The Virginian-Pilot
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VIRGINIA BEACH
Gains in student achievement propped up Beach property values by as much as $9.5 billion through the recession, an economist concluded in an impact study paid for by the school system and released Monday.
School administrators commissioned the $21,000 study this spring in an effort to influence future funding discussions with the City Council.
Economist Michael Walden of North Carolina State University calculated the economic impact of improved test scores between 2007 and 2010 by comparing data with previous studies that drew correlations between student achievement and year-over-year changes in residential property values.
“The idea is that parents, in looking for a place to live, are looking for better quality schools,” Walden told the School Board during its annual retreat Monday at Renaissance Academy.
Improved SAT and ACT scores among Beach high school students over the three-year period resulted in citywide property values that were between $2.8 billion and $9.5 billion higher than they would have been otherwise, Walden said.
Walden estimates the improved test scores indirectly bolstered city tax revenues by between $28 million and $86 million a year.
Residential property values declined by $3.7 billion to $43.8 billion in Virginia Beach over the period examined in the study, city Assessor Jerry Banagan said in an interview. Similar dips were recorded throughout Hampton Roads, Banagan said, declining to comment on the validity of the school system’s study.
“I’m not an economist,” Banagan said. “I will say, this has been a very atypical period in property values that was really driven by declines in the national economy.”
School Board members frequently have touted the school division as “an economic engine” during their ongoing struggle with the City Council to maintain funding for education. The study was an attempt to quantify that argument for talks about the revenue-sharing formula this summer, schools Superintendent Jim Merrill said.
The City Council asked for a comprehensive review of the funding formula this spring after a contentious budget season that culminated in the city using $23.7 million originally allocated to the school system to close a city shortfall.
Merrill and City Manager Jim Spore plan to meet privately this summer and recommend a new school funding model.
Board members on Monday discussed strategies for best using the economic impact study to sway that discussion. School officials plan to publish the 54-page report on the division’s website and send parents and teachers a summary of its findings.
“It’s not a matter of asking, ‘Do our schools have a positive economic impact?’ ” School Board member Brent Mckenzie said. “We all know it does. It’s just a matter of how much? And how do we make this information known?”
Mike Hixenbaugh, (757) 222-5117, mike.hixenbaugh@pilotonline.com
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Document: The study
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Waste of Taxpayer Dollars Once Again
There's another $21,000 the City should have taken from the School Board. Everyone knows that good schools help attract new residents and new businesses. It's a HUGE stretch to suggest that the raise property values and tax revenue. Of course, NC State isn't known as the mecca of economists either. Geesh! How could enough people have thought this was a good idea to have gotten the expenditure approved?!?!
Quantitative Analysis 101
Good schools are directly related to a healthy local economy. But it is a stretch to say that "test scores" have an effect when the VB curriculum is structured towards the SOL tests, and teachers are teaching to the test.
If VBCPS wants to make a connection between the number of employees & the impact compensation has on the local economy, why are they purchasing so much technology & other items from companies/manufacturors outside the area instead of rewarding employees and stimulating the local economy? Even this study was completed by a guy in Raleigh.
Any student with a basic course in quantitative analysis could polk holes in this study.
No one doubts the quality of the schools...it's their spending priorities that are questioned.
That's News?
Seriously, we had to spend that money to come to the conclusion that quality schools attract more residents? No one would argue with that, so why is quantifying it -- which I can't really judge -- necessary? Wasting money strikes me as an odd way of demonstrating that you need more money.
Fools
“The idea is that parents, in looking for a place to live, are looking for better quality schools,” Walden told the School Board during its annual retreat Monday at Renaissance Academy.Maybe so, but if you believe that is how life should be, you are a fool for subscribing to it. It's OUR tax money,not theirs.We all have a right to have equally performing schools no matter where you live in a city.you can't always dictate where you live, but you have to live somewhere. Until everyone in a city can stroke their own $200,000 checks, the local gov has a duty to every public school in the city to provide a equal and quality education to those students. End of discussion. I for one do not agree with building competition in PUBLIC funded schools.
Tell the local govt then
If it's the local government's duty to provide equal education systems the localities with poor school systems (ie - Portsmouth & Norfolk) should start doing something about it. I don't disagree that equal quality education is ideal. But to make a truly equal system across the US, it'd have to be at a federal level. And, sure, you "have" to live somewhere (although I think one can "dictate" it more than you think), but I'd choose to live in a safer city with better schools any day. Ya, the house might be a little smaller in VB, but I'd owe it to my kids to put them in a position for better learning opportunities. No matter where I live I'm always going to take education systems into consideration when it comes to kids. Not just here.
Another waste of consultant money.
I doubt the city needed to spend 17K when they already had all the data in their system. This could have been a simple Excel project for any high school math class. Compare test scores to real estate assessments and relate any increase/decrease in assessment against test scores. The first 40 pages was all qualifiers for national stats and background info, non of which was really relevant to what the project was for.
number one choice in relocating
As someone who has moved 12 times my number one decision point was quality of schools. Funny how the place with the best schools was also the best place to live too.
how can we trust this report given all the cheating scandels
given all the reports of scholl systems cheating to inflate test scores, how can we be sure that is report, based on increased test scores, is accurate.
It
is absolutely amazing at the ways the school board wastes our money. Thousands of dollars to get somebody to come up with a conclusion that wanted him to put in the report? Want to make a bet this guy writes these reports all over the country to justify tax increases and out of control spending by school boards and city councils? They knew exactly what he was going to write before they got the report. It is complete academic rubbish. The school board and the city council both need an oversight committee made up of citizens to hold them accountable.
love this line from this study on page 31. "For K-12...like
VBCPS, the same approach can be used with one change - the comparison is between the likely income earned by a high school graduate to the probably income earned by a high school dropout."
Lets compare potential pie in the sky $$ made over a lifetime of a HS or college grad to that of crime ridden degenerates of someone who dropped out of HS and expound on the positive impacts. No biasing here.
I do give credit to VBSS with a very high grad rate, but is the 92% figure Pg 18 a direct result of VBCPS when it counts military infusion? Seems like the study recognizes not all that is happening is because of the SB. Some to much of the positives is not because of VB, yet the outcomes include it, with caveats. This study is general in nature.