See attached.
The Bidding Process
Due on Friday (May 5, 2023)
Introduction:
As a leader, you will likely encounter situations in which you need to purchase goods or services
for your school, program or department. In most cases, you will be required to get multiple bids
before determining the source of your purchase. This is not to say that you will need to go with
the lowest price, but rather that you have followed the process for making a selection.
In this assignment, you will work with your school leader to gain a better understanding of the
bidding process where you work and have the opportunity to apply that knowledge to a mock
purchase.
Instructions:
1. Meet with your school district financial officer to discuss the bidding process for
products and services. Questions to consider during this meeting include:
Interviewed Mr. Clinton Sherman on 5/1/2023:
Does the district always accept the lowest bid?
C.S.: No, there are some other factors when weighing bids that might put one bid above
another. Timeline, responsiveness, quality of materials, etc.
Does the state have any bidding requirements that districts must follow?
C.S.: Yes,
https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/safs/tt/2020%20State%20bid%20law.pdf
Are there additional considerations in the bidding process?
C.S.: Yes, we also look for bid rigging red flags.
2.
Create a flowchart illustrating this process for obtaining bids on one of the following:
Purchase of classroom sets of laptop computers.
Purchase of new student and teacher desks for classrooms.
Repairs for the roof on one of the district’s buildings.
https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/safs/tt/2020%20State%20bid%20law.pdf Owings, W. A., & Kaplan, L. S. (2019). American Public School Finance (3rd ed.). Taylor & Francis.
https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781351013772
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Chapter 11: Spending and Student Achievement
FOCUS QUESTIONS
1 Trace the recent history linking school funding to student achievement.
2 Clarify the research findings on the effects of spending on student achievement.
3 Explain why the issue is controversial.
4 Describe the link between teacher quality (effectiveness) and student achievement.
5 Summarize the connection between professional development and student achievement.
6 Describe the findings on the relationships between class size, school size, and student achievement.
7 Explain the relationship between teachers salaries and student achievement.
8 Describe the relationship between school facilities and student achievement.
Where we spend our education dollars affects student learning. Substantial research supports the link between
school spending and student achievement through teacher/teaching quality, professional development,
reduced class and school size, teacher salaries, and school facilities. Knowledgeable education leaders can
help their communities wisely invest taxpayer dollars in areas that pay dividends in student achievement.
Likewise, informed school leaders can engage their publics about education dollars equity implications: the
lowest-income students generally receive the least amount of funding, the least experienced teachers, and the
poorest school building conditionsall undermining childrens ability to learn apace with more affluent peers.
Education finance professors Kern Alexander and Richard Salmon believe questions about school
fundings impact on public education lie at the heart of national education reform.1 The Coleman Report (1966)
and A Nation at Risk (1983) prompted some politicians and policy makers to seriously question the public
schools value if costly educational interventions could not overcome the destiny of childrens backgrounds.
https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781351013772
Many continue this reasoning today. As a result, the issue of public school spending is controversial and highly
politicized.
Does public education make a difference in student achievement apart from family influences? Where
should educators spend money in schools to get the biggest bang for the instructional buck? The
Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL) (2015) states that Effective educational leaders
manage school operations and resources to promote each students academic success and well-being.2 This
includes seeking, acquiring, and managing the fiscal and other resources needed to support effective teaching
and student learning, building professional capacity and community, and acting as responsible, ethical, and
acceptable stewards of the schoolsand taxpayersmoney. Targeting available funding to maximize
student achievement is a key school leadership responsibility. Knowing how the school funding issue became
central to school reform policy will help school leaders and their constituents make sense of the current debate.
RECENT HISTORY LINKING FUNDING AND ACHIEVEMENT
Recent questions about the links between school funding and student achievement have been swirling since
the mid-20th century. As part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the U.S. Department of Education invited sociologist
James Coleman to investigate racial segregation and education inequality. Surveying 600,000 students in
3,000 schools across the country, Coleman and his colleagues examined the adequacy of physical facilities,
curriculum, teacher characteristics, and student achievement as measured by standardized test scores. They
factored in student self-attitudes and academic goals, socioeconomic status, and parent education levels. His
1966 Coleman Report, Equality of Educational Opportunity, identified shocking achievement gaps across races
and regions. It also determined that variations in school resourcesas measured by per pupil spending and
studentteacher ratioswere unrelated to variations in student achievement on standardized tests. The report
concluded, Schools bring little influence to bear on a childs achievement that is independent of his [sic]
background and general social context.3 In its view, student learning depended mostly on the childs family
background and to a lesser degree, on peers; schools played a minor role.
Colemans study seemed to say that the educational inputs (such as studentteacher ratios, funding
resources, teaching practices, curriculum, quality of school facilities) did not contribute much to student
achievement (outputs). Parental education and affluence had more influence on students learning in school
than anything the schools or teachers did in the classroom. In short, when it comes to spending money to
improve public schools, Money isnt pixie dust.4
For the most part, educators reacted to the Coleman Report with cautious silence, but economist Eric
Hanushek and education writer and political activist William Bennett spoke up. Using similar inputoutput
methodology (production function studies) as Coleman, Hanushek (1981, 1986, 1989, 1996) reached similar
conclusions. His meta-analyses of existing studies found that bigger school budgets were not systematically
related to higher student achievement; their relationship was neither strong nor consistent. Nor did the studies
address the dramatic differences in teachers performance. With eye-popping titles such as
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Throwing Money at Schools and The Quest for Equalized Mediocrity: School Finance Reform without
Consideration of School Performance, Hanushek incited public and policy opinion against increased education
funding.5
Likewise, William Bennett, U.S. Secretary of Education (198588), argued that public schools did not
need more taxpayer dollars to increase student achievement because the states with the highest SAT
scoresIowa, North and South Dakota, Utah, and Minnesotahad low per pupil spending.6 Bennett
neglected to mention that only the few top academic students in these states took the SAT as part of their
application to highly competitive elite East Coast universities; most college-going peers in these states took the
ACT. In other words, these SAT students did not accurately represent the normal population distribution, and
drawing such conclusions was invalid.
By contrast, other studies indicated positive connections between school spending and student
outcomes. Examining individuals later earnings in the labor force, economists found a significant association
between adult earnings and school spending.7 In the 1990s, Larry V. Hedges, a national leader in using
educational statistics for evaluation, and colleagues Richard Laine and Rob Greenwald (1994) reanalyzed
Hanusheks data using more sophisticated methods and found overwhelming evidence that school funding had
a positive impact on student achievement.8 Their later meta-analysis (1996) of 60 studies showed a broad
range of resources were positively related to student outcomes with effect sizes large enough to suggest
moderate increases in spending may be associated with significant gains in student achievement.9 Likewise,
education finance professors Deborah Verstegen and Richard King (1998) affirmed that these positive findings
have been strong and consistent over time.10 Until the 21st century, however, Colemans conclusions greatly
overshadowed studies linking school spending and student achievement, allowing them little political air.
Newer studies also affirm the link between carefully targeted school funding and student achievements.
A 2003 four-state research report by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory found a strong
relationship between resources and student success.11 Several investigations on spending and early
childhood programs for economically disadvantaged childrenincluding the Perry Preschool Project and the
Carolina Abecedarian Projecthave found positive effects on students IQ scores at an early age12 and
increased high school graduation rates among females, higher adult income, increased employment among
males, and reduced number of arrests.13 Head Start has been shown to increase students reading skills.14
Looking to older disadvantaged students, various rigorous studies have found that money spent on dual
enrollment programs in high school have many significant positive effects on educational outcomes, including
high school attendance and academic achievement, college readiness, access, and enrollment; and
educational attainment.15
In a notable 2016 study, Northwestern University professors C. Kirbo Jackson, Rucker Johnson, and
Claudia Persico studied the effects of court-mandated education finance reform on school spending, linking
court-ordered school finance reform (19722010) to a nationally representative longitudinal data set that tracks
individuals from childhood into adulthood. They found that increased spending on educational quality and
quantity yields large improvements in educational attainment and improved labor market outcomes (i.e.,
increased wages and family income, reduced adult poverty), especially for low-income children.16 Although
critics question some of the studys conclusions as unrealistic, they agree that how schools spend money
matters.17
A 2016 study by economics professors Julien Lafortune, Jesse Rothstein, and Diane Whitmore
Schanzenbach found that investing sharp, immediate, and
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sustained funding into low-income school districts can have large effects on students educational
achievement (measured in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores) as compared with
states that did not increase funding to lowest-income districts.18 Given this mounting evidence, Hanushek
modified his outlook, writing in 2016 that a general consensus appears to agree that how money is spent is
much more important than how much money is spent.19 Investigators conclude that increased funding by
itself may not ensure improved outcomes, but providing adequate funding may be a necessary condition. But
simply giving schools more moneywithout directing and administering them differentlyis not likely to
generate systematic improvements in student outcomes.
Most recently, a 2018 study focused on the relationship between school budgets and student success
in California. The states Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), established in 2013 to address resource
inequities, sent $18 billion in increased state support over 8 years to districts based on the number of enrolled
high-need students.20 Districts largely targeted their new dollars to reduced studentteacher ratios,
increased average teacher salaries, instructional expenditures, enlarged public PreK (4-year-old), and special
education. The study found that increased spending directed to student needs led to significant increases in
high school graduation rates and academic achievement, especially among children from low-income
families.21
Yet despite the data consistently showing the relationship between increased targeted spending and
student achievement, many states are reducing their school funding. In A Punishing Decade for School
Funding (2017),22 the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy organization,
reported that as of 2015 (the latest education spending data from the Census Bureau), 29 states were
providing lower per pupil funds than in 2008, and 12 states had cut their general funding formula for
education.23 Instead of restoring education funding, seven of the 12Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan,
Mississippi, North Carolina, and Oklahomahad enacted income tax cuts costing millions from state
treasuries.24
Of course money, by itself, cannot improve student outcomes. But an adequate amount is necessary;
and when correctly targeted, money has been shown to do just that.
WHERE SCHOOL FUNDING IMPROVES STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
The data show that increased spending directed to delivery of quality instruction directly to students produces
the greatest achievement return for the dollars spent. In the following sections, we provide evidence that
increased spending on teacher quality (effectiveness), professional development, reduced class size and
school size, increased teacher salaries, and improved school facilities can produce improved student
outcomes. We also provide data to challenge when and how these strategies mightor might notbe
cost-effective.
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Teacher Quality (Teacher Effectiveness)
Effective teachers are widely recognized as the schools most important contribution to student learning. The
Coleman Report suggested that teacher effectiveness was a critical school factor in student achievement.
Later research indicates that qualitative variations among teachers can make large positive differences in their
capacity to generate student learning, year after year.25 Since studies confirm that consistently working with
highly effective teachers can overcome the academic limitations placed on students by their family
backgrounds,26 when teacher quality varies across schools and districts in ways that systematically
disadvantage poor, low-achieving, and racially isolated schools, it becomes an equity issue.27
Every school wants effective teachers in every classroom but are not sure how to identify them. Many
researchers have identified state certification (or license) in the subject they are teaching as a positive
predictor of higher student achievement.28 Nonetheless, investigators also find that traditional methods of
identifying teacher qualitya bachelors degree, a state license, and a relevant college majoralthough
important, are not enough to differentiate teacher effectiveness in generating student learning. Fortunately,
improvements in teacher observations and evaluation of performance,29 advances in assessment strategies
and data processing capacity, the availability of statistical modeling, and access to large longitudinal databases
of student achievement informationplus the ability to manipulate these datanow make it possible to identify
teachers classroom behaviors that help them generate student learning.
Recognizing the complexity of teaching, educators and researchers agree that the following teacher
effectiveness factors relate to increased student academic growth.30
Verbal and cognitive ability
Subject matter knowledge (tied to state standards)
Skillful teaching behaviors
Ability to create a classroom climate for learning
Ability to adapt instruction to differing student learning needs
Participation in intensive, content-focused professional development with classroom practice and feedback
Teaching experience (those with fewer than 3 years experience tend to be less effective, but there is little
evidence that, in general, more than 3 years produces greater student achievement)
Professional behaviors (including reflection and maintaining expertise in content and pedagogy).
These teacher effectiveness characteristics make sense. Effective teachers need to be able to speak
and think fluently if they are to clearly communicate lessons to students and make necessary instructional
adjustments. They also need the content knowledgealigned with state standardsif students are to learn the
material
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the community expects them to know and be able to do (and on which the state will assess them). Classroom
experience linked to student performance and professional reflection helps hone their expertise. In addition,
research in the past decade has confirmed that certain instructional practices (i.e., planning, instructional
delivery, student assessment, learning environment, professional behaviors, and personal qualities) can
differentiate more effective from less effective teachers in generating higher student academic growth.31
Several studies show effective teaching behaviors linked with increased student achievement. In a
2012 meta-analysis of independent studies, education researcher Robert Marzano and colleagues found a
16-percentile point gain in student achievement in reading and mathematics on state achievement tests for
students whose teachers used specific instructional strategies (empirically shown to increase student learning)
over students whose teachers did not. And the more effective strategies teachers use and the more proficiently
executed, the higher their students achievement.32 Likewise, a 2011 Chicago Public School study found that
their new teacher evaluation program (including classroom observations, trained observers, and performance
feedback around a rubric describing varying degrees of teaching effectiveness) led to students of teachers with
the highest ratings on the performance rubric showing the greatest achievement growth (whereas students in
classrooms with the lowest rated teachers had the lowest academic growth).33 Similarly, the 2013 Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundations Measurement of Effective Teaching (MET) study found that randomly assigning
students to teachers previously identified as effective on a performance rubric showed greater achievement
growth than students with other teachers in the same school, grade, and subject rated less highly.34 Lastly, a
2017 study found that the effects of individual teachers on student achievement are large, especially among
the most and least effective teachers.35
Likewise, value-added measures (VAM) studiesnumerical analyses using sophisticated statistical
algorithms to estimate or quantify how much of a positive (or negative) effect individual teachers have on
student learning during a given school yearare finding teacher effects on student learning can be cumulative
and long-lasting.36 Students in classrooms with very high value-added teachers can achieve a whole years
difference in learning gains as compared with a student working with a low value-added teacher.37 Similarly,
students who work with an above-average teacher for five years in a row are predicted to overcome the
achievement gap typically found between students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches and those from
higher income backgrounds.38 Students assigned to high value-added teachers are more likely to attend
college, earn higher salaries, and are less likely to become teenage parents (than peers with low value-added
teachers); and replacing a very ineffective teacher (bottom 5%) with an average teacher would increase the
value of students lifetime income (in todays dollars) by about $250,000 per classroom.39 One VAM study
calculated that a teacher one standard deviation above the mean on teacher effectiveness generates more
than $400,000 in future student earnings in todays dollars with a class size of 20; and replacing the bottom
58% of teachers (highly ineffective) with average teachers (moderately effective) would advance the United
States near the top of international math and science rankings with a present value of $100 trillion.40 These
breath-catching VAM analyses reinforce the idea of teachers importance to student learning gains that carry
over into adult earnings potential.
VAM studies come with cautions. Although useful for diagnostic purposes as a measure of student
progress or as a formative guide for instruction, some policy makers, economists, and educators express
reservations about VAMs technical and implementation issues and question their usefulness for evaluating
individual teachers performance for compensation, promotion, assignment, employment, or making policy
decisions.41 First, problems with missing data, the lack of
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random assignment of students to teachers or families to schools (selection bias), and absence of information
about available school resources may distort findings. These factors make teacher effectiveness appear to
vary over time and be unevenly distributed across districts.42 Second, different VAM models produce different
results, and results for individual teachers can be notoriously volatile and inaccurate. Given VAMs sampling
error, some successful teachers might receive low ratings and some unsuccessful teachers could receive high
ratings. Third, VAM can be especially unfair to teachers in more challenging classroomsstudents who
achieve above or below grade level, English language learners, students with special needs, or in high-needs
schoolswhile unduly rewarding teachers in less challenging classrooms. This could discourage effective
teachers from working with more difficult students. Fourth, multiple data sources beyond standardized test
scoresincluding skilled observations and evaluations by trained supervisors, mentor teachers, and peer
evaluations, student growth scores, and other evidence of student learningare also needed to fairly and
accurately assess an individual teachers effectiveness or make human capital decisions. In short, VAM scores
are not valid or reliable proxies for an individuals teacher quality and must be used carefully and appropriately
in high-stakes contexts.43
Knowing how much high-quality teachers and teaching contribute to student (and to later adult)
achievement, education dollars appear well spent in hiring, developing, and retaining the most effective
teachers possible. Effective teachers leading every classroom is a school leaders priority.
Professional Development
A growing body of research shows that improving teacher knowledge and teaching skills are essential to
raising student performance.44 Once in the classroom, teachers continue to master new subject content, adopt
more effective instructional methods, develop techniques to address more students learning needs, infuse new
technology into lessons, and address changing laws and procedures. Since students spend most of their
school hours either interacting with teachers or working under their direction, what teachers know and can do
directly affects the quality of student learning.
A meta-analysis of more than 1,000 studies found that students scored 21 percentage points higher
than average on standardized tests when their teachers had access to ongoing professional support and
training.45
Although we do not yet have evidence to indicate which professional development (PD) features can
generate improvements in student learning (although the findings suggest effects),46 research consensus
suggests that the following six core features of effective PD increase teacher knowledge, skills, and practice:47
1. Form: Teachers PD is school-based and job-embedded, directly connected to their day-to-day classroom
actions and conducted either alone, with mentors, or in teacher teams.
2. Content focus: Teachers need to know well the content they teach, its alignment with state academic
content standards and assessments, how students learn (including common student misunderstandings or
problems), and successful instructional strategies that connect these.
3. Collaborative participation: Organized around groups of teachers from a school who work together on
meaningful content (such as peer observations of practice, peer coaching analyzing student work and student
data, study groups), and participating in teacher networks beyond the school, PD makes practice public and
open to critique.
4. Active learning: PD is most effective when it includes sense-makingopportunities for teachers to
intellectually engage by working directly on incorporating the new techniques into their instructional practice
that motivate them to expand their beliefs and abilities and apply the PD to classroom teaching.48
5. Coherence: Teacher PD should be a comprehensive, interrelated process aligned with state and district
policy expectations and using relevant data focused on guiding improvement, strengthening student learning,
and consistent with teachers knowledge and beliefs.
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6. Duration: Intensive, ongoing, long-term professional learning activities should total a substantial number of
hours each year (research suggests at least 20 hours or more of contact time).49
Each of these six features has cost implications. PD form, active learning, collective participation, and
duration require teacher and mentor time, likely during and after the regular school day and year, depending on
the strategies chosen. Release time from teaching (with substitute teachers provided), scheduled time in the
contract year, stipends for PD after regular work hours, full or partial reimbursement for college tuition or
conferences, and travel cost money. Expenses also include administrative time, materials, and supplies
required to support PD.
Most school districts do not know how much they are spending for educators professional
development. Traditionally, states and school districts have had weak financial reporting systems, presenting
data without consistent or uniform definitions, data items, categories, formats, or tracking. Rather, they use
broad accounting codes such as instructional support that include more than simply PD spending or ignore
PD in reporting expenditures for special or compensatory education. As a result, isolating professional
development spending is difficult.50 Today, national standards and guidance for school system accounting is
available to remedy this problem.51 Learning Forward, an organization dedicated to educators PD,
recommends that school districts dedicate at least 10% of their budgets to staff development, with at least 25%
of an educators work time focused on learning and collaborating with colleagues.52
School leadership is essential to create a culture of high expectations, continuous instructional
improvement, and highest-quality professional development tied to identified areas of teacher and student
need. Inviting a motivational speaker to address the faculty at the start of school may be a short-term morale
booster, but such practices should not be confused with a well-designed PD program for lasting impact that
improves teaching and student learning.
Reduced Class and School Size
Teachers and parents have long known that, all else being equal, when it comes to class size, smaller is better.
Over the past 100 years, class sizes and their pupilteacher ratios have dropped substantiallyfrom 35:1 in
1890, to 28.1 in 1940, to 24.9:1 in 1960, to 15.4:1 in 1990 to 16.2 in 2014.53 Many reasons explain this
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decrease: hiring more teachers to meet court-mandated desegregation; rising enrollments of special-needs
students who require more intensive and personalized student/teacher interactions; and recognizing that
improved learning occurs in classes with fewer than 30 to 40 students. In addition, the pupilteacher ratios
dropped as schools attempted to add a modest amount of time for educators to collaborate with colleagues
and to obtain PD during the school day.
The number of students in a class can affect how and how much students learn. It affects how much
time and individual attention teachers can direct toward each pupil and his/her specific needs. Class size can
affect how the teacher organizes and delivers instruction; it is easier to assign more writing assignments and
give more feedback to fewer students. It also influences the extent of active pupil engagement with the
coursework, with the teacher, and with each other while also reducing the number of discipline disruptions.
Many studies of varying quality have addressed the class sizestudent achievement connection. In
what is arguably the most influential study, Tennessees Project STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio,
198589), successfully controlled experiments of class-size reduction in primary grades, showed strong
positive results.54 Findings indicate that attending small classes (average 15 students, as compared with
regular classes averaging 22 students) for 3 consecutive years in grade K3 with an experienced teacher is
associated with sustained, statistically significant achievement differences (equal to about 3 additional months
of schooling). Academic benefits in all school subjects lasted through grade 8. These gains were especially
notable for low-income students.55 Further, an evaluation of Project STARs long-term impacts found
kindergarten test scores highly correlated with the individuals college attendance, earnings at age 27, home
ownership, and retirement savings (although the effect on achievement test scores faded in later grades),56
and reduced criminal arrests.57 In addition, small kindergarten class size showed benefits in non-cognitive
competenciessuch as self-discipline, motivation, persistence, and social skillsthat have positive returns in
the labor market.58
Although some have criticized the STAR design, implementation,59 and methodology, other studies
have found similar,60 mixed,61 or no positive62 effects. Notably, a review and synthesis of more than 100
class-size studies suggests that the most positive effect of small classes appears in kindergarten to third grade
for mathematics and reading test scores, with results consistent across schools.63 Findings are mixed about
whether students moving from a small class size to a normal sized class can maintain their achievement
gains.64 Research also finds that consecutive years in small classes mostly benefits minority and urban
students.65 Some hypothesize that reducing class size can lead to higher test scores overall and might reduce
the achievement gaps that exist between minority and other students in reading and math.66
Even so, studies conclude that reducing class size by itself does not result in greater academic gains.
Class size effects vary by grade level, pupil characteristics, subject areas, curriculum rigor, teaching quality,
accountability measures, number of years students remain in classrooms with few pupils and effective
teachers, and other variables.
What is more, reducing class size is very expensive. Although a costbenefit analysis showed STARs
return on investment was slightly larger than the costs of implementing it (an estimated $2 return for every $1
spent),67 other studies indicate a small class size has a minor achievement gain as compared to many less
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costly strategies.68 Also, because class sizes effect on achievement varies with the subject taught and grade
level, these factors as well as student ability also figure into accurately determining cost effectiveness of class
size reductions.
Reduced class sizes and shrinking pupilteacher ratios have major implications for school finance.
Reducing class size frequently means hiring more teachers (salaries and benefits) and leasing or constructing
additional classrooms with additional utility costs. It will likely require PD (and related cost
