Federal Reserve dips into education politics and come up bereft – NEPC

The evenings’s note-worthy report.

The Effect of Constitutional Provisions on Education Policy and Outcomes, a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, examines the potential effects of amending education clauses contained in states’ constitutions.

Bruce D. Baker of Rutgers University reviewed the report and found its conclusions to be overly simplistic, despite using excessively complex analyses to make its case.

The apparent intent of the Federal Reserve Bank report is to provide an empirical justification for amending the education clause of Minnesota’s constitution. Specifically, the report lays out four independent empirical analyses in an attempt to advance a theory of action for improving education quality. This theory of action asserts that amending these education clauses to include strong language regarding a legislative duty to fund schools leads to increased citizen leverage, potential judicial intervention, and adopted legislation—all of which lead to better school quality and student outcomes.

Unfortunately, the four analyses presented in the report use methods and models that exceed the capacity and quality of the data. In addition, these methods and models are inadequately linked to one another or to the theory of action.

Professor Baker concludes that the report provides little evidentiary basis for the proposed theory of action or for the current campaign to amend the Minnesota constitution.

Baker writes:

A recent report published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis examines the poten- tial effects of amending the education clauses contained in states’ constitutions. The appar- ent intent of this report is to provide an empirical justification for amending the education clause of Minnesota’s constitution. Specifically, the report lays out four independent empir- ical analyses in an attempt to advance a theory of action for improving education quality. This theory of action asserts that amending state constitutional education clauses to include strong language regarding a legislative duty to fund schools leads to increased citizen lever- age, potential judicial intervention, and adopted legislation which leads to better school quality and student outcomes. Unfortunately, the four analyses presented in the report use methods and models that exceed the capacity and quality of the data. In addition, these methods and models are inadequately linked to one another or to the theory of action. Ul- timately, the report provides little evidentiary basis for the proposed theory of action or for the current campaign to amend the Minnesota constitution.

The April 2021 report includes four distinct empirical analyses intended to support its the- ory of action regarding constitutional amendments and school quality. In keeping with that theory, and drawing on the findings, the report concludes, “Our results show that strength- ening education clauses results in higher per-pupil spending, an increase in teacher salaries, smaller class size, and improvement in reading and math test scores” (p. 26). As explained in this review, however, the main problem is that the report’s four separate analyses do not clearly establish the connections laid out in its theory of action. The report’s conclusions are not justified. With little regard for the content or purpose of amendments, the report links counts and timing of amendments to school resources and student outcomes. Next, it links amendments by broad categories to counts of legislation and judicial activity. Separately, it links constitutional strength to likelihood of judicial intervention, but without regard for whether that intervention led to real change in school resources, quality, and student out- comes.

All in all, the report presents a juggernaut of four discrete analyses, which (a) use methods and models that exceed the capacity and quality of the data, (b) are inadequately linked to one another or to the theory of action, and (c) ultimately provide little evidentiary basis for the proposed theory of action or for the current campaign to amend the Minnesota constitution.

In terms of the equity and adequacy of financing schools—the desired end result of all of this—Illinois remains one of the least equitably funded states in the country,28 and Florida and Colorado are among the least adequately funded state systems.29 Recall that Colorado is among the only states with recent funding-related amendments.30

While I remain skeptical that any sufficient statistical model can predict legislative or judi- cial behavior in the way the authors wish, this particular report is thwarted by its failure to consider several relatively well-understood constraints and conditions. Among other things, in its attempt to cast constitutional amendments as mainly positive and progressive, the re- port brushes aside constitutional amendments that are reactionary and destructive to public services such as constitutional tax and expenditure limits, such as Colorado’s TABOR31 and California’s Proposition 13.32 A vast body of literature in public economics points to the detrimental influence of such amendments on public service quality, including schools.33 All constitutional amendments are not created equal, which is acknowledged in the report’s fourth analysis.

see the full report here: https://nepc.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/reviews/NR%20Baker_1.pdf

Please report errors and omissions.

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