Structural Influences on the Internal Allocation of School District Resources: Evidence From New York State

By drawing an explicit distinction between “base” and “share” effects, this study examines the potential for inconsistent resource allocation decisions to be made at different administrative levels of school districts and schools. The work builds on the Consortium for Policy Research in Education's “What Dollars Buy” project and employs multivariate models to examine the influences of school district spending, wealth, poverty, and size on internal decisions about how to divide staffing resources across different areas of the curriculum. Results indicate that there is more internal variation across districts in how teacher resources are distributed than is commonly supposed. The study also reveals evidence of inconsistency across levels of decision making about the supply of resources into particular areas of the curriculum. Finally, there is evidence of stronger than expected relationships between spending levels and allocations of resources into administrative uses.