"Project Baltimore analyzed the MCAP results and found, statewide, 23 schools did not have one student who tested proficient in math. There were another 15 schools where just one student tested proficient in math. Eight more schools had two students test proficient in math. Overall, 46 Maryland public schools had two or fewer total students test proficient in math."

Maryland spends a ton of money on public education.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5777182&forum_id=2Ã#49281154)

https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2025/08/13/illinois-approves-lower-cut-scores-on-state-exams/

Under the new cut scores, 53% of students would be considered proficient in English language arts, up from 41% last year; 38% would be proficient in math, up from 28% last year; and 45% would be in science, down from last year.

Illinois State Superintendent Tony Sanders said the move is not a lowering of standards, but rather adjusting to better match the reality of students’ abilities.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5777182&forum_id=2Ã#49281199)

September 17, 2025

A new analysis of payroll data for more than 12,000 school district and students’ academic performance in the past five years “shows a negative correlation between overhead and student performance,” according to Open the Books.

“Our review of 12,531 school districts across the country shows a negative correlation between overhead and student performance. In other words, districts that spent more on teacher and administrative pay saw their students’ standardized test scores drop,” Open the Books reported Wednesday.

Open the Books is an Illinois-based non-profit group that uses freedom of information and related public information access laws and regulations to compile and regularly update spending data for the federal government, all 50 state governments, and major municipal authorities across the United States.

The group describes itself as providing public access to “every dime, online, in real time.” The resulting database is the largest compilation of government spending ever compiled and made available to anybody with access to the internet.

“Using the Open the Books proprietary database of government salaries across America, we calculated how much each U.S. state increased its public-school payrolls from 2019 to 2023. We compared that number to the change in each state’s ranking on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which measures reading and math skills for 4th and 8th graders,” Open the Books said.

“By plotting the percentage change in payroll, state by state, versus the percentage change in the national rankings of its districts, a surprising picture emerges. Growing payrolls are not closely correlated with improved performance among districts in a given state. In fact, the opposite correlation appears. There is a mild inverse relationship between these two data sets. Higher overhead costs are associated with lower test scores,” the group said.

The group cautioned, however, that correlation in data analyses does not equal causation: “A negative correlation does not prove causation, but it raises another important question: Is the negative correlation more likely the result of increased teacher pay or is higher pay for administrators a factor?”

Open the Books cited previous analyses published in 1986 by the Journal of Education Finance and a study in 2000 by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California at Davis that found “an increase in administrator pay is a more likely cause of the negative correlation with student achievement.”

Open the Books added that “administrative bloat in public schools is not new. Benjamin Scafidi, an Economics of Education professor at Kennesaw State University, found that the number of non-teaching staff at U.S. schools increased by 702 percent from 1950 to 2009, while the number of teachers increased by only 252 percent. Meanwhile, student scores on the NAEP fell.”

Scafidi also found that the number of administrative staff in the nation’s schools increased 41% while over school employment rose by only 10%.

Maine topped the 50-state ranking when it saw student academic achievement rank drop by 16 positions between 2019 and 2024, even as the state pumped a 19% increase in payroll into its school systems. The state’s 4th and 8th grade students ranked 22nd in the country for reading and math achievement in 2019 but fell to 38th in 2024.

Maine was followed in the top five academic position losses ranking by Virginia, Oregon, Vermont, and Delaware, with Virginia dropping 15 positions while increasing payroll by 31.38% during the period. Oregon and Vermont both lost 13 positions on the academic performance ranking while increasing payroll outlays by 35 and 74% respectively. Delaware increased payroll 15% and fell by nine positions.

Open the Books also pointed to Maryland as an example of the inverse correlation between payroll spending and student achievement.

“Maryland is making historic investments in education through its 10-year, $30 billion Blueprint for Maryland’s Future plan. However, the plan has put such a strain on city and county finances that local legislator Joseph Stonko recently called it the “Blueprint to Bankrupt Maryland’s Future.” In Maryland, student performance has yet to improve. In fact, since the Blueprint bill was first discussed in 2019, Maryland’s ranking on NAEP exams has dropped eight spots,” according to Open the Books.

Utah provides a significant exception to the overall correlation pattern found by Open the Books. The Beehive State boosted school staff spending by 61% from 2019 to 2024 and saw its students’ academic performance ranking improve by three positions.

Another such example is Massachusetts, which Open the Books said saw its academic performance topping the nation in both 2019 and 2024, even as state officials only increased school payroll spending by 4%.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5777182&forum_id=2Ã#49281204)