Personnel expenses and performance in mathematics

an analysis based on the municipal schools of SBC

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the relationship between the money spent on education and school performance, based on the expenditure information on the school-level. The debate on the relationship between expense and performance has been mostly based on estimates using the aggregated data of municipal spending on education. In this study, we show the relevance of the information on spending at the school level. With this, we intend not only to understand if education expenses are or are not associated with performance, but also to observe how different types of costs are related in different ways to the performance of students. Based on literature review, we have proposed categories of personnel expenses for the municipal schools of São Bernardo do Campo. Categories of higher aggregation involve what we consider to be expenses directly related to teaching and expenses indirectly related to teaching. From the specific categories, which are based on information on spending per school, we explore the relationship between expenses per student and their performance in the Mathematics exam in Prova Brasil 2013, using regression analysis. The estimates have shown that the relationship between spending and performance is not homogeneous amidst the different categories of expenditure, and that specification of models improves as expenditures are disaggregated. Among the results, we highlight the indication of a positive and significant relation between spending on Pedagogical Coordination and performance on the mathematics exam.