Inconvenient Truths about Government-School Funding (Part 2)

Still inconvenient, but still true

In last week’s article, I presented the first of three inconvenient truths about government-school funding: Nearly all parents—regardless of income, wealth, ability to pay, or number of children—receive subsidies from taxpayers who do not use the school system and in some cases are far poorer than the recipients of said subsidies.

Today, I delve into the remaining two inconvenient truths and present several rays of optimism amid the darkness that is compulsory-school funding.

2. More Funding Does not Equal Better Outcomes for Kids

Secondly, even with all these subsidies and tax dollars flowing into school districts, there is little connection between funding and outcomes for students, however we measure those outcomes.

Let’s begin with test scores and proficiency. To be clear, readers of my work know that I am a consistent critic of standardized testing for a variety of reasons, but that is the metric the districts and other public-school entities themselves have chosen as their barometer, so it seems only fair to measure them on that gauge.

For example, even as school funding and school employment have increased dramatically since 1970 (far outpacing actual enrollment increases), students’ scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests have essentially flatlined:

Source: https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa746.pdf

Likewise, in the Chicago public schools, school spending has increased 40% since 2019 (and, at $29,307 per student, remains well above the state average of $16,660 per student) while enrollment has declined by 11%. Yet, only 20% of students are proficient in reading and only 15% are proficient in math; even more disheartening is that in 55 of Chicago’s public schools, no students were proficient in either reading or math in 2022, but somehow 84% of Chicago public-school students graduate high school.

Further, we can measure the efficacy (or lack thereof) of government schools by their effects beyond graduation wherein we find that in Nevada, 58% of recent public-school graduates entering college needed at least one remedial class. Likewise, over 50% of Delaware’s public-school graduates needed remediation upon entering college.

In Baltimore, things are even more dire:

A study of the Baltimore City Public Schools class of 2011 found that 96 percent of the 354 students who immediately enrolled at BCCC [Baltimore City Community College] needed remedial courses in math and 67 percent needed remedial courses in writing. At the Community College of Baltimore County, where 417 of the 2011 graduates ended up, 89 percent tested into remedial math classes and 49 percent into remedial writing.

Moreover, fewer than 10% of students taking remedial courses graduate on time. Businesses also spend $3.1 billion annually on remedial writing courses for employees, and 26% of college graduates have deficient writing skills, according to businesses. (Note that roughly 85% of students attend public schools, so these numbers do not reflect only public-school students.)

In addition to these academic failures for the nation’s public schools, non-academic disappointments abound. For one, all youth demographic groups have seen an increase in suicide risk since 2011. Also, a large-scale study from 2003 found that both elementary and secondary students were unhappiest in school. Moreover, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 54% of public-school parents were very satisfied with their child’s school versus 77% of private-school parents. Finally, as I have detailed previously, violence in schools continues to be pervasive with over 1.6 million nonfatal violent incidents in schools between 2017 and 2019, about twice as many such incidents as outside schools. Further, the rate of violent victimization per 1,000 students since 2003 has remained higher inside than outside school, save for 2020 and 2021—in some years, more than twice as high inside as outside school.

3. How Resources Are Used Matters More than How Many Resources

In light of the above sobering numbers, we should be reminded of the economic truisms that (a) efficient use of resources is just as, if not more important than how many resources one has and (b) incentives matter. When one form of education has guaranteed funding via the barrel of a gun and employs methods that dehumanize and disrespect students while controlling most of their choices (even when they can use the bathroom) and cramming in as many students as possible, we should not be surprised when that form also yields abysmal results, fails to truly reach large swaths of students, and successfully extirpates much of humans’ natural love of learning.

Furthermore, when compared to alternatives in the learning market, government schools appear even more obviously to be the grotesque monsters they generally are rather than some quotidian, benign organizations that just happen to survive on theft and compulsion.

• Take, for example, Thales Academy, at which students consistently rank in the 98th percentile nationally on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the PSAT. However, annual tuition ranges from only $5,200 to $6,900, versus the average per-pupil spending of roughly $16,000 in the United States. (Learn more about Thales via my interview here.)

• Or what about the fast-growing Prenda microschool network? According to Prenda’s surveys, before entering Prenda, students indicate only 36% positive feelings towards school; once enrolled in Prenda, however, students begin to love school, as evidenced by 86% positive feelings towards it. Further, on entering Prenda, only about 20% of students are working on grade level; after a year, though, up to 70% of Prenda students are working at or above grade level. Prenda students on average also show 1.5 years of growth per year in math and reading, and students with IEPs show 1.18 years of growth annually. The cost? Average tuition is just $6,200 and is ESA-eligible, so many students can attend without additional costs. (Learn more about Prenda via my interview here.)

• Consider also Discovery Learner’s Academy with tuition of just $7,200 and a focus on personalized learning plans, discovery-based science and social studies, fostering curiosity, and social-emotional coaching. DLA offers a full-day school, a homeschool program, and a toddler’s program to meet various families’ needs. (Learn more about DLA here.)

• Another exciting and efficient microschool is Path of Life Learning that costs just $6,270 per year for four days per week. Their innovative approach combines core academics in the morning with play and enrichment time in the afternoon for a whole-child education. They also offer small class sizes and mastery-based learning so that students work at their ability levels, not at an arbitrary level based on age or grade—which eliminates the social promotion found in government schools.

• Finally, consider that homeschooled students—many of whom learn via programs that cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars per year to a few thousand for complete school curricula like iLumenEd—typically outperform public-school peers by 15 to 25 percentile points on standardized tests. (Learn more about iLumenEd here and here and about several homeschooling programs here and here.)

Conclusion

Despite the feel-good rhetoric and ever-increasing budgets of government schools, the facts tell us the unvarnished truth: Such schools are generally failures or, at best, woefully inferior to their private counterparts, particularly those specializing in personalized, learner-driven education that treats young people as unique humans with diverse needs, learning styles, and interests rather than as numbers in a state report. Such facts may be uncomfortable for some, especially those who rely on the compulsion of government schools for their paychecks, but they are no less true and are crucial in the fight for greater liberty in learning options and better lives for our children.