Selected School District Factors and Grade Eight Pupil Achievement in Maine.

The relationship between educational expenditures and pupil achievement has been a topic of increasing interest to legislators, school boards, and more recently, the courts. This paper examines the relationships among various measures of school district wealth and spending, other school district characteristics, and student achievement within the context of a state with a majority of small and rural school systems. Data were collected from all Maine elementary school districts that provided instruction to five or more students in grade 8 in 1991-92. For each of the 193 districts studied, pupil achievement was measured as mean grade-8 scores on the Maine Educational Assessment Tests for the 3 years ended 1991-92. Four school district characteristics differentiated between the 30 highest-achieving and the 24 lowest-achieving districts. High-achieving districts spent more per pupil, had a larger property tax base per pupil, had higher median family income, and employed a higher percentage of elementary teachers with a graduate degree. Achievement was not significantly related to pupil-teacher ratio or district tax levies. Higher percentages of elementary teachers with graduate degrees were found in school systems with higher levels of per pupil expenditures and higher median family incomes. The expected correlation between achievement and socioeconomic status was somewhat smaller than has been found nationally, perhaps because of Maine's generally low income levels. (SV)