Summary: One of Choice Media's best Ed Reform Minute Podcasts of 2013.More money, more problems. America spends more than any other nation on education. So where are the results?A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, found that the U.S. is the highest spending developed nation when it comes to student education. According to the report, the U.S. spent more than $11,000 per elementary school student and more than $12,000 per high school student in 2010. When factoring in post-high school programs like college and vocational schools, the cost rises to $15,171 for each student in the system. To put that in perspective, the average cost for an OECD nation to spend per student was $9,313.You would think with all that money being thrown around we would have a nation of child savants, but of course, that isn’t the case. The U.S. is still outpaced in international test scores in math and science. The 2011 TIMSS, or Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study ranked American eighth graders 9th worldwide in math scores, behind Japan, Russia, and Finland. Which is good compared to the 2009, the Program for International Student Assessment or PISA test, in which 15-year-old U.S. students ranked below the international average in math, coming in as a nation at 31st.We also thought it would be fun to show you some of the anecdotal spending levels in case you think more money equals quality. Washington D.C. spent a stunning $18,667 per pupil in 2010. Asbury Park, New Jersey spent over $30,000 per student, according to the New Jersey Department of Education. And on a state basis, there's no one-to-one ratio with spending and quality. Utah is the lowest spending with $6,064 but came in the middle of the pack at 28.The largest issue with spending in education is it’s mostly for show. Neal McCluskey, an education analyst with The Cato Institute.It’s basically good symbolic politics. It’s not to spend more money, it is to connect the money to children in some way, could be vouchers, could be tax credits, and give educators autonomy and parents the ability to choose schools, make sure the schools compete. Then you start to see competition, which leads to innovation because you want to get more students more money, and you want to do things more efficiently so you can make more money. That’s the key to improving, the same thing that’s the key to improving that we accept in almost every other aspect of our lives except education. Paul E. Peterson, Director of the Program on Education Policy and Government at Harvard University, says there is no connection between increased spending and improved quality. We do not spend our money wisely. We don’t have a very competitive system. Anytime a monopoly sends money, and our education system is a monopoly, is not spending money efficiently. We don’t hire our teachers the right way. We don’t pay the best teachers more money and we don’t get rid of our weakest teachers because we pay everybody the same rate except for their credentials and their years of experience. We don’t have a way of easing the weakest members of the teaching force out of the profession.In a related note, tomorrow, Thursday, June 27th will be a national webinar conducted by the people that run the NAEP test. It will be at 11:30amET. You can find it on the Choice Media calendar.© 2013 Choice Media
