Americans are dissatisfied with the disappointing results from their educational system. Many seek to resolve that issue by increased spending.

A number of salient questions must be raised regarding the concept, not the least of which is affordability.  With the nation’s debt doubling during the current Administration and now standing at over $18 trillion, with vast new amounts being added each year for the foreseeable future, is this new federal expense affordable at all?  With U.S. taxes already excessive, can the taxpayers be burdened further?

While the financial considerations are important, there is an even more relevant point: will increased spending provide improved results?

Current federal spending, & disappointing results

Washington already spends a great deal on higher education.  A New America Foundation  report notes that “The federal government provided $30.2 billion in grant aid to help individuals pay for a higher education in the 2014-15 school year. Nearly all of the aid was directed to students from lower income families. Grant aid does not need to be paid back and generally may be used to pay for tuition, housing and other expenses at any institution of higher education that the recipient wishes to attend. The largest federal grant program is the Pell Grant program, followed by the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant program. These two programs award grants based solely on a student’s financial status.”

A CBS news study revealed that:

“The United States spends more than other developed nations on its students’ education each year, with parents and private foundations picking up more of the costs, an international survey released Tuesday found. Despite the spending, U.S. students still trail their rivals on international tests. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – which groups the world’s most developed countries – writes in its annual report that brand-new and experienced teachers alike in the United States out-earn most of their counterparts around the globe. But U.S. salaries have not risen at the same pace as other nations. The findings, part of a 440-page tome of statistics, put the United States’ spending on its young people in context.

“The United States spent more than $11,000 per elementary student in 2010 and more than $12,000 per high school student. When researchers factored in the cost for programs after high school education such as college or vocational training, the United States spent $15,171 on each young person in the system – more than any other nation covered in the report.

“That sum inched past some developed countries and far surpassed others. Switzerland’s total spending per student was $14,922 while Mexico averaged $2,993 in 2010. The average OECD nation spent $9,313 per young person.”

Critics of government spending have noted that additional sending for education has not produced notable results.

According to Downsizing Government.org:

“Despite large increases in federal intervention since the 1960s, combined with large increases in funding by all levels of government, K-12 educational achievement has improved little. The most widely used measures of school achievement are scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which are available back to the early 1970s…The average NAEP mathematics score rose just two points to 306 in 2008 from 304 in 1973. The average NAEP reading score rose just one point to 286 in 2008 from 285 in 1971. These scores are on a 500-point scale.

“Other measures show similarly poor achievement, or at least a lack of improvement. For example, the percentage of students who had completed high school within four years of entering ninth grade is 75 percent today, about the same as it was in the mid-1970s.

“How have things fared under the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act? It is difficult to isolate the effects of the law because numerous other changes might have affected recent school results, and no results with start and end dates closely reflecting the period during which NCLB has been in effect are available. With those caveats in mind, NAEP subject test (as opposed to long-term-trend data) and long-term data do not paint a particularly positive picture.

“On subject tests, there have been very small gains in fourth-grade mathematics, with the average score rising from 235 to 240 (on a 500-point scale) between 2003 and 2007. However, the average score on this test increased much faster in the period before NCLB was fully implemented, rising from 226 to 235 between 2000 and 2003. In reading, the average score dropped slightly in eighth grade, from 264 in 2002 to 263 in 2007.

“On the long-term-trends test, the closest start date to NCLB’s 2002 enactment is 1999, so it is very hard to gauge changes for NCLB’s time frame, much less the law’s effect on those results.  The greatest improvements between 1999 and 2008 were for 9-year-olds in mathematics, where scores rose from 232 to 243. Reading scores for that age also rose significantly, from 212 to 220. The final appreciable improvements were for 13-year-olds in mathematics, where scores rose from 276 to 281. For 13-year-olds in reading, in contrast, scores only rose a point, and for 17-year-olds reading and mathematics scores both dropped two points.

“Aside from looking at overall test scores, an examination of the effectiveness of particular federal programs indicates generally poor results. Consider Title I, the core federal education subsidy program. In a recent book, education policy experts Marvin Kosters and Brent Mast concluded the following:

“After more than thirty-five years of experience and numerous careful efforts to evaluate its performance, the evidence has failed to demonstrate that Title I programs have been systematically and significantly contributing to reducing disparities in achievement by improving the performance of its beneficiaries . . . Experiments by federal, state, and local authorities and major shifts in the emphasis of federal policy have all failed to bring systematic improvement. Or consider the Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, which has a budget of about $1 billion. OII claims to be “a nimble, entrepreneurial arm of the U.S. Department of Education” making “strategic investments in innovative educational practices.”

The Eli & Edyth Broad Foundation, which blames excessive bureaucracy for many of the failings of the U.S. educational system, has compiled worrisome statistics:

• “Two out of three eighth-graders can’t read proficiently. (NAEP, 2011) (NAEP, 2011)
• Nearly two-thirds of eighth-graders scored below proficient in math. (NAEP, 2011)
• Seventy-five percent of students are not proficient in civics. (NAEP, 2011)
• Nearly three out of four eighth- and 12th-grade students cannot write proficiently. (NAEP, 2012)
• Some 1.1 million American students drop out of school every year. (EPE, 2012)
• For African-American and Hispanic students across the country, dropout rates are close to 40 percent, compared to the national average of 27 percent. (EPE, 2012)
• After World War II, the United States had the #1 high school graduation rate in the world. Today, we have dropped to # 22 among 27 industrialized nations. (OECD, 2012)
• American students rank 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading compared to students in 27 industrialized countries.(OECD, 2012)
• By the end of the eighth grade, U.S. students are two years behind in math compared to their peers in other countries. (OECD, 2009)
• The U.S. ranks behind 13 other countries in terms of the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds who have completed some college coursework. (OECD, 2012)
• American students tend to perform worse in math and science as they age, according to recent studies measuring fourth- and eighth-graders’ academic achievement against other industrialized nations. Gaps with high performing countries like South Korea and Singapore are widening. (TIMSS, 2012)
• Less than half of American students – 46 percent – finish college. The U.S. ranks last among 18 countries measured on this indicator. (OECD, 2010)
• Only one in four high school students graduate ready for college in all four core subjects (English, reading, math and science), which is why a third of students entering college have to take remedial courses. (ACT, 2011)
• Only 4 percent of African American students and 11 percent of Hispanic students finish high school ready for college in their core subjects. (ACT, 2011)
• Two-thirds of college professors report that what is taught in high school does not prepare students for college. (Alliance for Excellent Education)”

 Conclusion

It is abundantly clear that the U.S. has major problems facing its educational system.  Clearly, however, underfunding is not one of them.