Study: No connection between spending, student outcomes

Watchdog.org ^ | April 7, 2014 | Rob Nikolewski

[Hoodat]

SANTA FE, N.M. – For decades, it’s probably the most troublesome question facing education: Why are results for U.S. public school students so mediocre, despite the billions of taxpayer dollars spent?

Andrew Coulson thinks he’s got the answer: Because there is no discernible correlation between spending and outcomes.

“The takeaway from this study is that what we’ve done over the past 40 years hasn’t worked,” said Coulson, director of the Center For Educational Freedom at the CATO Institute. “The average performance change nationwide has declined 3 percent in mathematical and verbal skills. Moreover, there’s been no relationship, effectively, between spending and academic outcomes.”

The CATO Institute is a free-market think-tank based in Washington, D.C.

Coulson just released his study, State Education Trends: Academic Performance and Spending over the Past 40 Years", and he points to this chart that incorporates costs and the number of public school employees with student enrollment and test scores:



While spending has just about tripled in inflation-adjusted dollars and the number of school employees has almost doubled since 1970, reading, math and science scores for students have remained stagnant.

“That is remarkably unusual,” Coulson wrote in his study. “In virtually every other field, productivity has risen over this period thanks to the adoption of countless technological advances — advances that, in many cases, would seem ideally suited to facilitating learning. And yet, surrounded by this torrent of progress, education has remained anchored to the riverbed, watching the rest of the world rush past it.” . .

[Hoodat]

The truth of the matter is that liberals are in charge. And liberals are interested in one thing and one thing only - indoctrination.

[Paladin2]

Wait, THAT can't be right.

Let's fund some more "studies" until we get the "right" answer.

[txrefugee]

So this study falls in line with countless others, documenting that no matter how much money is extorted by governmenys for education, you still can’t buy brains for students.

[2banana]

But there is a connection between higher educational spending and bigger and more powerful teacher’s unions - who support democrats 99-1 with their union dues.

[C210N]

Would the thesis and outcome be any different, if, just for example, wherever the word “education” was used, in its place we used the word “poverty”?

What about “glowbull warming”?

What about -fill-in-just-about-any-liberal-program-?

[PGR88]

There is a connection - at this point, MORE spending will create even worse results, because it feeds a dysfunctional system.

Cutting spending in many districts would actually force change that would improve results.

[TexasFreeper2009]

you could spend a billion and you wouldn't make someone retarded smart.

As long as we refuse to see the truth that not all people are equal we will continue down this dead end path.

Society keeps pushing the lie that all children are equal and can equally succeed if only they are given the right education. This is not just a lie, but a dangerous one.

To tell millions of people they could have been smart if only __________ had or hadn't happened is a receipt for disaster. People need to accept who they REALLY are and what their limitations are instead of blaming everyone else for their failures.

To lie to a short chubby kid who can't jump over a pencil and tell him he could be the next Michael Jordan if only he does ___________ is beyond cruel!

or to lie to some kid that is borderline retarded if only he does ____________ he can become a heart surgeon again is beyond cruel!

People need to accept the lot they have been dealt in life and be taught how to maximize the gifts they have while admitting honestly to their weaknesses instead of blaming others or society for their every failure because of their unrealistic expectations.

[MrB]

It really never fails, because libs have such an unfailing opinion of themselves -

their policies can’t ever be wrong,
and if they fail it’s because they weren’t funded enough.

[jameslalor]

File this study under the “duh” category. Anyone who has been paying attention realizes that education is not a panacea, and that no matter how much public money you throw at some problem students you’re never going to turn them into anything more than they were born to be.

There are consistent academic achievement gaps that persist despite socioeconomic status and despite educational intervention. Throwing more money at the problem isn’t going to make it go away, and we refuse to even try to understand the problem because there are some uncomfortable realizations we would have to give public voice to.

Oh, another “duh” factor to keep in mind - childhood IQ and childhood academic performance are not significantly correlated to adult IQ or academic achievement. Pre-pre-pre-preschool may get the mouth-breather to correctly identify the colors of the crayons in the box, but that doesn’t mean that the kid is going to be doing partial differential equations with ease in a decade or two.

It would be a far more economic, and far more humanitarian, use of public funds if we funneled most of the money away from disadvantaged students and into gifted programs.

You can’t ensure everyone gets a high-school diploma, but you can help ensure that the next generation of geniuses have the preparation and assets necessary to start the next green revolution - just so all the ditch-diggers don’t starve to death.

[PapaBear3625]

A graph which embarrassingly point out the real issue:

Asian students in the US are competitive with Asian students in Asia, White students in the US are competitive with white students in Europe.

[Beagle8U]

90 cents of every dollar winds up in the union school teachers pockets, pensions, and benefits.

Double the funding and they vote themselves a raise, nothing makes it to the classroom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVyNlJUKgug

[jameslalor]

The PISA scores do illustrate that our country has the best and brightest Asians, Whites, Latinos and Blacks in the world - all attending some of the better schools in the world.

However, the best and brightest of the world averaged out looks a little less than impressive.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Hoodat. As if we didn’t already know this.

My favorite is, “this proposed millage increase doesn’t have anything to do with teacher wages and benefits.” Oh no? What, do they run on donations, or maybe bake sales?

Not quite 20 years ago there was an attempt at community organizing in Grand Rapids, in this case on behalf of the downwardly spiraling public school system.

The volunteers for the “independent” committees — the sole role of which was to campaign for a gigantic millage to last 30 years and spend a couple of billion on unnecessary school construction — were followers of the Agenda Driven Life and explicitly didn’t have any input on the crap they were peddling.

They went to carefully scripted “meetings” which were just indoctrination sessions. A nitwit coworker who had involved herself was of course filled with the canned responses.

The millage was categorically rejected by voters.

A few years ago the school system needed a new super, and hired someone from a large city (a city that was all ‘hood), apparently thinking this was a good idea. Here’s a clue — if the candidate spent more on attire than the poorest member of the elected school board spent on their last car, DON’T HIRE THEM.

That joker proposed that people who move out of the city to enroll their kid in a better school system should be forced to continue to pay GR schools. No joke. He didn’t last.

The current super is a lifelong employee of the school system and seems to have some idea what she’s doing, but of course, there are limits to the performance of kids in GR public schools because the parents were as big nitwits when they went to those very same schools not all that many years ago.

[rbbeachkid]

All homeschoolers understand the economic point of diminishing returns in education.

[andyk]

Pfl

[OldPossum]

Re your post #7, you are right on target with your statement that society seems to want to ignore innate abilities and talent, neither of which can be manipulated by “education.” IOW, all students need do is work hard and with the right amount of coaching any of them could be academic stars. Hogwash.

As I tried to explain—in vain, as it turned out—to another Freeper, as a kid I wanted to be a major league baseball player, but, alas, I lacked the talent to do so. She maintained that if only I would have worked harder...though not expliciting stating that I would have made it, though implying that I would have. Hell, if that were the case, any of us could have been big-time singers or actors, all we need to do is work hard. No?

As one wag once put it: “If I had a mind to, I could write like Shakespeare.”

[GOPJ]

“In virtually every other field, productivity has risen over this period thanks to the adoption of countless technological advances — advances that, in many cases, would seem ideally suited to facilitating learning. And yet, surrounded by this torrent of progress, education has remained anchored to the riverbed, watching the rest of the world rush past it.”

Union workers - and yeah that includes teachers - have limited desire to do anything beyond the minimum. Well, except for excuses - and protection from being fired...

[TexasFreeper2009]

best chart ever!

the truth hurts, and no one wants to talk about it for fear of being called a racist.

[Sequoyah101]

Not only are we wasting lots of money on education. We don't live any longer than nations that sped a fraction of what we do on health care. Young people usually get well, old people die no matter how long you put it off or at what cost and injured people can often be helped. We spend most of our money trying to stop the inevitable, death. I'll try to link an image but here is the URL just in case. Georgia has the same life expectancy as Mexico? http://healthmap.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/what-country-does-your-states-life-expectancy-resemble/ http://healthmap.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/life-expectancy-map.png?w=698&h=459

[Sequoyah101]

What are you trying to say? :)

I see test scores for South America but none for Africa. What gives?