by David Safier
I wrote a series of posts about Brewer's Performance Funding model (now SB1444), using a crude numerical analysis to show that the model favors schools with high income students and punishes schools with low income students. (Here's my third post. You can work back from there if you wish.) Now there's a far more thorough study out that arrives at substantially the same conclusion, written by David R. Garcia, an Associate Professor at the ASU Teachers College, and Anabel Aportela, a former Director of Research & Policy at the AZ Dept of Ed who is now with the Consortium for Policy Research in Education at University of Wisconsin/Madison.
The study gives the lie to Brewer's assertion that "Performance Funding does not favor districts in wealthier areas." Subjecting a large sampling of schools to statistical analysis, the data indicated a strong to very strong correlation: Performance Funding favors schools in wealthier areas. The wonks among you can sort through the data in this short, lucid presentation and see how they arrived at their conclusions.