[Cboldt]

I'm not defending the Deptartment of Education, but a couple points:

The student performance is going down. That's bad, period.

The graph is a bit misleading because it doesn't acount for:

1. The number of students (i.e. dollars per student is a better measurement than dollars)
2. Inflation

It's possible that the dollars per student, in some "constant" dollar, hasn't gone up as dramatically as the graph indicates, and it is also possible that the increase in dollars per student is even -MORE- dramatic.

[FreedomPoster]

No arguments, but I didn't produce the graph, a government employee did. It's still pretty damning.

[Kevin Curry]

Inflation has been relatively low for the past 15 years--especially over the last ten. The number of students has also remained also relatively low, especially compared to the baby boom generation.

I strongly doubt the the vertical peak of bureaucratic fecklesness depicted by this graph can be attributed to inflation and an increase in student enrollment.

[savedbygrace]

This might help a little:

http://nces.ed.gov//pubs2002/digest2001/tables/dt040.asp

If I'm reading this correctly, it seems that enrollment has increased by less than 20% from 1985 to 1999.