Noninstructional Spending Improves Noncognitive Outcomes: Discontinuity Evidence from a Unique Elementary School Counselor Financing System

Randall Reback ()

Education Finance and Policy, 2010, vol. 5, issue 2, 105-137

Abstract: Children's noncognitive skills, mental health, and behavior are important predictors of future earnings and educational attainment. Their behavior in the classroom also affects their peers' behavior and achievement. There is limited prior evidence, however, concerning the impact of school resources on student behavior. Some elementary schools employ counselors whose primary purpose is to help improve students' behavior, mental health, and noncognitive skill acquisition. This article estimates regression discontinuity models exploiting Alabama's unique financing system for school counselors. Alabama fully subsidizes counselor appointments for all elementary schools, with the number of appointments based on schools' prior year enrollments using discrete enrollment cutoffs. The results suggest that greater counselor subsidies reduce the frequency of disciplinary incidents but do not strongly influence mean student achievement test scores. Increases in counselors moderate relatively severe behavioral problems without necessarily improving systemic behavior affecting classroom learning. © 2010 American Education Finance Association

Keywords: noninstructional spending; school counseling; school counselor financing; elementary schools; student behavior; student mental health; noncognitive skill acquisition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Working Paper: Non-instructional Spending Improves Non-cognitive Outcomes:Discontinuity Evidence from a Unique Elementary School Counselor Financing System (2009)
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