Research backs up the education reforms enacted over the past several years in our state — data that won’t sit well with North Carolina’s entrenched status quo.

A survey of nearly 900 academic studies from the past quarter-century shows North Carolina has been moving in the right direction on education reform in recent years. That’s a key conclusion from a new John Locke Foundation Spotlight report.

“Based on findings from 888 studies published in peer-reviewed journals or by the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1990, North Carolina officials have enacted policies that will likely improve the efficiency and efficacy of our education system in the coming years,” said JLF President John Hood, the report’s co-author. “Policymakers should resist attempts to backtrack from the significant accomplishments already achieved.”

Hood and co-author Dr. Terry Stoops, JLF Director of Research and Education Studies, scoured studies assessing the impact of school spending, teacher quality, teacher pay, testing, school choice, and other variables on student achievement.

“It’s the responsibility of policymakers to make decisions based on the best available empirical evidence about how education systems really work, not just folk wisdom, anecdotes, or newspaper editorials,” Stoops said. “This paper gives North Carolina policymakers a place to start.”

Among the new report’s key findings:

Higher spending was associated with higher student performance just 32 percent of the time in 116 studies exploring that relationship.

More than half (56 percent) of 90 studies found mixed or statistically insignificant results when examining the link between average teacher salaries and student outcomes.

Just 41 percent of 132 studies found a positive effect of additional years of teaching experience on effectiveness in the classroom.

Only 16 percent of 114 studies showed a positive relationship between a teacher’s graduate degree and student outcomes.

In contrast, 61 percent of the 34 studies on teacher incentives for individual or schoolwide performance, or both, found statistically significant gains in student outcomes.

Roughly two-thirds (66 percent) of 73 scholarly studies associated public school choice and competition with higher student outcomes.

A similar rate (65 percent) of 127 studies found positive, statistically significant benefits for students from private school choice and competition.