Districts whose 3rd graders had low test scores in reading spent 50 percent more per student for K-3 English/language arts instructional resources than districts with average and higher scores did in recent years, according to a new report from Noodle Markets.

Since previous research has shown that socioeconomic status correlates with achievement levels, Noodle Markets Inc. wanted to know whether districts’ selection of certain instructional resources positively affected the outcomes. This study found that, for these resources, they did not.

“In our models, we found no impacts of products on achievement—controlling for district income—and we found no evidence that products modify the impact of socioeconomic status on achievement, ” said Peter Crosta, the vice president of data science at Noodle Markets.

The report–the second in a series of such studies–examines both core curriculum and supplemental ELA instructional resources purchased for kindergartners through 3rd graders. Noodle Markets’ researchers analyzed about 42,000 purchase orders provided by a company called SmartProcure that aggregates such data from local, state, and federal governments. Noodle Markets estimates that this represents about 60 percent of the market.

Products from three companies command more than 55 percent of the instructional market “pie” for that audience: Pearson, McGraw-Hill Education, and Core Knowledge Foundation. The report shows the relative cost of 16 core and 21 supplemental resources, their relative market share, and whether they are trending up or down.

“Just seeing which products are in use could be eye-opening to districts,” said Katie Drummond, a principal researcher in the literacy and language acquisition practice area for the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit organization that performs basic and applied research. She said the report “opens the door to transparency of spending in terms of what curricular products” are being purchased.

However, the report does not take into account “how products are used, how easy it is for educators to use them…and we really do need more information about what’s causing achievement gains,” she said. “Sometimes we can see that purchases are made and they just sit on the shelf, frankly.”

Mix of District Sizes

The Noodle Markets‘ analysts acknowledge the constraints in their second report about the education market, and encourage further research to see the impact of purchased curricular products.

The report was created by examining the purchase orders for K-3 ELA products in 3,136 districts in 48 states between 2008 and 2015, and comparing them to districts’ 3rd grade assessment results and socioeconomic data. About 28 percent of the local education agencies are large suburban districts, and about 20 percent are in rural towns. Only about 10 percent in the sample are in cities.

Compared with the English/language arts research, Crosta said his K-3 math products‘ research “found some evidence that some of the math products influenced the impact of socioeconomic level on achievement.”

“For the second report, we developed smarter queries to search SmartProcure’s data, and thus the quality of the purchasing data returned was much higher,” said Crosta. “Therefore, we decided to be more specific this time around. Each time, we hope to improve more and more.”

See also:

• New Analysis Compares Costs, Effectiveness of K-3 Math Products
• Inside California’s English/Language Arts Adoption: District Buying Patterns
• K-12 Leaders Can Now ‘Test Drive’ Noodle Markets’ Procurement Platform
• Noodle Markets, Online Marketplace for K-12 Purchasing, Opens for Vendors
• New Focus on Ed. Finance, Data on the Horizon
• District Ed-Tech Purchasing Data, Pricing, to be Shared, Compared on Platform