The United States spends more money on education than virtually every other country in the world, more than we spend even on defense.
And every year, no matter which party is in power, federal funding of education increases...this year up some 21% to almost 77 billion dollars and yet experts say that there remains absolutely no correlation between the amount of spending and student performance.
Listen to this: Since 1985, federal education spending has tripled! Yet studies by the National Assessment of Educational progress show that reading, math and science scores remained flat.
In international comparisons, our students are falling farther and farther behind. So what's the money being spent on? Well according to the CATO Institute, what we have seen the money go to is just bigger staff, bigger salaries for unionized teachers but nothing in terms of academic outcomes.
Remember those facts the next time you hear a politician talk about the need to support education because what he is really talking about is the need to support the politics of education.
Write and let me know what you think. I'm Bill Applegate and here's the address.
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