Where did you get $30K from? The highest estimates I’ve seen place per-pupil spending in D.C. still come in [well under $20K].[/quote]
The U.S. Census Bureau. (Divide the total expenditure in Table 1 by the total enrollment in Table 15.) The reason lower numbers are prevalent in reporting on the subject is because the DCPS systematically under-reports spending.
Perhaps, but no money has been withheld -in fact, quite the opposite. If anything, the evidence from California and D.C. indicates there is little, if any, connection between education spending and government school quality - and if there is a correlation, it’s probably negative. The trite and easy explanation that government schools have been suffering from severe budget cuts over the last few decades is simply wrong, and the easy solution of heaping more money on a broken system has been proven ineffective.
Also, note that this spending data does not invalidate issues with low teacher pay, teacher shortages, lack of classroom resources, or most of the other issues with government schools that appear to be spending related. It is quite possible for such conditions to exist at the same time spending is at record levels ( and indeed, I would argue systematically deliberate).
It’s not that complicated: when California ranked higher in per-student spending by state it also ranked higher for student learning outcomes by state. Now that it ranks much lower for per-student spending it also ranks much lower on student learning outcomes by state. You needn’t be some crazed conspiracy theorist to conclude that there might be some connection between those two things.
Actually, you need to be a crazed conspiracy theorist to think there is a connection between those two things - at least without checking the underlying data. Let me pose a scenario to you. Suppose that California spends $10 per student in year 1, Oregon spends $8, and Washington spends $5. Thus the ranking from most spending to least spending goes 1 - California, 2 - Oregon, and 3 - Washington. In year 2, California spends $11 per student, Oregon raises spending to $12 per student, while Washington raises spending to $10 per student. Now the rankings are 1 - Oregon, 2 - California, and 3 - Washington. In Year 3, California spends $13 per student, Oregon spends $15 per student, and Washington spends $14 per student. Thus, the Year 3 rankings are 1 - Oregon, 2 - Washington, and 3 - California. In 3 years, California goes from ranking first to ranking last.
Now consider these questions: did California spending go up, or down? Does California’s ranking have anything to do with whether spending went up or down? Thus, is there any correlation between ranking and spending, much less ranking and quality? And did the increase in spending correlate with a decrease or increase in school quality?
State rankings simply cannot answer the key questions. Rankings, being relative, are dependent on what the other states did. Changes in ranking depend on the rate of change in spending and the relative rates of spending - and those are not directly comparable because of differences in costs.
If the average per-pupil cost is $25K, and there are 25 kids in a classroom, and the teacher makes $80K a year including benefits, then for every dollar spent on teachers the school system is spending ~seven dollars on other stuff.
It’s not at all inappropriate to ask, “What is that seven dollars getting spent on?” and “Should we redirect more of that seven dollars into the classroom?”
