Education

Education:  Winning the Future

Last session, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature that would accelerate the repayment of funds to public K-12 schools that were borrowed to fix the state's budget deficit in recent years.

In this excerpt from the perpetually forthcoming book, I take a look at the issue of funding for public schools.

We would hope that few would disagree with the idea that education is vital for both enabling social mobility and reviving American competitiveness.  Unfortunately, the issue is almost exclusively framed as one of resources.

We keep hearing how in the U.S. and Minnesota problems in education call for more and more government spending.  President Obama issued such a call in his 2012 budget, reported by National Public Radio (“Obama's Budget Calls For More Education Spending”).  Quoting the President,

"Education is an investment that we need to win the future, just like innovation is an investment that we need to win the future, just like infrastructure is an investment that we need to win the future."[1]

Based on that sentiment, one would think that the U.S. shortchanges its students on resources, when compared to other nations.  The opposite is true.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)[2] is an international organization that grew out of the post-WWII Marshall Plan in Europe.  Today, among its other contributions, it provides a treasure trove of data on activity in developed and developing nations, worldwide.

The group’s latest (2011) edition of Education Indicators,[3] with data through 2008, proves to be an interesting read on the subject of primary and secondary education (think K-12) spending.

Out of 34 developed nations, on a per pupil basis, the U.S. spends more money than all except tiny Luxembourg, Switzerland and Norway for a ranking of 4th out of 34.  We beat out Austria by $1 per pupil.[4]

As for achievement, what did this extra spending buy us?  In Reading, the U.S. ranked 17th, with free spending Norway at 12th, Switzerland at 14th and Luxembourg a distant 38th out of 65 studied.[5]  In reading, the top few countries in results included China, Finland, Singapore, and Canada.

In science the U.S. ranked 23rd out of the 65 countries studied.  News on math was even worse, with the U.S. dropping down to 31^st. 

Likewise, in Minnesota we often hear how our public K-12 schools are starved of resources by stingy taxpayers at the local level and hardhearted Republicans at the state level.

Governor Dayton, recently won an award from the Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD) for his commitment to spending.  Cites the AMSD,

Governor Dayton exhibited strong support for public education throughout the 2011 legislative session beginning with his budget proposal which called for increased investments in education even in the face of a major state budget shortfall.[6]

Based on that achievement, Minnesota must have ranked near the bottom in state spending.  Right?

In fact, Minnesota’s education spending is above the national average.  As reported by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, in fiscal year 2009,[7] Minnesota’s median per pupil spending totaled $11,319, against a national figure of $11,282.

Sparsely populated states (with few students) lead the list.  Remote Alaska spends the most in the nation, with a median of $28,125 per pupil in 2009.  Least-populated state Wyoming spends $19,196 per pupil.  High-cost-of-living New York spends $19,607 per student and the also pricey District of Columbia spends $18,167.

Adjusting for differences in cost of living, Minnesota’s K-12 educational spending still places it in the middle of the pack.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s most recent study (using 2004 data) of school spending, adjusting for wage and cost differentials, placed Minnesota in exactly the middle of the list, 26^th out of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia.[8]

With the high academic achievement of Minnesota’s students (second only to Massachusetts),[9] the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranked Minnesota very high in its “Return on Investment” category.  Minnesota was one of only ten states with a grade of “A”, ranking 4^th overall, three places ahead of Massachusetts.[10]

Of course, Minnesota’s educational difficulties lay less in overall student achievement and more in the lagging achievement of our minority communities, the “achievement gap.”  The U.S. Chamber issued a report in 2011 which notes the large difference between overall results and the results in minority communities.[11] 

According to the U.S. Department of Education, nationally, the 2007 gap in reading scores between white 8^th grade students and African-American students was 26 points (on scales in the 200 to 300 point ranges).[12]  In Minnesota, it was 28 points.[13]  For 4^th graders, the national reading gap was 27 points, in Minnesota, it was 33 points.[14]  For 4^th graders in mathematics, the 2007 achievement gap was 26 points nationally, and in Minnesota, 31 points.[15]  For 8^th graders, the national gap was 31 points, in Minnesota, 37 points.[16]

However, based on the spending data, it is difficult to pin these shortcomings on a lack of resources devoted to education.  The solutions must be found elsewhere.  Private Citizen believes that the answers lie in making greater use of competition--involving charter schools, traditional public schools, or other institutions where funding follows students, not buildings--and more local control.  Unfortunately, the subject deserves much more discussion than we have room for in this post.

[1] http://www.npr.org/2011/02/15/133768981/Obamas-Budget-Calls-For-More-Spending-On-Education.  February 15, 2011.

[2] http://www.oecd.org

[3] See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/2/48631582.pdf. Education at a Glance 2011:  OECD Indicators.

[4] Ibid., Table B1.2, Column 3, page  219.

[5] See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/10/61/48852548.pdf.  Table I.A, page 15.

[6] Quoted at http://mn.gov/governor/blog/the-office-of-the-governor-blog-entry-detail.jsp?id=102-34010.

[7] See http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2012313, Table 3, first column.  Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts: School Year 2008–09, November 2011.

[8] See http://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/files/07reportcard/USChamberLeadersandLaggards.pdf  Leaders and Laggards, February 2007, page 69.

[9] Leaders and Laggards, p. 65.

[10] Leaders and Laggards, p. 69.

[11] See http://icw.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/The%20Ugly%20Truth.pdf.  The Ugly Truth:  A State-by-State S1napshot of Education in America, p. 85.

[12] See http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/studies/2009455.pdf .  National Center for Education Statistics, Acheivement Gaps, July 2009, page 45.

[13] Ibid., p. 47.

[14] Ibid., p. 35.

[15] Ibid., p. 13.

[16] Ibid., p. 21.