Last week’s back-to-preschool bashing was such a hit, thought I’d rerun a column from the same year, on the broader subject of “education” expenditures. Enjoy!
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There is no correlation between government-school spending and student performance.
It’s a fact ignored by the selfish and dishonest interests behind “The Education Initiative,” a ballot question Nevadans will consider in November. The measure would impose a “margin tax” of 2 percent on the state’s “business entities,” and earmark the revenue raised to “fund the operation of the public schools … for kindergarten through grade 12.”
No one doubts Nevada’s stinginess when it comes to government education — at least compared to other states. Only Idaho, Arizona, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Utah spent less, per pupil, in 2012. What’s dodgy is the claim that greater “resources” can boost schools’ outcome-oriented metrics such as graduation rates and achievement on standardized tests.
Skepticism about “investments” in education was warranted as far back as the Johnson administration. In the mid-1960s, sociologist James S. Coleman undertook a voluminous, taxpayer-subsidized study on race and schools. His conclusion is worth quoting at length:
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