- Homepage
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Which districts allocate resources progressively?
- Chapter 2: Does teacher sorting contribute to financial inequalities?
- Case studies: Massachusetts, Indiana, Louisiana, Nevada, New York, and North Carolina
- Methodological appendix
Problem
Prior research shows FRPL students have lower access to experienced and other qualified teachers, compared to non-FRPL students. These patterns holds in Nevada, too. Since teachers are often paid on salary schedules that do not vary based on their school, these sorting patterns will lead to more dollars allocated to affluent settings, all else equal. Do teachers contribute to funding gaps in Nevada?
Findings
Within districts, FRPL students have lower access to experienced teachers while simultaneously receiving slightly higher allocations of teacher spending. The result is explained by compensatory staffing, where FRPL students are in schools with increased staffing ratios for teachers (see Table 1) and other instructional support staff (not shown).
Teacher and spending allocations show greater variance looking across district boundaries. Nevada’s high-poverty schools receive slightly higher amounts of teacher funding; teacher spending is essentially flat in high schools (see Figure 1). High-poverty schools have higher shares of novice teachers, and similar teacher staffing ratios (see Figure 2).
Approximately 81% of Nevada’s schools, serving 84% of students, are in progressive teacher spending districts (see Figure 3 for an overview of spending progressivity in Nevada’s districts).
Conclusion
- Nevada districts generally compensate FRPL students’ low access to experienced teachers with higher classroom staffing ratios; essentially exchanging quality for quantity. Yet, FRPL students should have many more teachers (smaller class sizes, especially across districts) to be fairly compensated for inexperienced teachers.
- The pandemic has accelerated problematic staffing challenges nationwide; thus, threatening the sustainability of this staffing exchange. The state should seek to build out the pipeline for qualified teachers and implement policies to ensure equitable access to quality teaching.
Source
This analysis uses school-level financial data from the Edunomics Lab’s NERD$ database, paired with staffing data from the Civil Rights Data Collection and enrollment data from the Common Core of Data. FRPL is an acronym for eligibility for free and reduced-price lunch, our best proxy for low household income. For this analysis, we use Nevada’s direct certification counts to determine eligibility.
Continue reading Chapter 2: Does teacher sorting contribute to financial inequalities? →
Read the other case studies (Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York) →
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Acknowledgements and disclosures
The authors thank Adelle Patten for communications support. We also acknowledge generous financial support from the Gates Foundation in enabling the Brown Center to conduct this work.
Commentary
Nevada: Does teacher sorting contribute to financial inequalities?
January 6, 2023