Could We Just Get One Thing Straight?

John McCain has done a pretty good job of making school choice at least the rhetorical center of his education plan. He has also been fairly clear that spending is not the key to educational effectiveness. Too bad he hasn’t gotten the latter message to his running mate.


“I say, too, with education, America needs to be putting a lot more focus on that and our schools have got to be really ramped up in terms of the funding that they are deserving,” declared Governor Palin, painfully, last night.


Could we please put this underfunding myth to rest? Real, per‐​pupil expenditures in American public elementary and secondary schools have more than doubled since 1970, ballooning from $5,393 in the 1970–71 school year to $11,470 in 2004-05 (the latest year available). In 2005, we spent more, adjusted for purchasing power, per primary‐​school pupil than all but two industrialized nation (Iceland and Luxembourg) and per secondary‐​school pupil than three nations (Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Norway). Yet, we get results like these! No wonder in 2003 OECD education director Barry McGaw concluded that “there are countries which don’t get the bang for the bucks, and the U.S. is one of them.”


Keep on repeating the myth, and the bang will only get quieter.