APPENDIX B

 

SOME DATA ON THE ENORMITY OF AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURES

          VIS-A-VIS POOR STUDENT PERFORMANCE

 

         The assumption that education quality is best gauged by the amount of resources expended was jolted by research showing a tenuous relationship between expenditure and achievement.

        

! Nationwide, we will spend more than $350 billion on education this year, including $212 billion on elementary and secondary education. We spend more per student than any other nation in the world except Switzerland.¹⁴

 

! Instructional expenditures per pupil in the United States exceed the levels of other industrial nations. In 1985, U.S. expenditures per pupil were 47 percent greater than in West Germany, 66 percent greater than in France and Australia, 74 percent greater than in the United Kingdom, and 83 greater than in Japan.

         Unfortunately, the basic math and science skills of high school students in each of these countries exceed the level of U.S. high school students. In fact, U.S. high school students not only rank below students in Japan, West Germany, and the United Kingdom, they also rank below their counterparts in Spain, Ireland, and South Korea.

         During the past two decades the real expenditures per elementary and secondary pupil in the United States have increased substantially. Measured in 1982‑84 dollars, per pupil expenditures rose from $1,704 in 1967 to  $3,501 in 1987, an increase of 105 percent. Because these figures are adjusted for inflation, they indicate that the actual purchasing power per pupil available to schools more than doubled during the 20‑year period.

         Puzzled by the decline in student performance accompanying the educational spending increases of the past two decades, researchers have tried to figure out what we are doing wrong. Many speculated that the schools were simply expanding resources in the wrong areas. According to this view, once the experts figure out the "educational production function" that works best, better results will be achieved.

         These findings imply a weak relationship (at best) between educational expenditures and student performance. Given the current structure of our educational system, increases in educational spending generally fail to improve student performance.¹⁵

 

! New York City has a $8 billion school system, Chicago $2.8 billion, and Minneapolis $442 million.¹⁶ New York City spends, on average, $7,000 a year to educate each of its 1‑million‑odd public school students.  The city employs almost two non‑teachers for every teacher. New York's staff‑to‑teacher ratio is high, but not totally out of line.  In Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston, the staff‑to‑teacher ration is about 1‑to‑1.¹⁷

 

! Though a couple of nations pay their teachers more than we do, none save Hungary employs a higher percentage of the labor force in its education system. In the U.S. 6.2 percent of the labor force works in educational institutions; the OECD average is 5.2 percent. What's striking is that fewer than half of these Americans are teachers. Ours is the only country  in the industrial  world where the majority of school employees are"

support staff." (Of course, that explains how we can spend the most per pupil and yet not pay the highest teacher salaries.)¹⁸

 

! In fact, the United States spends more per student than either Germany or Japan. Ten years ago the U.S. spent $2,491 per public school student (below the university level). This year [1991], the figure will be $5,638, an increase of 33 percent after inflation.¹⁹