Big Lies About Public Education

Liberty magazine reports on Jay P. Greene's research on education:

First is the view that public schools perform badly because they are underfunded. This is a common refrain among modern liberals, not to mention teachers' unions, but Greene notes that the average person accepts it as well. He demolishes the myth — in part by showing that national inflation-adjusted per pupil spending has increased nearly linearly every year from 1945 (when it was only $1,214) to 2001 (when it hit $8,745), while the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores stayed essentially flat from 1971 to 1999.

The NAEP is the most reliable and representative national measure of scores we have. During the period when it has been used (1971 to the present), per pupil funding went from $4,479 to $8,745, while average scores increased only an insignificant three to five points out of 500 possible. High-school graduation rates from 1971 to 1999 were nearly flat. They went from 75.6% down to 72.5%.

Greene attributes the prevalence of the "underfunding" myth to people's reluctance to believe that more spending has been useless, and the fact that during the period for which outcomes can be reliably measured, funding rose only slowly, while the number of students dropped. People therefore didn't notice the per-pupil rise. The prominence of this myth may also be attributed, as Greene maintains, to well-publicized anecdotal accounts of funding problems.

Public education .