The majority of a school system's budget is spent on personnel. In order to use this tremendous amount of money efficiently it is important educators understand the impact different spending priorities, specifically total per-pupil expenditures, teacher salary, principal salary, pupil/teacher ratio, and pupil/support personnel ratio have on student achievement and how these inputs are moderated by a district's population density and wealth. Spending data from all the school divisions in Virginia were examined using public spending data from the Virginia Department of Education, and population density and wealth statistics from the Office of Budget Management, US Census Bureau, and Commonwealth of Virginia Commission on Local Government. Bivariate correlations and linear regression slopes were examined to determine the impact of the main effects and multiple linear regression model building was used to examine how a district's wealth and population density moderate the effects of per-pupil expenditures, teacher salary, principal salary, pupil/teacher ratio and pupil/support personnel ratio. Teacher salary proved significant for both math and reading scores while principal salary was significant for math scores only. None of the other main effects had a significant impact on student achievement. A division's status as "rural" by itself proved to be correlated with both reading and math scores. Additionally, wealth by itself was a statistically and practically significant predictor of student achievement regardless of the measurement used highlighting the problems posed for education by economic inequality. When wealth was measured using either median household income or fiscal stress the correlation with student achievement was twice that of composite index indicating composite index may not be the best wealth measurement for the state to use to allocate funding in order to level the playing field. Further research is needed to determine how spending effects overall school climate, how the adverse impact of wealth can be overcome, and if making changes to the wealth measurement used will help to overcome the impact of wealth on student achievement.

In Creating the Opportunity to Learn, Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera help navigate the waters of evidence-based methodologies and chart a course toward closing (and eliminating) the academic achievement gap. The authors maintain that it is possible to close the gap by abandoning failed strategies, learning from successful schools, and simply doing more of what the research shows is most effective. --From publisher's description.

Read Rafe Esquith's posts on the Penguin Blog. The New York Times bestseller that is revolutionizing the way Americans educate their kids-"Rafe Esquith is a genius and a saint" (The New York Times) Perhaps the most famous fifth-grade teacher in America, Rafe Esquith has won numerous awards and even honorary citizenship in the British Empire for his outstandingly successful methods. In his Los Angeles public school classroom, he helps impoverished immigrant children understand Shakespeare, play Vivaldi, and become happy, self-confident people. This bestseller gives any teacher or parent all the techniques, exercises, and innovations that have made its author an educational icon, from personal codes of behavior to tips on tackling literature and algebra. The result is a powerful book for anyone concerned about the future of our children.

Advance equity by learning to crack the system’s codes We must act now, using what we already know, to advance equity and raise the achievement of every student. With three decades of leading equity work across the country, George S. Perry Jr. issues a call to action for educational leaders who are willing to fight the fight for equity for all students. School and district leaders will encounter roadblocks as they enact systemic change, but Equity Warriors introduces practical, realistic, and strategic approaches for navigating those barriers. Equity Warriors equips education leaders with the moves they can make today to achieve the vision that every student becomes a high achiever by Providing real school and district examples of systemic equity efforts Demonstrating the parallel work that school and district teams must do to achieve and sustain systemic change Cracking the codes in the domains of politics, diplomacy, and warfare to achieve the equity agenda. Equity Warriors is a must read for leaders at all levels of the system who have chosen to be in this fight and are ready to do what it takes to make the system work for all students.

Contemporary public policy assumes that the achievement gap between black and white students could be closed if only schools would do a better job. According to Richard Rothstein, "Closing the gaps between lower-class and middle-class children requires social and economic reform as well as school improvement. Unfortunately, the trend is to shift most of the burden to schools, as if they alone can eradicate poverty and inequality." In this book, Rothstein points the way toward social and economic reforms that would give all children a more equal chance to succeed in school. This book features: a summary of numerous studies linking school achievement to health care quality, nutrition, childrearing styles, housing stability, parental economic security, and more ; aA look at erroneous and misleading data that underlie commonplace claims that some schools "beat the demographic odds and therefore any school can close the achievement gap if only it adopted proper practices." ; and an analysis of how the over-emphasis of standardized tests in federal law obscures the true achievement gap and makes narrowing it more difficult.