Money Isn't the Problem With Education
Our children's education
has been a national concern practically since the nation's founding. In 1788
the Northwest Ordinance decreed that “schools and the means of education shall
forever be encouraged.” Over the last 40 years or so, that
encouragement has taken the form of upward spiraling educational spending, much
of which was needed to pay for thousands of new school employees.
But according to a recent
study
by the Cato Institute1, that increased spending hasn't
produced dramatically improved outcomes. Using a matrix which compares
aggregate SAT scores state by state compared with their spending trends,
researcher Andrew J. Coulson found that test scores in most states have remained
flat or slowly declined. Even in cases with lengthy declines in
spending – Coulson cites Alaska, California, Florida and New York as examples –
there
was a lack of correlation between spending and results.
Granted, the SAT isn't a
perfect example of academic prowess. Yet in most states the SAT is usually only
taken by college-bound students, whom one would expect to be the best and
brightest. Knowing our top academic achievers have a stagnant performance on an
important college assessment doesn't bode well for average students.
The problem with this result is that it punches yet another hole in the
theory that the cause of our failing education system is the lack of funding.
In the last 40 years we
have adopted new curricula, shaved the classroom size from about 30 per class
to 20 or so and spent billions on new school infrastructure. Yet
none of it seems to produce measurable results. The highest
achievers today are the ones taught outside
the public school system, whether they're homeschooled or attend
alternative parochial or charter schools. Those parents, and others with no
children in school, bear the brunt of the additional educational spending. The
only ones who seem to be happy about it are the government employees for whom
mediocrity is job security.
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