The money myth

Can money buy high-quality education? Studies find only a weak relationship between public school funding and educational outcomes. In this book, the author proposes a powerful paradigm shift in the way we think about why some schools thrive and others fail. The greatest inequalities in America's schools lie in factors other than fiscal support. Fundamental differences in resources other than money, for example, in leadership, instruction, and tracking policies explain the deepening divide in the success of our nation's schoolchildren. This book establishes several principles for a bold new approach to education reform. Drawing on a national longitudinal dataset collected over twelve years, the author makes a crucial distinction between "simple" resources and those "compound", "complex", and "abstract" resources that cannot be readily bought. Money can buy simple resources such as higher teacher salaries and smaller class sizes, but these resources are actually some of the weakest predictors of educational outcomes. On the other hand, complex resources pertaining to school practices are astonishingly strong predictors of success. The author finds that tracking policies have the mos