You Can’t Spend Your Way Into Better Education

Conn Carroll / March 11, 2008

The American Legislative Exchange Council has released its 2007 Report Card on American Education. The comprehensive report examines the performance of schools in each state and draws conclusions about major trends in American education. The Report Card could serve as a wake up call for policymakers who believe we can fix America’s schools by simply increasing government spending on education:

The 2007 Report Card once again illustrates that simply increasing spending on education is not enough to improve student performance. The information, analysis, and measurements in this report confirm there is no evident correlation between pupil-to-teacher ratios, spending per pupil, and teacher salaries on the one hand, and educational achievement as measured by various standardized test scores, on the other. In other words, lawmakers need to consider the fact that they cannot spend their way to improved student achievement and must look beyond these conventional measures of educational investment to find the keys to educational excellence.