Following the Money? The Impact of Educational Spending on Student Achievement in Saskatchewan, Canada

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: The link between public school funding and student outcomes in the United States has been debated for years. In order to study the causal effects of per-student spending on academic achievement, researchers often study natural experiments caused by changes to school finance policies, which create shocks to individual districts’ funding levels. However, Canadian reforms have rarely been studied using these quasi-experimental methods. I supplement this literature, analyzing the effects of per-student expenditures on high school graduation rates and course completion in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan reformed its school finance laws between 2009 and 2012; I employ a difference-in-differences exposure model to evaluate the effects of these changes on students’ educational attainment. I find that a $1,000 increase in annual per-pupil expenditures leads to a 0.257 percentage-point increase in the share of students graduating high school within 3 years of beginning Grade 10. However, I find null effects on the share of students graduating high school within 5 years of beginning Grade 10, as well as the proportion of students attaining 8 course credits per year.

Author	Paris, Julia

Subject	Property tax
Subject	Education > Finance
Subject	High schools > Graduation requirements
Subject	High school graduates > Rating of
Subject	Saskatchewan
Subject	Canada
Subject	Property tax relief
Subject	Public schools
Genre	Text
Genre	Thesis

DOI	https://doi.org/10.25740/vq250vq2123
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/vq250vq2123

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Preferred citation: Paris, Julia. (2021). Following the Money? The Impact of Educational Spending on Student Achievement in Saskatchewan, Canada. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/vq250vq2123

Stanford University, Department of Economics, Honors Theses

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