Senate committee hears study showing weak links between district/school size and most student outcomes; small districts can still offer diverse programs

An Education Committee presentation on the state'funded study of district and school size concluded that, in Arkansas, size alone explains relatively little of the variation in many educational outcomes.

"My name is Bob Shock with Education Finance Decisions out of Pennsylvania," said Bob Shock, the lead presenter, who described a literature review and analyses of Arkansas Department of Education data and Arkansas Activities Association records. Shock said the team ran scatterplots and correlation coefficients on dozens of district and school variables and found that most correlations were weak (many below 0.4), though certain spending categories show some economies of scale.

Justin Silverstein, the study coordinator, told the committee the team completed case studies and a district survey and that a separate WestEd statistical analysis linking student characteristics and outcomes will be layered into the final report. "We are actually hoping to move up our ability to present that probably not the next meeting but I believe the meeting after where we will dig a little deeper into some of those relationships," Silverstein said.

Key takeaways from the…