Free Republic

Education is supposed to help bridge the gap between the wealthiest people and everyone else. […] Wealthier parents have been stepping up education spending so aggressively that they’re widening the nation’s wealth gap. When the Great Recession struck in late 2007 and squeezed most family budgets, the top 10 percent of earners—with incomes averaging $253,146—went in a different direction: They doubled down on their kids’ futures. Their average education spending per child jumped 35 percent to $5,210 a year during the recession compared with the two preceding years—and they sustained that faster pace through the recovery. For the remaining 90...

SANTA FE, N.M. – For decades, it’s probably the most troublesome question facing education: Why are results for U.S. public school students so mediocre, despite the billions of taxpayer dollars spent? Andrew Coulson thinks he’s got the answer: Because there is no discernible correlation between spending and outcomes. “The takeaway from this study is that what we’ve done over the past 40 years hasn’t worked,” said Coulson, director of the Center For Educational Freedom at the CATO Institute. “The average performance change nationwide has declined 3 percent in mathematical and verbal skills. Moreover, there’s been no relationship, effectively, between spending...

Harmony Public Schools appears to have cracked the code. The charter school system, with 38 campuses across Texas and more than 23,000 students, regularly produces students who excel at math, science and engineering. And they do it on a shoestring. Harmony's five schools in Austin spent $7,923 per student in 2010-11 on operating expenses, almost $1,600 less than the Austin school district and about $800 less than the statewide average. Harmony's schools have also consistently beat the rest of the state on standardized test scores even while educating about the same proportion of students considered at risk of dropping out....

In the contentious world of education politics, the need to spend more on public schools stands out as a rare point of agreement. Our recent national survey of American adults ... found that those who support increased spending on public schools in their district outnumber those who want spending to decrease by a five-to-one margin. [A] solid majority (59 percent) of Americans express confidence that spending more on the public schools in their district will increase student learning. ... Do Americans have an accurate grasp of how much is currently being spent on public education? ... [A]mericans dramatically underestimate the...

On June 30, the board of education and the town council in Enfield, Conn., convened to hear the results of a citizen cost-cutting committee. Among its other recommendations, the 17 residents recommended replacing some public school teachers with low-cost college interns, restricting the use of school vehicles, and increasing employee contributions to benefit plans. These may seem modest steps toward fiscal responsibility -- but they are emblematic of a significant change in this very blue state: growing disenchantment with the price of government, especially of public education. [Cross Country] Corbis Over the past two and a half decades, the student...

Take a deep breath. Now exhale. Does that make you feel like you deserve a raise? If so, you understand the concept of the so-called "breathing bonus." And you also understand one of the main reasons New Jersey has the most expensive public school system of any state. One of the few useful results to come out of those legislative committees on property tax reform was an admission of just how costly it is to put a kid through New Jersey's public schools: $16,000 a year. That figure was included in the report of the Joint Legislative Committee on Public...

I got a phone call last week from the head of one of the many departments in the Clark County School District which I had mentioned in my March 16 essay on elephantine school districts, headlined "Mission Creep." "Do you even know what my department does?" demanded the fellow, whose listing in the district's administrative phone directory says only "Warranty Department." I had no idea, I said. And, I continued, that was the whole point of the listing: The sheer number -- hundreds -- of bureaucrats being paid $60,000 and $80,000 and more per year, leeches living off taxpayer funds...

<p>The Capitol was stunned when the Legislature's budget office this month forecast a staggering $21 billion deficit over the next 19 months.</p> <p>Gov. Gray Davis upped the ante, at least rhetorically, on Thursday when he declared, after talking with legislative leaders: "We believe the $21 billion shortfall is on the low side. They can assume the $21 billion number will go up."</p>