Buying Better Schools

Dana Goldstein counters the conventional wisdom:

There is a mantra in education reform: "money doesn’t matter." … While not every dollar a school spends directly improves academic outcomes, a new report from Rutgers school-finance expert Bruce Baker finds certain kinds of money very much do matter: extra funding for higher teacher salaries and more equitable distribution of resources between rich and poor districts, for example, are correlated with higher student achievement, especially for the neediest kids.