The bottom line is that external funds raised by schools do not translate into academic resources that dramatically change academic outcomes.
Does school fundraising worsen inequality in Toronto elementary schools in terms of academic outcomes? Many parents fear as much. Despite those fears, my research shows, there is no strong link between academic results in Toronto elementary schools and their private fundraising prowess.
Schools report the amount of external funds raised to the Toronto District School Board, and in some cases it is a large amount of money. In a recent study for the C.D. Howe Institute, Huijie Guo and I investigated the link between school academic results and the amount of funds raised.
The bottom line is that external funds raised by schools do not translate into academic resources that dramatically change academic outcomes. Education policy-makers should instead focus on greater causes behind improved school outcomes and move the fundraising issue to the periphery.
A considerable amount of the variation in funds raised by TDSB schools is due to the grade structure of the school. Put simply, schools that contain Grade 8 and especially schools that contain only Grades 6 to 8 raised a lot more funds per student than the elementary schools that end in Grade 5 or Grade 6. This should have been obvious — if your school contains Grade 8, with students from any social or economic background, there are reasons for more expensive activities than schools with only younger students, including a year-end event that likely uses external funds.
In addition to school structure, the social and economic advantages of schools do have a strong effect on funds raised. Schools where parents come from more educated backgrounds do raise more funds per student. However those schools also tend to produce stronger academic results even when any effects of fundraising dollars are ignored.
In previous research, I have shown that student background explains about half the variation in academic results across elementary schools in Ontario. So when schools with students from similar backgrounds are compared about half of the variation in EQAO results remains unexplained.
The most logical explanation, both from my work and by others, is the quality of instruction at the school. It is very possible for a school where students come from weak backgrounds to excel at reading and math. These schools have been identified in previous work, and it is these schools that should be emulated.
When adding fundraising to evaluations of school-based outcomes, our research shows the schools excelling academically are not always the schools that raised lots of funds from parents. While there is a small association of funds raised and better results across schools, it is just that: small.
The evidence shows school fundraising prowess is a red herring when it comes to things that drive variation in measured academic results in TDSB schools. Fundraising inequalities should not distract from focusing on things that schools can do to bolster academic achievement.
Published in the Toronto Star.
David Johnson is professor of economics at Wilfrid Laurier University and co-author of the C.D. Howe Institute publication, Unfair Advantage? School Fundraising Capabilities and Student Results
