Does Spending More on Education Improve Academic Achievement?

Dan Lips & Shanea Watkins:

Debates about how to improve public education in America often focus on whether government should spend more on education. Federal and state policy makers proposing new education programs often base their arguments on the need to provide more resources to schools to improve opportunities for students.

Many Americans seem to share this view. Polling data show that many people believe that government allocates insufficient resources to schools. A poll conducted annually from 2004 through 2007 found that American adults list insufficient funding and resources as a top problem facing public schools in their communities.[1]

While this view may be commonly held, policy makers and citizens should question whether histori cal evidence and academic research actually support it. This paper addresses two important questions:

How much does the United States spend on public education?

What does the evidence show about the relationship between public education spending and stu dents' academic achievement?

The answers to these questions should inform federal and state policy debates about how best to improve education.

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia face budget shortfalls totaling approximately $48 billion for fiscal year 2009.[2] Even more states could face shortfalls in the near future. At the federal level, long-term budgets face a challenging fiscal climate. Pro jected growth of entitlement programs is expected to place an ever-increasing burden on the federal budget, limiting the resources available for other purposes, including education.[3]

Related: Charts - Enrollment; Local, State, Federal and Global Education Spending

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 10, 2008 7:44 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas