Hmmm … the article’s case is not compelling. They don’t give any theory for a causal connection between increasing spending on schools and lowered results from high school graduates, only a post-hoc-ergo-proper-hoc argument.
Hence, to argue the contrary, it’s sufficient to note that during the same time period as the one they consider, lots of things about American society were changing besides the inflation-adjusted increase in educational spending that could reasonably be expected to degrade the educational outcomes, such as the increase in schoolchildren from single-parent families, the increase in schoolchildren who have TV sets in their bedrooms, the reduction in the number of shared family meals, and so forth.
Given these changes in the culture, schools funded at 1960 levels might be producing graduates with even poorer educations than what we’re seeing now. Or, if we were able to undo these cultural changes, schools with 2009 levels of funding might be producing graduates who would run rings about the class of 1960.
But it creates (or saves!) jobs!!!
There’s a very weak connection between money spent per student and student achievement. The dominant factor is the culture of the parents and family with respect to education. Since parents who value education tend to be high achievers themselves, they often live where the schools get more money – but this is correlation, not causation.
So dropping 100 billion on inner city schools will mainly support larger numbers of well paid educrats and a larger babysitter to student ratio, but do little to help poor students become achievers.
The slow down of economic growth comes from throwing money down a rat hole for little gain.
It’s also worth considering that education spending is a redirection of the economy. At some point, increased spending isn’t educating more students to a better degree (that is you’ve passed the point of diminishing returns), but merely employing people, buying real estate and just redistributing wealth. Those people could be working at more productive jobs, that real estate could be used for better purposes, and that wealth could be fruitfully invested instead. And if education spending correlates with increased financial incentives to go to college, you’d have a correlated effect that also is pulling people out of the workforce, this time into college.
Hmmm … the article’s case is not compelling. They don’t give any theory for a causal connection between increasing spending on schools and lowered results from high school graduates, only a post-hoc-ergo-proper-hoc argument.
Hence, to argue the contrary, it’s sufficient to note that during the same time period as the one they consider, lots of things about American society were changing besides the inflation-adjusted increase in educational spending that could reasonably be expected to degrade the educational outcomes, such as the increase in schoolchildren from single-parent families, the increase in schoolchildren who have TV sets in their bedrooms, the reduction in the number of shared family meals, and so forth.
Given these changes in the culture, schools funded at 1960 levels might be producing graduates with even poorer educations than what we’re seeing now. Or, if we were able to undo these cultural changes, schools with 2009 levels of funding might be producing graduates who would run rings about the class of 1960.
But it creates (or saves!) jobs!!!
There’s a very weak connection between money spent per student and student achievement. The dominant factor is the culture of the parents and family with respect to education. Since parents who value education tend to be high achievers themselves, they often live where the schools get more money – but this is correlation, not causation.
So dropping 100 billion on inner city schools will mainly support larger numbers of well paid educrats and a larger babysitter to student ratio, but do little to help poor students become achievers.
The slow down of economic growth comes from throwing money down a rat hole for little gain.
It’s also worth considering that education spending is a redirection of the economy. At some point, increased spending isn’t educating more students to a better degree (that is you’ve passed the point of diminishing returns), but merely employing people, buying real estate and just redistributing wealth. Those people could be working at more productive jobs, that real estate could be used for better purposes, and that wealth could be fruitfully invested instead. And if education spending correlates with increased financial incentives to go to college, you’d have a correlated effect that also is pulling people out of the workforce, this time into college.