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DOES MORE MONEY MEAN BETTER TEST SCORES ? BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN COST FUNCTION ADEQUACY ESTIMATIONS AND EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS May 10 th , 2006

Costing out educational adequacy studies claim that they can determine the amount of expenditure necessary to raise student achievement. However, the majority of the educational production function literature has not found a significant link between expenditure and achievement. This paper examines the cost function method of determining adequate expenditure. It uses data from the 2004-2005 school year in Texas to estimate a cost and production function on a district level. I find that the results from the production function are the opposite of those found in the cost function estimation, leading me to believe that the model specification is the cause of the discrepancy. I argue that there are significant methodological problems with the cost function estimation that are corrected when the functional form is changed to an educational production function. Furthermore, the results of the cost function estimation are more sensitive to methodological changes than the production function estimation. I also find that the results of the production function method are sensitive to changes in the educational output measure.