he District of Columbia spends far more money per student in its public elementary and secondary schools each year than the tuition costs at many private elementary schools, or even college-preparatory secondary schools. Yet, District 8th-graders ranked dead last in 2005 in national reading and math tests.
Not one U.S. state can boast that a majority of the 8th-graders in its public schools last year had achieved grade-level proficiency or better in either reading or math.
How much money did your state spend per pupil while failing to adequately educate in reading and math the majority of students in its public schools? The answers are in the chart below.
Wisconsin ranked 11th in per student spending ($9,805 – Madison spends about $13,107 per student (321M budget [pdf]) / 24,490). Via Joanne, who notes that there is not much correlation between spending and NAEP test performance. UW-Madison emeritus professor Dick Askey discussed NAEP scores with respect to math performance recently.
Many may read this and conclude that there is a lot of money wasted in schools.
Behind the numbers, DC has one of the most challenging populations to teach. Schools are at a teaching disadvantage in comparison when examining the social ills that schools need to work around in order to get down to business.
In such an environment, DC also has to compete in a labor market that pays equivalently educated professionals much more (sound like Madison?), has a much higher chance for career advancement and prestige, and has far better working climates.
It’s not fair to say Madison spends around $13,000 per student, it’s just not true. My education this year has certainly not been $13,000 worth. Special education, and ELL students, to some extent, absorb much of this leaving the average student with about a $4,000 education.
The reason you cannot find a correspondence between funding and test scores is because the amount of money your average students gets to take advantage of is grossly overestimated.