Features
Student Achievement Fails to Match Education Spending
by Ben Guthrie
News Staff Writer

On Tuesday, November 18, members of The Stanford Review gathered for the weekly lunch with a distinguished Hoover Fellow. The week's guest was Senior Associate Director and Research Fellow Richard Sousa, an economist and expert on labor economics and K-12 education in the United States. Mr. Sousa addressed the problem of why education expenditures have grown while student performance has not kept pace.

Mr. Sousa introduced the discussion by referring to his recently published book School Figures: The Data Behind the Debate, co-authored with Hoover Research Fellow Hanna Skandera. The book provides a rigorous analysis of the state of K-12 education in the United States. Mr. Sousa and Ms. Skandera write in the introduction, "In this volume, we hope to help establish the baseline for discussion and debate by providing relevant data in words, graphs, and tables."

Mr. Sousa initially queried, "We're spending more but kids aren't doing as well; what's going on?" This conundrum was one of the motivations for Mr. Sousa and Mr. Skandera's book. One telling statistic suggested that the more time American students spent in school, the worse they became relative to their peers internationally. For example in science achievement, as reported in School Figures, "American fourth-graders ranked 3rd out of 26 nations, eighth-graders ranked 17th out of 41 nations, and twelfth-graders ranked 16th out of 21 nations." This trend was "really quite distressing to see," lamented Mr. Sousa.

While expenditures on education have risen, student performance has not kept pace and in some cases has declined, especially during the 1980s. Average total expenditures per pupil in 1970 were $4,075 while in 2000 they were $8,155. According to adjusted average SAT I Scores from 1971-1995, 1971-72 was the highest at 937, 1981-82 was the lowest at 893, and 1994-95 was in between at 910. According to School Figures, "There is a common perception that the way to improve our failing public schools is simply to spend more money on them. . . .. yet a review of the data for the last 80 years shows clearly that there is not a strong correlation between increased spending and improvements in student performance."

Mr. Sousa identified three reasons for increased expenditures on education. First, he pointed out that the student to teacher ratio has fallen from 26:1 in 1950 to 12:1 in 1999. Second, average teacher salaries, for nine months, have increased from $26,618 in 1960 to $43,250 in 2001. Third, Mr. Sousa identified an increase in non-teaching expenditures, such as counselors, janitors, and administration, from 50% of total education expenditures in 1960 to 60% in 2001. One explanation Mr. Sousa posited for this increase was that the baby boom bust resulted in fewer kids in school, but teachers did not lose their jobs. Instead, they became counselors or an extra vice-principals.

Instead of simply increasing education expenditures, Mr. Sousa suggests a three-pronged approach to improving the education system. He advocates choice, testing, and accountability. Mr. Sousa pointed to the Milwaukee voucher system as a model of choice in education. Students are given vouchers to attend whichever school they choose. If the school does not perform to desired standards, then students may apply their vouchers to other schools. This is an application of free-market economics to provide incentives for failing schools to improve.

Mr. Sousa believes standardized testing is important to measure the level of achievement of students across the country in order to distinguish successful programs and schools from failing ones. Finally, accountability of teachers and schools is important for Mr. Sousa. Currently, teachers are paid primarily by experience and education rather than performance. Regarding experience, Mr. Sousa asserts that after about three years it is "easy to be a teacher for life." Also, teachers' educational attainment has increased from 23.1% with a master's or a specialist degree in 1961 to 54.5% in 1996. Mr. Sousa suggested shifting the emphasis from input to output, perhaps by giving teachers monetary bonuses for high student achievement, as a way to increase accountability in the school system in the United States.

Although there is not a positive correlation between education spending and student achievement, Mr. Sousa and Ms. Skandera found a strong positive correlation between parental involvement and student achievement. According to Mr. Sousa, "The more parents are involved in their kids' education, the better they do." Parental involvement includes furnishing resources and opportunities for children, such as books, computers, and trips to libraries or museums. Mr. Sousa pointed out that the number of school districts has fallen dramatically over the past sixty years. In the 1940s there were about 100,000, but today there are only about 16,000. This consolidation of school districts removes parents from their children's education, which is unfortunate for Mr. Sousa who says that "families matter most."

Ultimately, Mr. Sousa states, "I don't think spending on education is bad, but I don't think we're spending wisely."

Page last modified on Thursday, 02-Mar-2006 00:27:03 MST.