What decades of research tell us about school facilities, student achievement, and the investments that matter most.

Introduction

Iowa voters are regularly asked to approve millions of dollars in new borrowing for school buildings and other infrastructure. Upcoming November bond elections are the latest example, with school districts across the state asking voters to approve projects ranging from basic maintenance and improvements to additional classrooms, athletic facilities, entirely new buildings, and other amenities.

These investments are often discussed in terms of their benefits for students. But decades of academic research suggest those benefits depend, in part, on what the money actually buys.

The research points to several important findings:

• More capital spending does not necessarily mean better academic results. Research examining school construction and capital spending has often found little or no measurable improvement in test scores.
• The condition of the learning environment matters, so the type of investment matters. Temperature, ventilation, air quality, lighting, noise, and health and safety conditions can affect student learning; replacing a failing ventilation system or removing a health hazard is fundamentally different from adding athletic facilities, or constructing a new building
• The Iowa evidence fits the broader research. Iowa’s additional infrastructure revenue from the statewide SAVE tax did not produce statistically significant improvements in third-grade reading, eighth-grade math, or graduation rates.

For taxpayers evaluating school bond proposals, the issue is not simply whether school facilities have value, but how the money will be spent and what benefits taxpayers can reasonably expect from that investment.

What Research Tells Us

Since ITR Foundation began tracking school bond elections in March 2023, Iowa districts have proposed billions of dollars in new borrowing for construction and other capital improvements. Often, many different projects are packaged together into a single bond proposal.

Districts understandably describe these proposals as investments in students. Des Moines Public Schools, for example, argued that activity, arts, and athletic spaces included in its 2025 bond proposal would increase student engagement and, in turn, improve academic success. Spirit Lake Community School District has said during this election cycle that proposed renovations would create spaces better suited to current instructional needs and student learning.

Those claims raise an important question that should be answered for taxpayers, parents, and school officials alike: What does academic research tell us about the relationship between school facilities and student achievement?

The answer is more complicated than either side of a school bond debate might portray. The physical environment in which students learn can affect student performance. But the research provides much less evidence that simply building newer, larger, or more elaborate facilities produces better academic outcomes.

That distinction is important for Iowa taxpayers, especially given the increased debt burden many school districts are now shouldering. Iowa K-12 schools currently carry more than $5.6 billion in outstanding debt obligations, compared with approximately $3.6 billion just a decade earlier.

Some Facility Investments Really Do Matter

There is good reason to believe the physical environment of a school can affect students.

Researchers have studied the relationship between school facilities and student performance for decades. Lemasters’s (1997) synthesis identified 53 studies conducted since 1980 examining school facilities, student achievement, and behavior. More recently, Hewitt and Earthman’s (2019) synthesis identified 81 studies focused specifically on building condition and academic achievement.  Across that literature, certain environmental conditions repeatedly emerge as important. Recent research helps identify which specific investments may produce the greatest academic benefit.  Biasi, Lafortune, and Schönholzer (2025) examined school capital investments across the United States and found that investments in HVAC systems were associated with higher test scores, likely because those systems moderate classroom temperatures and improve indoor air quality. Investments that removed toxic materials and addressed other health and safety concerns also produced positive results.

But the same study found something equally important: not every capital investment produced the same result.  Investments in athletic facilities, land purchases, and transportation produced no detectable effects on test scores.  That suggests the strongest academic case for school facility investment concerns basic health, safety, and environmental conditions, not simply the age or appearance of a building.

A Newer School Does Not Necessarily Mean Better Academic Results

Other researchers have examined whether larger capital campaigns and school construction projects translate into better student performance. The results are much less clear.  Martorell, Stange, and McFarlin (2016) analyzed nearly 1,400 capital campaigns initiated and financed by local school districts in Texas. They found that the typical capital investments in their sample did not produce appreciable improvements in student achievement

Bowers and Urick (2011) approached the question from another direction. Using a nationally representative sample of 520 high schools and more than 8,100 students, they examined maintenance problems such as broken lights and windows, ceiling damage, graffiti, and trash. After accounting for student and school characteristics, they found no evidence of a direct relationship between facility disrepair and mathematics achievement.

Research from individual states has reached similar conclusions.  Cellini, Ferreira, and Rothstein (2010) examined California school bond referenda from 1995 through 2006. Their methodology compared districts where bond measures barely passed with districts where they barely failed, providing researchers with two groups of districts that were otherwise relatively similar.  Passing a bond increased nearby home values, suggesting residents placed real value on the school improvements. But the academic effects were considerably smaller. Researchers found some evidence of improved test scores several years after bond passage, particularly in elementary grades, but those achievement gains explained only a small portion of the increase in property values.

Goncalves (2015) studied an Ohio program that rebuilt and renovated K-12 schools and found a similar pattern. Completing a construction project increased public school enrollment and district property values, but test scores did not measurably improve after the projects were completed. In fact, test scores declined during construction, suggesting that the disruption associated with major building projects can carry a short-term academic cost.

Taken together, these studies do not suggest that facilities are unimportant. Rather, they demonstrate that newer or more expensive facilities do not automatically translate into higher student achievement.

What Schools Buy May Matter More Than How Much They Spend

One of the most useful lessons from the collective research is that whether additional school spending improves student outcomes depends in large part on what the money is buying.

Baron (2022) examined school referenda in Wisconsin, where districts hold separate elections for operating and capital spending. That allowed researchers to distinguish between the effects of additional money for school operations and additional money for buildings and other capital expenses.  In close elections, additional operating spending improved student outcomes, including test scores, dropout rates, and postsecondary enrollment. Additional capital spending, by contrast, had little effect on those outcomes.

The Wisconsin findings complement the national research from Biasi, Lafortune, and Schönholzer (2025). That study found measurable academic benefits from certain capital expenditures, particularly HVAC and health and safety improvements, while finding no detectable test-score effects from several other categories of capital spending.

The lesson is not that spending is irrelevant. It is that different kinds of spending produce different kinds of results.

Replacing a failing ventilation system is not expected to produce the same result as constructing a new athletic facility. Removing a health hazard is different from purchasing additional land. Constructing a new school may address a genuine capacity problem or serve another legitimate operational purpose, even if it does not necessarily increase test scores. Treating all of these expenditures simply as “investments in education” can obscure those differences.

Iowa’s Experience Follows a Similar Pattern

Iowa-specific research provides another useful piece of evidence.  Nguyen-Hoang and Damiano (2023) examined Iowa’s statewide penny sales tax for school infrastructure, now administered through the Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE) program.  The researchers studied how districts responded to the additional capital revenue and whether student outcomes changed as a result.

They found that the additional capital revenue did not produce a statistically significant improvement in third-grade reading, eighth-grade mathematics, or graduation rates.  That finding is consistent with much of the broader research on SAVE spending in Iowa: providing schools with additional resources for infrastructure can result in more capital investment without necessarily producing measurable improvements in academic achievement.

What Should Taxpayers Look For?

The research does not provide voters with a simple formula for deciding whether a school bond deserves their support. Nor does it suggest that school buildings are irrelevant to education.  Instead, it provides a useful framework for evaluating what can sometimes be very large and complicated proposals.

When a district places a bond question before voters, taxpayers should look beyond the total price tag and examine the individual projects contained within it.  Some expenditures may address health, safety, and the basic learning environment: HVAC, air quality, electrical systems, accessibility, or the removal of hazardous materials. Others may address operational or capacity needs: classroom additions, building reconfigurations, transportation facilities, or parking. Still others may primarily provide athletic, extracurricular, recreational, or community amenities. And a single bond proposal can contain projects from all three categories. The academic research does not say that voters should support one category and reject another. It does suggest that taxpayers should not assume all three have the same relationship to student achievement.

School facilities matter. But not all facility investments provide the same benefits. Taxpayers should consider which investments matter most, what benefits they can reasonably expect, and whether those benefits are worth the cost.

This is particularly important when districts are asking taxpayers to assume long-term debt. A new athletic facility may benefit students and the community. Additional classrooms may solve a genuine capacity problem. An auditorium or other extracurricular space may provide opportunities students would not otherwise have. But those benefits should be evaluated on their own merits rather than justified by an assumption that virtually any investment in school facilities will improve academic achievement. Even when a project provides a broader community benefit, taxpayers should still consider whether the school district is the appropriate vehicle for providing it and whether taking on additional taxpayer-supported debt is the best way to pay for it.

With Iowa schools carrying billions of dollars in outstanding obligations, voters need enough information to distinguish among these different purposes and determine whether the benefits of the entire proposal justify its long-term cost.

References

Baron, J. (2022). School spending and student outcomes: Evidence from revenue limit elections in Wisconsin. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 14(1), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20200226

Biasi, B., Lafortune, J., & Schönholzer, D. (2025). What works and for whom? Effectiveness and efficiency of school capital investments across the U.S. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 140(3), 2329-2379. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaf013

Bowers, A. J., & Urick, A. (2011). Does high school facility quality affect student achievement? A two-level hierarchical linear model. Journal of Education Finance, 37(1), 72-94. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23018142

Cellini, S. R., Ferreira, F., & Rothstein, J. (2010). The value of school facility investments: Evidence from a dynamic regression discontinuity design. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 125(1), 215-261. https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2010.125.1.215

Des Moines Public Schools. (2025). Reimagining education: Reinvigorating schools. https://www.dmschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/ReimagineEducation-Handout-1.pdf

Goncalves, F. M. (2015). The effects of school construction on student and district outcomes: Evidence from a state-funded program in Ohio (Working Paper No. 593). Princeton University, Industrial Relations Section. https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/indrel/593.html

Hewitt, C. D., & Earthman, G. I. (2019). An analytic synthesis of research studies dealing with the relationship between school building condition and student academic achievement. Journal of Ethical Educational Leadership, 6(2). https://jecel.sacredheart.edu/index.php/jecel/article/view/25

ITR Foundation. (2023a). Nearly $400 million in bond questions on March 7th special election. https://itrfoundation.org/nearly-400-million-in-bond-questions-on-march-7th-special-election/

ITR Foundation. (2023b). School districts seek $1.2 billion amid declining enrollment. https://itrfoundation.org/school-districts-seek-1-2-billion-amid-declining-enrollment/

ITR Foundation. (2024). New debt proposals exceed $1 billion for November election. https://itrfoundation.org/new-debt-proposals-exceed-1-billion-for-november-election/

ITR Foundation. (2025). Try, try again: Local governments bring back bond proposals. https://itrfoundation.org/try-try-again-local-governments-bring-back-bond-proposals/

Lemasters, L. K. (1997). A synthesis of studies pertaining to facilities, student achievement, and student behavior [Doctoral dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University]. VTechWorks. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/items/95422a30-44f4-4a5d-a9a5-4812ac86889b

Martorell, P., Stange, K., & McFarlin, I., Jr. (2016). Investing in schools: Capital spending, facility conditions, and student achievement. Journal of Public Economics, 140, 13-29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.05.002

Nguyen-Hoang, P., & Damiano, P. C. (2023). How do school districts use state aid for capital expenditures? The case of Iowa. Journal of Education Finance, 48(4), 405-426. https://doi.org/10.1353/jef.2023.a913134

Spirit Lake Community School District. (2026). 2026 bond. https://spirit-lake.k12.ia.us/bond/

State Treasurer of Iowa. (2025). 2025 outstanding obligations summary report. https://www.iowatreasurer.gov/media/cms/2025_Outstanding_Obligations_Summar_D16BDB2CBF82C.pdf