Spending More Money in New York Public Schools Yields No Results

The New York Sun reports:

Debate over the role of money in education is igniting anew as the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit over school funding heads to the state's highest court yet again on Tuesday, and the good news is that it's still not too late to re-examine the premise that more spending equals a better education. The CFE lawsuit is founded on the idea that the equation holds and that idea has absorbed the courts for so long that students who were kindergartners when the case began are now in college if they're lucky.

A dispatch by our Sarah Garland this week casts some light on the issue. Ms. Garland examined the New York public school districts with the highest and lowest per pupil spending. A small town in the Adirondacks, Queensbury, spends $8,553 a student each year on its public schools. Bridgehampton, on Long Island, spends $51,828 a student. Despite the variation, the schools' test scores are practically indistinguishable. At both schools, more than 80% of fourth graders passed the state reading exam and more than 90% passed the math test.

The law of diminishing returns applies to everything.