It’s pretty obvious to me that the enormous increase in education funding over the last 3 decades has had little to no positive effect on student performance. In the last 25 years, the United States has doubled per-pupil spending (adjusted for inflation).

The US spends far more money on primary education than most other industrialized countries. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2008 Education at a Glance, the United States ranks number one internationally in annual expenditure on educational institutions per student (primary through tertiary education). And the Democrats in Congress are now proposing another huge multi-billion dollar infusion of cash for public schools through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Yet despite this incredible influx of taxpayer dollars, on a national level SAT scores are flat or have fallen since we started the huge influx of spending decades ago, and our international scholastic standing is embarrassing if anything.
We need to come to grips with the fact that money is not the answer to the education dilemma, and nor is a lack of funding the root cause of the problems in the Baltimore City educational system.

While the US ranks at the top of the world in spending, Baltimore City, largely via the generosity of the inhabitants of the Maryland suburbs, ranks even higher. The city spends more than the national average. For comparison, nations such as New Zealand and Korea spent less than half of what the USA spends per child, and outperformed our students in both science and math testing. England, Finland, Spain and Ireland spent 1/3 less than us, and also outperformed us (Finland was at the very top in both science and math literacy). Some of these nations have found the answer. We obviously haven’t.

Sure, some teachers, education professionals and other’s who benefit from the education bureaucracy will write in asking for an ever-increasing piece of the pie. But soaking the taxpayers for more money hasn’t and won’t improve test scores, or the futures of the children in the system.

What’s needed is real reform, using the educational systems of other nations as a model. Because if anyone thinks that $11,000 per student isn’t enough money to teach a child, they need to have their head examined. The argument that if we don’t agree to increase spending, or if we dare suggest that we cut education spending, then we are anti-child is getting tiresome and worn out. Americans are squeezed. The multitudes of cash we’ve wasted have had no effect. How about some real reform for a change.