Worse, there's an inverse relationship between school spending and student performance. Most additional school spending goes toward a LOT more top-heavy administration which burdens teachers with useless crap, micromanagement, and staggering reporting requirements, none of which helps students. It goes toward bringing in the latest liberal education fads, none of which work.
“Worse, there’s an inverse relationship between school spending and student performance. “
One of the most highly educated and successful businesspeople I have known was a dirt poor farmer’s child educated in a one room schoolhouse in rural NC. There was one teacher who taught all grades. He graduated from that school with an ability to write, a love for books, superior math skills, and a love for his country’s history and government. He continued his education throughout his life reading thousands of books on many subjects. He could down with an Ivy League educated intellectual and discuss intelligently almost any subject. He started a business on a shoestring that provided a middle class lifestyle for his family and a comfortable retirement for he and his wife. Clearly he left that one room schoolhouse with a better education than 99% of the high school graduates of today and probably a high percentage of today’s college graduates.
An outstanding teacher can achieve outstanding results with almost no resources. A student with an inquiring mind, supported with good teaching as well as highly supportive and demanding parents can be an exceptional scholar. Substitute teaching fundamental skills necessary for life (reading writing , arithmetic, and objective history) with modern social justice indoctrination, and no parent involvement, and you get the product of 21st century American primary and secondary schools.
The amount of money spent matters little. The one room school house of 1910 with drafty windows, no air conditioning in the summer, and a single wood fired stove to provide heat in the winter provided as good an environment for learning as a 21st century classroom with projection screens, connections to the internet, and laptops for every child.
Education schools spend no time examining the simple techniques that obtained outstanding achievement in the past. The students they turn out are ignorant propagandists. Why should we expect the ignorant to inspire brilliance and achievement in our children?
I live in a county with two high schools along with the feeder middle and elementary schools. They also have a large office building full of administrators. I feel anger as I pass it each day with its large parking lot full of shiny cars.
I too subscribe to the thought that the more non-teaching employees the poorer the education level. Let the teachers teach. Get out of their way!