Smaller school districts in Iowa are spending more per pupil than larger districts, ISU research shows.

Two ISU economists recently completed a study that analyzed the relationship between school district size and money spent per pupil.

Dan Otto, professor of economics, and Mark Imerman, ISU Extension program specialist for economics, stated in their study that smaller school districts, those with less than 750 students, spend more money per pupil than larger school districts do. “There is a fairly strong relationship on the administrative costs per pupil,” Otto said. “After 750 [students], it leveled off.”

The leveling off of spending per student after 750 students was surprising to Imerman, he said.

“It says that a district doesn’t have to be excessively large for it to fall into [the] cost structure that larger schools do,” Imerman said.

According to the study, Otto and Imerman found smaller school districts also receive more money from local taxes than larger districts do. “The data show smaller districts shoulder a larger share of the expenditures involved in their educational investment locally, from their own sources, than do larger districts,” Otto said.

Otto said the study began as a result of a public policy question over school sizes and consolidation. He said he did not see a lot of data being included in discussions, so the two economists wanted to bring some of this readily available data into the discussion.

Imerman said he realized re-organization was necessary when he was working on a public information Web site. “The reason we started the study was I was looking at the data to put it on a public information Web site I have,” he said. “The information I got was in shares and budget categories and not on a student basis, [so we] had it recompiled, and saw some patterns. There wasn’t a master plan.”

Both Otto and Imerman said the study is not a definitive study, but there are some indications that result from the study.

“We didn’t solve problems with this study,” Imerman said. “It’s just one of a lot of puzzle pieces that have to fall into the discussion.”

Improving discussion by adding facts and figures behind the debate is the goal of the study, he said.

“I think the importance [of this study] is it provides some statistical foundation on current district size debate,” Imerman said.