Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Guest Post: Unfair argument about the increase in per-pupil spending?

Guest post by Harry Tennant

An often repeated argument critical of public schools is that there has been a significant increase in per-pupil spending without an improvement in academic performance. Time reported 123% increase in per-pupil spending from 1971 - 2006 with 0% change in academic performance (17 year olds, 1971 - 2004 for reading) (p. 35, 9/20/2010). The movie Waiting for Superman repeated similar statistics.

The implication is that public schools are in crisis and spending more money does no good. But has that money been spent on increasing academic performance?

It has been argued that the biggest change in education over the past few decades has been accomodation for special populations. It has not been spent on increasing overall academic achievement.

I'm not suggesting that accomodation for special populations is a bad thing. However, one doesn't improve overall academic performance unless the attention and funding is focused on improving overall academic performance.

Principals and teachers: What has been your experience? Have funding increases that you've seen gone toward overall academic performance? If so, what were the changes that were expected to improve academic performance?

Posted at 7:30 AM Keywords: by Harry Tennant , public schools 0 Comments