Research has shown that THE first-order indicator of academic success is parental involvement, that is, academic success is most directly proportional to parental support and involvement. The amount of money spent, as it relates to academic success, shows almost no statistical correlation, being at the level of statistical noise.
In fact, if one were to try to draw a correlation between money spent and academic performance, he would have to conclude that the amount of money spent is INVERSELY proportional to academic performance.
Too much involvement by the State, the courts, and even the "community", have been shown to have adverse affects. The micro-management of education by the courts and law-making bodies that we have seen in the last 40 years has been particularly destructive.
For corroboration, you can peruse the Home School Legal Defense research pages at the following link.
http://www.hslda.org/research/default.asp
I don't think you'll find a teacher in this country who will dispute that. In fact, I'd wager that it's a major reason that wealthy suburban schools are largely "successful" and poor urban schools usually are not.
The amount of money spent, as it relates to academic success, shows almost no statistical correlation, being at the level of statistical noise. In fact, if one were to try to draw a correlation between money spent and academic performance, he would have to conclude that the amount of money spent is INVERSELY proportional to academic performance.
If there's no correlation, there's no correlation. You can't have it both ways unless you're playing games with the statistics.
Any sort of analysis of money versus performance would have a number of confounding factors, however. For instance, the cost of living is higher in some parts of the country than others, so more money would be spent in those areas without any appreciable "value" being added.
On the other hand, wealthier areas tend to have both higher property values, and thus higher revenues available for education from property taxes, but also a higher proportion of educated and concerned parents. Those areas might have better performance, but not necessarily due to the higher expenditures.
Too much involvement by the State, the courts, and even the "community", have been shown to have adverse affects. The micro-management of education by the courts and law-making bodies that we have seen in the last 40 years has been particularly destructive.
Again, I don't think you'd find too many teachers who'd disagree with you. A lot of what gets blamed on teachers and "educrats" is actually the fault of judges and legislators.