The Myth Of The Shrinking Public School Budget
Corey DeAngelis writes -- correctively -- at NRO about a pervasive myth: the notion that the poor kids in public school are being starved for funding. The opposite is the case:
Some myths never die. The Biden administration just proposed another $100 billion for school-building upgrades on top of the mostly unspent $193 billion in stimulus funding Congress had already allocated to K-12 education over the past year. Yet major media outlets are still repeating the verifiably false assertion that U.S. public-school budgets have been shrinking for decades.Just last week, a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed columnist claimed that "state lawmakers have drastically reduced state funding for public schools over the last generation."
That statement is not true. Data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education confirm that total per-student, inflation-adjusted public-school funding has increased by 48 percent since 2000 and by 73 percent since 1990. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics go back further and show that such funding has increased 117 percent since 1980 and by 201 percent since 1970. That's right -- Pennsylvania's education spending per student has tripled in real terms over the last half century.
The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate Pennsylvania's public schools received about $20,435 in funding per student in 2018, which was about 38 percent higher than the national average at the time, and about 76 percent higher than the Keystone State's current average private-school tuition. Recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau also reveal that about 29 percent of Pennsylvania's entire state budget goes toward education.
Worst of all is that the Inquirer was forced to correct the same erroneous assertion less than a year and a half ago. In December 2019, an Inquirer reporter claimed that public education had seen "drastic cuts to funding over the last few decades." When pressed, the outlet changed that false statement to another false claim: that public education had seen "drastic cuts to funding over the last decade."
...The reality is that simply pouring more money into the system is unlikely to fix it unless there are real incentives to spend that money wisely. We've substantially increased public-school funding for decades without meaningful improvements in educational outcomes.
...One problem is that additional public-school funding often doesn't make its way into the classroom. ... The number of full-time teachers in the U.S. increased two and a half times as fast as the number of students between 1950 and 2015 -- and that the number of administrators and other staff increased more than seven times as fast as the number of students over the same period.
...Allocating resources toward administrative bloat and staffing surges is great for teachers' unions, because it gives them more political power in numbers and more revenues from additional dues-paying members. But those kinds of spending decisions reduce the likelihood that individual teachers will see meaningful increases in their salaries over time.
The problem is that the public-school monopoly currently has little incentive to allocate new resources toward the students in the classrooms, because public-school families usually don't have meaningful exit options. In fact, at least five studies on the topic each find that competition from nearby private and charter schools generally leads to higher salaries for teachers in the traditional public-school system, because competition gives their employers stronger incentives to spend money wisely.
It's long past time for us to fix the messed up incentive structure that's baked into the public-school system by funding students directly and empowering families. Until we get our priorities right and fund students instead of institutions, those institutions will never be motivated to cater to the needs of students and their families.
DeAngelis is right: We need to let the money follow students rather than funneling it to institutions. And frankly, is there anything more motivating to those letting public schools fail to try to fix things than all their funding running out the door and down the block to the charter school?
This is our local public school's football stadium.
https://www.berrycenter.net/about
The local college borrows it when they want a nice venue for their games. And the district is building another one in the area.
Ben at April 7, 2021 5:42 AM
Ben, that's a high school stadium? I've seen college stadia that are less elaborate - e.g., Bragg Stadium at Florida A&M. What an appalling waste of money for an education institution.
Is the school system's mission education or football? Would that the school system in your area had spent that money on a science lab or library (online or physical).
Conan the Grammarian at April 7, 2021 6:18 AM
When they can show that there is a positive correlation between public school funding and performance (i.e., how well educated the students are becoming) then we can talk about more funding.
Until that happens, all that is being proven is that support for public education is shoveling money down a black hole with no positive impact on anyone's education. In fact, the more money we throw at public education, the more it proves what slow learners we really are.
ruralcounsel at April 7, 2021 6:33 AM
Conan, you should look up the CF ISD schools. They are not lacking in any way compared to that stadium. Proportionally appropriate spending is allocated to science labs and libraries. Also remember there is a twin stadium being built near by.
Across the Houston area per pupil spending is pretty flat at ~$12k/student/year. Roughly half of that spending is on instruction, ~$5.5k/student/year. There is no correlation between education outcomes and spending or even quality of the facilities and spending. There is a correlation between the quality of the facilities and corruption, which is why HISD has some of the worst buildings in the area. Instead of taking care of the buildings they are paying friends and family to do no show jobs.
In short schools in non-rural areas are not lacking for funding in any way shape or form. It is all on how they chose to spend their money.
Ben at April 7, 2021 6:54 AM
Oh, I'd agree with that statement.
We're spending truckloads of money on our education establishment and getting little in return. Science labs and libraries do not equal education unless they're used. Nor does spending money football stadia necessarily detract from the quality of an education that can be provided.
However, the optics of building an elaborate football stadium while your students are falling behind internationally and even falling behind area private schools - schools that can do a better job while spending far less money per student - indicate questionable priorities
Now, as Crid pints out, we've assigned the public school system the job of babysitting those students who will never reach collegiate heights, whose intellectual potential is limited by environment and/or genetics. Unfortunately, we've adjusted our entire education system to the pace of those students. We hold back promising students who aren't quite ready for AP classes to the pace of the slowest student in the classes in which we consign them. We hype sports to keep the less-academic students focused and engaged on something they can grasp -- i.e., something less-demanding than calculus -- while we perpetuate the myth of their status as student-athletes.
We pretend the educational outcome discrepancy is evidence of systemic racism, but it's really classism, something we are loathe to discuss in American society. I think that classism better explains the George Floyd incident than racism does. Chauvin saw a drug-addled low-life and treated him like a dirtbag.
Conan the Grammarian at April 7, 2021 9:00 AM
Let's not forget Mark Zuckerberg's 100 million-dollar example of why throwing moar cash at it doesn't work at all.
Sixclaws at April 7, 2021 10:00 AM
> we've adjusted our entire
> education system to the pace
> of those students.
And at this hour, I'm glad that all my FF miles are with American Airlines.
Crid at April 7, 2021 10:10 AM
That Zuck money needs to be put in context. The US average public school spending per pupil is $12,612. I think Zuck was sending the money to New Jersey which has an average of $20,021. But just taking the national average and the median class size in the US of 25 you end up with $315,300 spent each year per classroom. New Jersey has an average 20.4 per classroom for $408,428 average spent each year per classroom.
That is just one classroom!
My kid's grade school is K-5 with 8 classes per grade. 48 classes in just one school. Or around $15M/year for just one school. That Zuck money would only pay for 6 schools for one year. And that is at the national average. In New Jersey you probably only pay for 4.
My school district has 87 schools of approximately the same size. We have a one billion dollar annual budget. At that point an $80 million stadium doesn't stand out. And even here in cheapo Texas Zuck's money would only be 10% of our annual budget. Not a big deal.
"However, the optics of building an elaborate football stadium while your students are falling behind internationally and even falling behind area private schools - schools that can do a better job while spending far less money per student - indicate questionable priorities" ~Conan
Are students in my area falling behind area private schools? I doubt it. As for internationally, it depends on the nation you want to compare to.
Ben at April 7, 2021 10:45 AM
"Take all you can, give nothing back. Arrgh, I'm a pirate!" said local tax-fattened hyena and school administrator Baldy McSansabelt. "Fuck them kids. I want a boat!".
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 7, 2021 10:58 AM
Shake up the pilots!
Crid at April 7, 2021 12:52 PM
I brought up the stadium to echo Amy's point and show structures historically associated with large universities are now quite affordable for most public schools.
To continue on the budget stuff, you can get a high quality home school program for under $2k/student/year. That includes books, videos, grading, the works. It is a commercial product and unquestionably a higher quality product than public schools were offering with their 'distance learning' options. So that gives you a rough measure of the cost of education vs. the cost of daycare. With a US average cost of ~$12k. That means ~$10k of school spending is really on daycare services and not so much education, ~80%. Which is a fair price if you cost out daycare services.
Then there is the issue of how large schools have gotten. You do not walk to kindergarten anymore. New built grade schools are aimed at ~1200 students per building. You flat can't get that many homes within walking distance. The main reason schools are so much bigger these days is due to all the racism stuff from the 80s and forced bussing and such. So the solution to accusations of racism has been to minimize the number of schools. If we all go to the same school then you can't have 'good' schools and 'bad' schools. There is only one school. But that means schools are huge now. And as part of that they are very bureaucratic and not really part of their community anymore.
People don't volunteer to help out at schools like they used to. It would be like volunteering to help out at your local DMV or post office. The community aspect is gone.
Ben at April 7, 2021 2:20 PM
People don't volunteer to help out at schools like they used to. It would be like volunteering to help out at your local DMV or post office. The community aspect is gone.
Ben at April 7, 2021 2:20 PM
I found that volunteering even in the 90’s usually consisted of doing grunt work for unnecessary fundraising or stuff that advanced the political interests of the teacher’s unions. It was nothing that benefited your kids or anyone else’s kids.
People got tired and cynical.
Isab at April 7, 2021 2:39 PM
It is more than that Isab. The schools I went through were aimed at around 300 kids. Schools today are aimed at 1200 kids. That is 4x bigger. So a single school needs to pull from 4x the geographic area putting all the families that far away from each other. It is unlikely any of your classmates are within walking distance of each other.
You also have efficiencies of scale that kick in. Most of what used to be volunteer jobs became full time paid jobs.
Another difference is fund raisers like bake sales. When I was in grade school we had at least two tables of homemade baked goods to auction off. Today homemade goods are not permitted. They must be store bought goods in the original packaging. So while we have 4x the number of students we have 1/2x the number of bake sale goods to sell. After all if I want some Oreos I can go to the store and get some. There is no sense in paying double to buy them from the school. A bake sale just doesn't make sense anymore.
It all adds up to the schools not being part of the community they work in. Today there really is no difference between the DMV or the Social Security office and your local school. You fill out the form and you sit in a line. What happens behind the counter is none of your business and you shouldn't get involved.
Ben at April 7, 2021 4:07 PM
Mind, I'm not saying schools should be community centers. I'm just pointing out how they've changed over the years. Most people just remember how things were when they went to public school but things have changed massively over the years. The 1990s public school was vastly different than the 1950s one and the 2020 public school is vastly different than the 1990s one.
Ben at April 7, 2021 4:40 PM
> we've adjusted our entire
> education system to the pace
> of those students.
It feels more like the machinery of education grinds best to the benefit of bright kids, who — and this isn't meant to shock you, not at all — tend to be the children of bright parents… Who are better equipped intellectually, socially and financially to tune schools for their kid's needs.
This pattern isn't entirely abject & seedy. (Though the Aunt Jenny story from USC admissions still cracks my ass up.) We want parents getting their kid's needs met. Texas is doing okay, right? Wiki says they're about in the middle. If Ben says they can afford a gratuitously elegant football stadium, let 'em have it. Sure, it would be even better to think there wasn't a lot of federal money mixed in behind it…
But let's start correcting educational misvaluations by taxing the unholy tits off the Ivy endowments… Because that would be the most fun. Texas ain't going anywhere.
The abject & seedy part is that the rest of the 'system' is tuned to spend ever-growing volumes of wealth (which doesn't actually exist yet) on the romantic daydream that we can each be Bezos or Thiel or Musk, if only our schools are supportive enough… (and centrally, even federally, administered). Voters swoon over that shit! Especially the ones who might not have had the candlepower for propulsive academic achievement in any case.
(Conan — Do not be put off by the subtitle of this article, which otherwise tracks your point nicely: Democrats know exactly what they're doing… But they're not doing it with their own money, so they DGAF. Notice also that Geoghegan can't resist the allure of the error which he's just explicated through his own keyboard.)
✔ Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 7, 2021 10:58 AM
✔ Ben at April 7, 2021 2:20 PM
✔ Isab at April 7, 2021 2:39 PM
I love this blog. I hate education policy. And most young people.
Crid at April 7, 2021 4:58 PM
See also this heer.
Crid at April 7, 2021 5:34 PM
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