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The Price Tag for Improving Education

Researchers considered options like longer school years, raising teacher pay, and reducing class sizes, crunching the numbers to estimate the costs of a wide range of scenarios. Lawmakers can look to the report for numbers such as $3,200. That's about how much more per student a high-poverty district would need to pay to help meet those students' needs.

Rick Brandon of University of Washington, which produced the report, says if the state were to adopt every option, it would require boosting education spending by 2-and-a-half to $5 billion. Brandon doesn't think that kind of jump in spending is likely or even wise.

Rick Brandon: Policy makers can select out of this certain policies which have a strong basis in the research literature - shown to be effective in improving student performance - and they can know what is a reasonable level of cost and investment statewide and in different school districts in order to implement those policies.

Brandon advises lawmakers to think carefully about the different needs of students in urban, rural, and suburban districts and then form their priorities.

The study was partially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The final draft is expected within the next two months.