I thought I was pretty clear that K-12 public education has been in the funding toilet for a long time. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say the dismantling of public higher education funding, but there is not much debate that, however we are funding public schools, American public schools have become considerably worse over the last two decades.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/
Don’t blame teachers unions.
The percentage of expenditures towards teachers is at its lowest point since 1919. What teachers make compared to what other workers make is a moot point.
Teachers have never been incentivized to produce results. Nothing new there. It’s a discussion worth having, given the current situation, but it is impossible to point to any empirical evidence that a results-oriented teaching philosophy among school districts would have an impact since we’ve never had a results-oriented approach.
Recent poorly administered attempts at common core could possibly alter that discussion some, but since there is pretty much bipartisan agreement that everyone hates common core, I’m not sure it impacts this discussion much.
In fact, common core has been so badly mangled that pushing forward a results-oriented approach would meet stiff resistance almost anywhere. I still think it is a worthy goal, but it isn’t really relevant to the decline (but a results-oriented approach might reverse that decline).
Also, there is no empirical evidence that an emphasis on tenure has had any impact on the quality of education. And, in fact, there are lots of loopholes around tenure. Bad teachers still get fired.
One can actually make a pretty good argument, however, that the rise in the cost of public higher education is acting as a solid disincentive to students enrolling with the aim of becoming teachers. The number of college freshmen who say they will pursue education majors has declined from 11% to 4.2% since 2000.
College and universities cost too much. So kids enrolling these days pursue the most lucrative fields they can. If you’re a teacher, paying off a $40,000 loan isn’t easy.
There is also a problem with comparing data regarding public school funding with other countries.
Most countries manage their public education and funding of same at the national level. Ours is completely localized.
There is a huge disparity in the United States between schools in Chicago’s inner-city neighborhoods and, say, Niles Township. I can best illustrate this disparity with this link:
Needless to say, you will not have a web page like that at schools on Chicago’s west or south sides.
And you don’t need to even compare inner-city schools to rich schools:
Waukegan High School (Waukegan is a suburb north of Chicago) spends $12,600 per student. Adlai Stevenson High spends more than $18,000 and has the accouterments to show for it.
The data provided by the Manhattan Institute completely disregards these kinds of disparities, which are spread across the country. And lower spending levels are not relegated to inner cities, or even the Waukegans of the world.
In Texas, Houston schools have lower spending per pupil than most, but they’re not alone. Jarrell, Texas, a small community north of Austin, only spends $13,334 per pupil. It’s hot in Texas. But no swimming pool for the kids in Jarrell, unless they want to hit the public pool for five bucks.
And, of course, scores are low. Jarrell High School placed in the bottom 50% of all schools in Texas for overall test scores.
I’d love to say that public school funding should be centralized by the feds, but in our current political environment, it’s pretty clear that politics is a lure for people who aren’t capable of doing much of anything. In fact, it’s fair to say that it attracts the worst of the worst.
That’s true for both sides of the aisle. So they’d just screw that up.
But in an ideal world, it would work. Nobody likes property taxes, and the disparity between the haves and have nots is pretty stark. A federally distributed and equitable system would change that. But they couldn’t even get common core right, so it’s just a silly idea at this point.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
