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
It’s a pretty lame “study” that comes to the obvious conclusion that increased expenditures don’t automatically mean increased academic achievement. Yeah, it depends on what the increased expenditure is spent on. Thanks for the earth-shaking information there. Just think of the costs of wiring and retro-fitting schools and retraining teachers for new technologies since 1970, and you get an understanding that much of the increased expenditure went to technology firms and student programs not meant to increase reading scores.
Studies that look at average achievement statistics over long periods of time are pretty worthless. The tests are recalibrated every 5-10 years, so let’s not kids ourselves that we can compare succeeding cohorts of students in any meaningful way.
This is the sort of “study” that is realeased every year by right-leaning think tanks (this one is by Heritage Foundation). Between ALEC and Heritage Foundation, the same “study” and the same “conclusions” presented for 15-20 years running, but never with any suggestions for what programs should any increased funding go to. Never do they talk about private or religious schools or home school achievement statistics, though they pimp school choice as the savior for education. So, I think we can pretty much conclude they are using data to support an ideological position rather than using data to improve education.