On economic and education issues, we often have subjective views contrasting the stark reality. Education spending by local, state and federal governments is no different.
From 2011, but still quite relevant:
If President Obama cares about restoring sanity to federal finances, he will demand deep cuts to education spending. That's right: In tonight's State of the Union address, he will call to axe most of Washington's educationally worthless outlays.Unfortunately, Mr. Obama is likely to prove that he doesn't care all that much about attacking the nation's crushing debt. According to several sources, he'll not only place education spending off limits, he might make increasing it a focal point of tonight's address.
But wait: Debt or no debt, isn't having an educated citizenry crucial to the nation's future? Isn't he right to protect education funding?
Education is, indeed, very important. But while Washington spends huge sums on things that are education-related, the riches produce almost nothing of educational value. If anything, the feds keep stuffing donuts into an already obese system.
Federal elementary and secondary education spending has risen mightily since the early 1970s, when Washington first started immersing itself in education. In 1970, according to the federal Digest of Education Statistics, Uncle Sam spent an inflation-adjusted $31.5 billion on public K-12 education. By 2009 that had ballooned to $82.9 billion.
On a per-pupil basis, in 1970 the feds spent $435 per student. By 2006 — the latest year with available data — it was $1,015, a 133 percent increase. And it's not like state and local spending was dropping: Real, overall, per-pupil spending rose from $5,593 in 1970 to $12,463 in 2006, and today we beat almost every other industrialized nation in education funding.
What do we have to show for this?
Certainly more public school employees: Between 1969 and 2007, pupil-to-staff ratios were close to halved. Not coincidentally, these same people politick powerfully for ever more spending and against reforms that will challenge their bloated monopoly. They also routinely defeat efforts to hold them accountable for results.
This constant feeding of special interests is why we've gotten zilch in the outcome that really matters — learning. Since the early 1970s, scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the "Nation's Report Card" — have been utterly stagnant for 17-year-olds, our schools' "final products." In 1973 the average math score was 304 (out of 500). In 2008 it was just 306. In reading, the 1971 average was 285. In 2008 it was up a single point, hitting 286.
Without a stabilization of the education system (if it deserves to be sustained by government at all in the long-term) it will continue to bloat until it collapses under it's own weight. With excessive spending increases by government at all levels, budget deficits and inflating debt, it's not just public education that needs to be on the chopping block, but the neck of government itself.
And a bit more recently,
Cuts such as those that would be made to federal education programs through sequestration are both necessary and overdue. Not only does the federal government have no constitutional authority to fund and administer education programs — no mention is made of education in the specific, enumerated powers given to the federal government in Article I, Section 8 — but the last forty-plus years of federal involvement in education provide a clear demonstration of futility.
Start with preschool. The primary federal preschool program is Head Start, which in FY 2012 received almost $8 billion. The program has existed since 1965 and has cost roughly $180 billion through its lifespan. Despite its longevity, the program has failed to demonstrate lasting benefits. Indeed, a 2010 federal study found that the program had only two statistically significant positive cognitive effects that lasted through first grade, and negative mathematics effects for kindergarten students who entered Head Start when three years old.1 In the vast majority of measures no meaningful effects were found one way or the other.
Unfortunately, the essentially nonexistent positive effects of Head Start are not the program's only problem. As reports from the Government Accountability Office, local media outlets, and other sources have revealed, Head Start has long suffered from serious waste and abuse. Indeed, GAO reports in 2000, 2005, and 2008 found widespread noncompliance with financial management standards and very poor efforts to remediate the problem.2
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