Most school finance studies examine spending on day-to-day school operations, but we have less evidence on the impacts of school infrastructure spending; this is an important spending category that includes classroom space, durable technological upgrades, health and safety improvements, and extracurricular facilities.
Investments in HVAC, STEM equipment, safety/health, plumbing/roofs/furnaces, and classroom facilities all produce notable and statistically significant improvements in test scores.
Eight years after passage of a bond on school infrastructure spending, grade 3-8 math and ELA test scores are about eight percent of a district-level standard deviation higher, akin to closing eight percent of the initial achievement gap between high- and low-SES districts.