No Spending Without Representation: School Boards and the Racial Gap in Education Finance
79 Pages Posted: 9 Apr 2020 Last revised: 14 Feb 2022
Date Written: November 14, 2021
Abstract
This paper provides causal evidence that greater minority representation on school boards translates into greater investment in minority students. Focusing on California school boards, I obtain causal effects by instrumenting for minority (specifically, Hispanic) school board representation using the random order in which candidates appear on election ballots. Given the dearth of school-level expenditure data, I introduce detailed records from California’s School Facility Program (SFP), a capital investment program for which I observe how school boards allocate the marginal dollar within district. Instrumental variables estimates show that an additional Hispanic school board member increases SFP-funded investments at high-Hispanic schools within the district by 69 percent, with significantly lower effects at low-Hispanic schools. High-Hispanic schools also exhibit gains in student achievement of 0.10 standard deviations. I attribute this improved performance broadly to increased investment in these schools: new instructor hiring at high-Hispanic schools decreases by 23 percent. These results provide the first causal evidence that school board politics—and, specifically, school board ethnic composition—shapes education finance policy at the local level. I conclude that enhancing minority representation on school boards could help combat disparities in education finance and achievement.
Keywords: School boards, education finance, school spending, student outcomes
JEL Classification: H41, H72, H75, I22, I24
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation