Many, including the courts, have blindly accepted the assumption that more money will improve student performance at our nation's public schools. However, almost no one has seriously examined the empirical evidence to determine its validity, say authors Eric A. Hanushek and Alfred A. Lindseth.
The authors look at four states -- Wyoming, Kentucky, New Jersey and Massachusetts -- where courts ordered the legislatures to appropriate more money for public schools on the presumption that increased spending would improve performance.
Their conclusion: Court-ordered funding does not necessarily improve test scores, and blacks, despite the increased spending, are even worse off.
In Wyoming:
- Despite unprecedented court ordered increases in school funding, the achievement of Wyoming's students has failed to keep up with the nation or even with its much lower-funded, although demographically similar, neighboring states.
- The 1989 Rose decision resulted in a court order for certain structural changes and increased funding; the structural changes were implemented, but they produced no improvements in learning levels.
- Despit a court-ordered $1.5 billion in additional education spending (per-pupil spending in New Jersey exceeded $20,000 last year), there is little evidence that the state's students have progressed much, if at all, relative to students nationwide.
[If more money did result in better education, don't you think we'd be drowned in studies showing such paid for by the public teachers' unions? So what does it mean that we aren't?]
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