal Constitution of 1988, in an attempt to allocate a minimum amount to financing national education. The public policy was expanded in 1998, with the implementation of the Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Elementary Education and the Valorization of Teaching (Fundef) and renamed, in 2006, the Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and the Valorization of Teaching (Fundeb ).

However, higher levels of investment are not synonymous with quality. One of the biggest contemporary challenges facing national education is maintaining an efficient system that allocates resources optimally and generates results for students. It is also necessary to take into account other aspects that influence individual and collective development in the educational system, such as social inequalities, so that it is possible to treat them in a complementary way to investments in education.

 Assessment Context

Recently, in Brazil, Constitutional Amendment n. 95 (EC 95, 2016), also known as the Constitutional Amendment of the Public Spending Ceiling, presented a challenge to education financing, since scholars claim that the EC could reduce the amount allocated to education in the country. However, in addition to concerns about the amount allocated to educational financing, it is also necessary to pay attention to the quality of these resources.

It is possible to exemplify this statement with the fact that even after the expansion of financing for basic education, Brazil still occupies the 60th position among 76 countries in the World Ranking of Quality in Education, from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Therefore, to investigate this set of factors, researchers use the “school effect” approach, which covers a range of socioeconomic and financial factors that influence the performance of students, especially those in the state public education network, in Espírito Santo. Due to its national and standardized reach, the National Secondary Education Examination (ENEM) is used as an evaluation metric.

Policy Details

The notion of “school effect” is used in academic literature to compare the performance of students in similar socioeconomic situations. To achieve this, several aspects are taken into consideration, covering individual characteristics of the student, as well as the conditions of their family, their school and society as a whole. An important metric of this type of analysis is direct school costs, which impact several of these aspects, enabling better environments and more resources. It is worth noting that these amounts do not include investments, being allocated only to expenses that directly affect the functioning of the school, such as salaries, materials, cleaning, transport, maintenance and food.

To measure student performance in an equivalent way, the ENEM test was chosen, as it is an extremely useful tool, as it applies standardized assessment metrics nationwide. Thus, it is feasible to measure the quality of education according to students' performance in this test. The test, in turn, is divided into knowledge categories, of which the authors selected “Language and Codes” and “Mathematics” as the main analysis variables. In other words, as the dependent variables.

 Assessment Method

Due to its social importance, the focus of the research is on state public schools in Espírito Santo, evaluating the direct cost relationships and the organization of these institutions on student performance in the ENEM. The research uses data from 32 institutions based on the Espírito Santo State Department of Education (Sedu/ES) and the School Census, from the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Inep), from 2012 to 2015 .

After collecting data, researchers use the “school effect” approach to measure which individual and socioeconomic characteristics of students and which direct school costs have the greatest influence on the results of the ENEM test. To do this, researchers perform statistical analyses, estimating a mathematical model.

Results

Based on the calculations, the researchers demonstrate that 39% of students' grades can be explained by the factors foreseen in the “school effect” analysis. With regard to school performance in “Language and Codes”, the variables with the greatest impact on student grades were the presence of a principal at the school, which increased the average for this group of students by 11.3 points, in addition to socioeconomic factors of individuals and their families.

The mothers' education, for example, had a strong impact on the results, so that if the mother never studied, or did not complete the 4th grade, the student's average grade is 54.6 points lower. A similar phenomenon occurs with black students, who, due to social inequality, scored, on average, 65.6 points lower than the rest of the students. Female students, however, had a higher average performance than male students by 49.8 points. It is worth highlighting the fact that direct costs did not obtain significant results in this analysis, which indicates that the increase in these items, once sufficient levels are reached, may not be useful to improve the performance of students in “Language and Codes”.

Regarding “Mathematics” grades, the model explained 37% of students’ ENEM performance, so direct cost variables proved to be significant in this analysis. Schools with higher expenses on teacher salaries (0.0299) and principals (0.0432), in addition to expenses on school transport (0.0505), water and energy (0.0577) obtained positive results. The presence of resources from the State Program for Direct Money at School (PEDDE) also generated positive results, in the order of 0.0628. In other words, if the program's resources are increased by 100 reais, it is expected that the students' “Mathematics” average will increase by 6.28 points.

When considering the characteristics of the students, individuals enrolled in evening courses had a negative result of around -15.99, as did female students, who presented a result of -62.24. In other words, if we evaluate only these students, the average for the “Mathematics” variable would be 62.24 points lower.

Public Policy Lessons

The study indicates that direct education costs can have a positive impact on student performance, but the efficient allocation of resources, the proper organization of school provision and the reduction of social inequalities are factors of similar relevance. In order to improve national education, one must consider the fact that there are serious discrepancies between Brazilian schools, as well as in the reality of different students, especially in the public education network, which is a crucial tool for social development.

In order to guarantee an improvement in educational performance, purpose and planning in the allocation of resources are necessary, as well as other ways of optimizing financial resources, in order to prioritize equity with regard to the treatment of public school students. Furthermore, investments in education must always be accompanied by monitoring tools, so that such results can be evaluated and adapted according to need.

Reference

ROCHA, Andressa Buss; FUNCHAL, Bruno. More resources, better results? The relationships between direct school costs and performance in high school. Public Administration Magazine, v. 53, no. 2, p. 291-309, 2019.