A Shift in School Reform: Examining Site-Level Spending and Student Academic Growth

Accountability efforts under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has brought greater attention to school-level processes and practices and their impact on student outcomes. This has pushed states to report more school-level inputs, including per-pupil expenditures. Grounded in an open systems theory (OST) framework, we identify the association between school-level per-pupil spending and academic growth on statewide assessments for seventh graders in Michigan. Overall, our findings suggest an overall positive association between school-level per-pupil expenditure and student growth.