Case Problem 1: Spending and Student Achievement
The issue with this particular case problem is to determine whether the educational achievement level of students is related to how much money their residential state spends on the education system. For the most part, the taxpayers are interested in this matter because they are requested by the school districts to increase monetary expenditures or tax revenues spent on education usually on an annual basis. Therefore, it is our purpose to study the given data on spending and achievement scores of students to determine whether there is indeed any relationship between the two variables within the public school system.
To facilitate this study, the federal government's National Assessment of Education Progress Program is often implemented to measure student achievements. The table below shows a list of the total spending per pupil and the composite score of each states student population. The composite score involves the student's total scores of math, science, and reading scores within the specific 35 states in 1996. The subjects were in the eighth grade with the exception of reading in which reading was applied to fourth graders only. The highest score possible is 1300.