For several years, it is perhaps the most upsetting question confronting education in America: Why are public schools in America persistently failing, despite millions of funds allocated? According to a research, spending money on education is not just linked to academic improvements.
A research from CATO Institute reveals that the performance of American students has stayed poor. It actually has declined in verbal and mathematical skills, despite the spending for every student has tripled countrywide in the same 40 years period.
"The average performance change nationwide has declined three percent in mathematical and verbal skills. Andrew Coulson, director of the Center For Educational Freedom from CATO Institute, told Watchdog.org. "Moreover, there's been no relationship, effectively, between spending and academic outcomes," he added.
After World War II, spending for every student in public schools in the U.S. has increased by 663%, according to National Center for Education Statistics. So where did it all go? One area it went to, according to a report by Gerard Robinson and Benjamin Scafidi, was to hire more teachers and school personnel. From 1950 to 2009, public schools in America experienced 96% raise in student population and because of this, the number of school administrators and other personnel increased by more than seven times the raise in student population, the report continues.
Files from the U.S. Department of Education involving costs of public schools, student enrollment, SAT scores and number of staff was probed to search the difference between stagnant or decreasing academic results and increased spending. This is based on a report in CBSDC.
In the end, Robinson and Scafidi suggested that people should change their way of thinking about public schools. And one way people must consider, according to them, is the significant role of parents. They quoted the meta-analysis of William H. Jeynes, "students living with involved parents had an academic advantage of higher grades and test scores than those living with less-involved parents."
