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Inflation-Adjusted K-12 Education Spending Per Student Has Increased By 280 Percent Since 1960 (1 Viewer)

Caveman33

Footballguy
https://reason.org/commentary/inflation-adjusted-k-12-education-spending-per-student-has-increased-by-280-percent-since-1960/

They say that if you repeat a lie often enough, it will become the truth.

Several viral social media posts claim legislators have been draining education funding for years. A tweet from a high school football coach asserting that “they’ve been defunding education for years” has garnered over a half-million likes in just a few days.

The problem is that we haven’t actually defunded education. We’ve done the opposite.

On average, the United States currently spends over $15,000 per student each year, and inflation-adjusted K-12 education spending per student has increased by 280 percent since 1960. In California, where the previously mentioned football coach resides, inflation-adjusted spending on K-12 education has increased by 129 percent since 1970. Furthermore, data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that nearly a third of all state budget expenditures go toward education.

This is a particularly pernicious myth in the education debate because increased education spending generally isn’t associated with better results. Stanford University economist Eric Hanushek reviewed nearly 400 studies on the topic and concluded that “there is not a strong or consistent relationship between student performance and school resources.”

That shouldn’t surprise anyone. Pouring more money into the same broken system won’t fix the deeper problem — government monopolies have weak incentives to cater to the needs of their customers by spending money wisely.

Why won’t this myth ever die? And why do defenders of the government schooling monopoly fight so hard against legitimate data showing that we’ve clearly increased education funding substantially over time?

Part of the problem might have to do with media outlets often getting the basic facts wrong. False claims around education spending often go uncorrected, and corrections are likely to go unnoticed, especially when outlets drag their feet or make stealth edits.

For example, Robert Pianta, the dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, authored a piece for the Washington Post falsely claiming that “public funding for schools has actually decreased since the late 1980s.” With prodding and evidence to the contrary, a correction was made to the article — but it was eight days after the article was published.

A couple of months later, the Philadelphia Inquirer similarly claimed that there have been “drastic cuts to funding over the last few decades” in education. That’s not true in the U.S. It’s not true in Pennsylvania either. The outlet eventually corrected the statement to say funding has actually increased, but that didn’t stop them from sticking to the same narrative.

In April, an article in the Washington Post falsely claimed that “education funding remained below pre-recession levels in real dollar terms in most states — sometimes up to 30 percent.” Its own source even showed that the claim was false on two counts: Real education spending actually increased in most states, and no state decreased funding by 30%.

In May, an article in the New York Times falsely claimed that “a year of U.S. public education costs about $400 billion.” Its own source showed they were off by a long shot. The U.S. spends about $739 billion each year on K-12 education, about 85% higher than the original false claim.

Also last month, the Washington Post claimed that D.C. schools spend “$11,310 in base spending” per student. That’s extremely misleading. The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the district spends over $31,000 per student each year. The city’s mayor also just proposed to further increase the district’s education spending despite the expected economic downturn.

The false claims consistently purport that we spend less than we actually do. In that sense, it shouldn’t surprise us that so many people believe that we have “been defunding education for years.” And if the public believes America spends less on education, they will be misled to push policymakers to throw more money at the problem without fixing real systemic issues.

One of the main issues with this approach is that too few dollars actually make it into the classroom.

Benjamin Scafidi’s seminal report, Back to the Staffing Surge, outlines that the problem with K-12 education funding in America today isn’t the overall amount of dollars going into government schools, but how those dollars are allocated by school districts. Surges in staffing and administrative bloat have become the norm across the country. From 1950 to 2009, student populations increased by 96%, while non-teaching staff increased by a whopping 702%.

More recently, Scafidi observed that between 1992 and 2014, real education spending per pupil increased by 27 percent, whereas real teacher salaries dropped by 2 percent.

What makes defenders of the government schooling monopoly think that the money will actually make it into the classroom this time around? How can we change the system so that education dollars are spent wisely? How can we ensure that the money will be used to help students?

These are the kinds of discussions we should be having. There’s a lot of room to debate the costs and benefits of pouring more money into the current education system. But these discussions must be based on an agreed-upon set of basic facts rather than emotions.

 
https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics

This page contains a lot of useful facts and statistics about our public education system.  I was curious about everyone else's thoughts on the Reason article.  People often talk about how expensive college has become but I was surprised to learn that $15,000 per student is spent on public K-12.  Twenty years ago, my Catholic elementary school charged about $2,000.  I thought the teachers there were on par with the ones I later had at a wealthy public school. The Stanford economist who reviewed the studies found no strong relationship between school resources and student performance.  I have always thought that a decent textbook and proper motivation/ability will determine a student's outcome. 

Do we need to spend more money on education?  "Surges in staffing and administrative bloat have become the norm across the country. From 1950 to 2009, student populations increased by 96%, while non-teaching staff increased by a whopping 702%."  I believe the same problem plaguing all industries is occurring in education.  Teachers matter--they are the essential workers driving productivity.  Most of the non-teaching staff could likely be eliminated without negatively affecting student performance.  But that won't happen.  Administration runs the show.  They earn more than teachers.  They will continue to multiply and find reasons to justify their existence.  

 
I know that my brother's teacher union generally fights the administration for the piece of the pie. The administrators get paid ridiculous amounts. 

 
I know that my brother's teacher union generally fights the administration for the piece of the pie. The administrators get paid ridiculous amounts. 
Some do. We don't. And to generalize- good educators are generally poor administrators. 

 
Some do. We don't. And to generalize- good educators are generally poor administrators. 
You're a school administrator? That's interesting and I didn't know that. 

He's in California, so things might be different out here. The administrators get exorbitant salaries. 

 
You're a school administrator? That's interesting and I didn't know that. 

He's in California, so things might be different out here. The administrators get exorbitant salaries. 
Higher ed, but my wife is K-8. We're very middle class. Private schools though. Salaries are better at (some) public, but no one there is retiring before age 60something. 

 
Higher ed, but my wife is K-8. We're very middle class. Private schools though. Salaries are better at (some) public, but no one there is retiring before age 60something. 
Okay. I was thinking of superintendents and the like, though. We might be talking about different things. 

 
Okay. I was thinking of superintendents and the like, though. We might be talking about different things. 
My wife's cousin is a superintendent of one of the largest districts in the area. They live comfortably, but he mentioned over beers recently that before age 60 is not an option. Only reason he's trying for that young is the stress of the job. 

 
I was curious about everyone else's thoughts on the Reason article. 
I think it's good to correct people that are pushing incorrect facts.  And I think there is a lot to criticize about public education in this country.  But I also think the Reason article is trying to push a narrative that the increase in per-student costs since 1960 is entirely attributable to "administrative bloat" and therefore just throwing money at the problem is ineffective.

In my view, a lot of the increase in costs since 1960 is attributable to things like: 1) Back in 1960 there were a lot more kids being raised by stay-at-home moms; 2) back in 1960, education was one of the few professions that talented educated women could go into; 3) Back in 1960, the amount of special education services we provided to students was many times less than it is now; 4) Back in 1960, native English speakers made up a greater percentage of the student population.  This is just a short list off the top of my head, if I really wanted to I think I could generate a much larger list.  I have no idea whether a 280% increase is too large or too small given all of these considerations.

So my impression is that the article is correcting misleading information but not providing appropriate context to understand whether the cost increases are actually justified. 

 
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I think it's good to correct people that are pushing incorrect facts.  And I think there is a lot to criticize about public education in this country.  But I also think the Reason article is trying to push a narrative that the increase in per-student costs since 1960 is entirely attributable to "administrative bloat" and therefore just throwing money at the problem is ineffective.

In my view, a lot of the increase in costs since 1960 is attributable to things like: 1) Back in 1960 there were a lot more kids being raised by stay-at-home moms; 2) back in 1960, education was one of the few professions that talented educated women could go into; 3) Back in 1960, the amount of special education services we provided to students was many times less than it is now; 4) Back in 1960, native English speakers made up a greater percentage of the student population.  This is just a short list off the top of my head, if I really wanted to I think I could generate a much larger list.  I have no idea whether a 280% increase is too large or two small given all of these considerations.

So my impression is that the article is correcting misleading information but not providing appropriate context to understand whether the cost increases are actually justified. 
If pushed, Reason wouldn't be in favor of compulsory public education existing, so it's no surprise they want to keep costs down per their advocacy. 

And I was and am a reader of Reason. I just know that the facts are in service of something deeper. 

 
I think it's good to correct people that are pushing incorrect facts.  And I think there is a lot to criticize about public education in this country.  But I also think the Reason article is trying to push a narrative that the increase in per-student costs since 1960 is entirely attributable to "administrative bloat" and therefore just throwing money at the problem is ineffective.

In my view, a lot of the increase in costs since 1960 is attributable to things like: 1) Back in 1960 there were a lot more kids being raised by stay-at-home moms; 2) back in 1960, education was one of the few professions that talented educated women could go into; 3) Back in 1960, the amount of special education services we provided to students was many times less than it is now; 4) Back in 1960, native English speakers made up a greater percentage of the student population.  This is just a short list off the top of my head, if I really wanted to I think I could generate a much larger list.  I have no idea whether a 280% increase is too large or two small given all of these considerations.

So my impression is that the article is correcting misleading information but not providing appropriate context to understand whether the cost increases are actually justified. 
Yet districts eliminate courses of value like the trades.  Schools have no problem bussing kids around 100 miles for a sporting event.

 
I was unaware that there was a narrative that we were defunding education.
Certainly there was a narrative that K-12 education was underfunded. That was the dominant narrative for about twenty years. Then everyone realized per-pupil spending was up, especially in urban areas, and they began to complain about cost again. 

But yes, certainly so. Enough to have to refute the notion in print again. 

 
I was unaware that there was a narrative that we were defunding education.
I'm too insulated to offer an unbiased opinion, but while I've never heard it used in this context I think it's fair to say this is a central theme. Teacher wages, testing culture, and we'll call them the influential but uninformed section of each community playing puppet master are the greatest issues around here. Those issues play a very meaningful role in the resources being allocated being inefficiently utilized. Other areas of the country are also battling these issues as well as different issues, but to make this way too simple educators are being put in a position to fail and are following through. Objectively you would be a damn fool to want to get into teaching right now. It'll take decades to reform and we don't have the patience to see it through - other than providing funding the public and gov't gotta remove themselves from the process in order for this to be fixed and that won't happen.

 
I was unaware that there was a narrative that we were defunding education.


Those are two different narratives, though.  I've heard the narrative that public education is underfunded for decades.  I don't think I've ever heard the narrative that education has been defunded.
The article starts with 'Several viral social media posts claim legislators have been draining education funding for years. A tweet from a high school football coach asserting that “they’ve been defunding education for years” has garnered over a half-million likes in just a few days.' 

He links to the tweet.  https://twitter.com/CoachTJMcKay/status/1269315660238041089 "Defunding the police sounds radical until you realize realize we’ve been defunding education for years."

The tweet has 612,000 likes and 192,000 retweets.  So the author is riffing off that when he continues with, "The problem is that we haven’t actually defunded education. We’ve done the opposite."

 
The article starts with 'Several viral social media posts claim legislators have been draining education funding for years. A tweet from a high school football coach asserting that “they’ve been defunding education for years” has garnered over a half-million likes in just a few days.' 

He links to the tweet.  https://twitter.com/CoachTJMcKay/status/1269315660238041089 "Defunding the police sounds radical until you realize realize we’ve been defunding education for years."

The tweet has 612,000 likes and 192,000 retweets.  So the author is riffing off that when he continues with, "The problem is that we haven’t actually defunded education. We’ve done the opposite."
I'll rephrase that to "Prior to opening this thread, I've never heard that narrative."  That said, I don't personally subscribe to the idea that a couple loons on social media define a broad narrative.  I really don't think "we've defunded education" has been a broad theme from left-based think tanks, media, etc.  That's different than "we aren't funding education enough", of course.

 
I think it's good to correct people that are pushing incorrect facts.  And I think there is a lot to criticize about public education in this country.  But I also think the Reason article is trying to push a narrative that the increase in per-student costs since 1960 is entirely attributable to "administrative bloat" and therefore just throwing money at the problem is ineffective.

In my view, a lot of the increase in costs since 1960 is attributable to things like: 1) Back in 1960 there were a lot more kids being raised by stay-at-home moms; 2) back in 1960, education was one of the few professions that talented educated women could go into; 3) Back in 1960, the amount of special education services we provided to students was many times less than it is now; 4) Back in 1960, native English speakers made up a greater percentage of the student population.  This is just a short list off the top of my head, if I really wanted to I think I could generate a much larger list.  I have no idea whether a 280% increase is too large or too small given all of these considerations.

So my impression is that the article is correcting misleading information but not providing appropriate context to understand whether the cost increases are actually justified. 
You raise good points and that could explain more costs related to teachers. The teachers at my Catholic elementary were definitely underpaid.  It was all women and most had children who were going or had gone to the school.  I thought this statistic was strong "From 1950 to 2009, student populations increased by 96%, while non-teaching staff increased by a whopping 702%." but I'm not sure how special ed providers are classified.  Wouldn't the ones providing education be regarded as teaching staff? Same with ESL teachers.

 
Public education is hyper local. Your mileage will vary. A lot. 

I'm a big fan of teachers and education. I'm less of a fan of administrators. Although I do support them generally, I am skeptical about bloat.

The school superintendent in this district earns north of $300K. Not a typo. I support her because the district did an excellent job opening back up and staying open throughout the pandemic. Kids were in-person in September 2020 and were never not in-person after that.

Overall I'm pleased with my daughter's education and what I actually want is for people, especially from out of the district, to mind their own business. Let these people do their job. Go protest "grooming" or whatever other culture war nonsense somewhere else. The kids (in this district) are alright. 

 
I'll rephrase that to "Prior to opening this thread, I've never heard that narrative."  That said, I don't personally subscribe to the idea that a couple loons on social media define a broad narrative.  I really don't think "we've defunded education" has been a broad theme from left-based think tanks, media, etc.  That's different than "we aren't funding education enough", of course.
Well I assume the 612,000 people who liked the defund tweet don't think that our public education system has been literally "defunded."  They likely passed through the public education system and should understand that all those educators and administrators couldn't possibly be working for free.  The writer of the article is arguing that statistics show education is being funded more than enough.  So he is taking the opposite side of "we aren't funding education enough," while also highlighting the misinformation found in viral social media.

edit: In defense of the defund tweeters, maybe they are referring to the defunding of specific programs.

 
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What makes defenders of the government schooling monopoly think that the money will actually make it into the classroom this time around? How can we change the system so that education dollars are spent wisely? How can we ensure that the money will be used to help students?

These are the kinds of discussions we should be having. There’s a lot of room to debate the costs and benefits of pouring more money into the current education system. But these discussions must be based on an agreed-upon set of basic facts rather than emotions.
To be clear about my point on public education being hyper local.

Who is "we"?

Maybe the district where the guy tweeted from has an issue. My point to the people there would be: have fun with that. That's a "you" issue. I wouldn't even pretend to know about it, or frankly care. Take care of your backyard.

 
I'm too insulated to offer an unbiased opinion, but while I've never heard it used in this context I think it's fair to say this is a central theme. Teacher wages, testing culture, and we'll call them the influential but uninformed section of each community playing puppet master are the greatest issues around here. Those issues play a very meaningful role in the resources being allocated being inefficiently utilized. Other areas of the country are also battling these issues as well as different issues, but to make this way too simple educators are being put in a position to fail and are following through. Objectively you would be a damn fool to want to get into teaching right now. It'll take decades to reform and we don't have the patience to see it through - other than providing funding the public and gov't gotta remove themselves from the process in order for this to be fixed and that won't happen.
Compensation for teachers at public schools seems pretty good.  Certainly well above the median or even average pay in the United States.  You may be cautioning against teaching for reasons other than teacher pay, though.

https://www.city-journal.org/california-misguided-education-spending#:~:text=According to the Census Bureau,way of improving its schools.

While Golden State students suffer academically, their teachers do quite well for themselves. The latest data show that the average K-12 educator hauls in $84,531 a year. But as Just Facts reveals, that amount does not include “unfunded pension liabilities and non-pension post-employment benefits like health insurance.” Adjusted to include costs, the average California teacher’s total compensation is almost $127,000 per annum. It’s worth noting that full-time public school teachers work an average of 1,490 hours per year, including time spent on lesson planning and grading, while private-sector employees work an average of 2,045 hours per year, or about 37 percent more.
180 x 8 = 1,440 so I think the hours they calculated for teachers assumes that teachers are not taking anything home.  They would have to do all lesson planning and grading during their free periods.  That's possible for some but others likely spend a lot more time.  

City journal is a biased source.  I believe most the people arguing that schools receive too much funding are the same ones who are pushing for vouchers and school choice.

 
Compensation for teachers at public schools seems pretty good.  Certainly well above the median or even average pay in the United States.  You may be cautioning against teaching for reasons other than teacher pay, though.

https://www.city-journal.org/california-misguided-education-spending#:~:text=According to the Census Bureau,way of improving its schools.

180 x 8 = 1,440 so I think the hours they calculated for teachers assumes that teachers are not taking anything home.  They would have to do all lesson planning and grading during their free periods.  That's possible for some but others likely spend a lot more time.  

City journal is a biased source.  I believe most the people arguing that schools receive too much funding are the same ones who are pushing for vouchers and school choice.
Yup. Beware of those supposedly coming with "good intentions".

Good topic.

 
Compensation for teachers at public schools seems pretty good.  Certainly well above the median or even average pay in the United States.  You may be cautioning against teaching for reasons other than teacher pay, though.

https://www.city-journal.org/california-misguided-education-spending#:~:text=According to the Census Bureau,way of improving its schools.

180 x 8 = 1,440 so I think the hours they calculated for teachers assumes that teachers are not taking anything home.  They would have to do all lesson planning and grading during their free periods.  That's possible for some but others likely spend a lot more time.  

City journal is a biased source.  I believe most the people arguing that schools receive too much funding are the same ones who are pushing for vouchers and school choice.
Can confirm many many teachers do their grading and planning at home in the evenings or on weekends. If they are grading essays or papers it takes longer than a quick perusal. And the good teachers often communicate via email with students during off hours as well. I am not a teacher but have a friend group comprised of them and I see it first hand and often. Add in parent teacher conferences after school hours and also the many that chaperone or supervise events like science or history fairs and school dances and such and you are looking at waaayy more than 1440 hours/year.

 
To be clear about my point on public education being hyper local.

Who is "we"?

Maybe the district where the guy tweeted from has an issue. My point to the people there would be: have fun with that. That's a "you" issue. I wouldn't even pretend to know about it, or frankly care. Take care of your backyard.
When the author says we, I assume he means parents and tax payers.  I'm not sure about the breakdown on how public schools receive federal and state funding but all tax payers are affected by the education budgets, with homeowners being affected more locally.

I just looked at the public K-12 that I attended and their current budget is 163 million for 7,000 students so about 23,300 per student.  They claim 100 million goes towards instruction while 10 million is for administration.  The average SAT score was 1280.  I still think all the students who are scoring very highly there could go to the worst funded public school and score just as well.

 
Compensation for teachers at public schools seems pretty good.  Certainly well above the median or even average pay in the United States.  You may be cautioning against teaching for reasons other than teacher pay, though.
As I understand it, this is extremely region-specific, though.  Just because teachers in Westchester County, NY or San Francisco, CA do well doesn't mean teachers in Mississippi or Idaho get paid the same.

 
 I thought this statistic was strong "From 1950 to 2009, student populations increased by 96%, while non-teaching staff increased by a whopping 702%." but I'm not sure how special ed providers are classified.  Wouldn't the ones providing education be regarded as teaching staff? Same with ESL teachers.


I'd also be interested in the definition of what is considered "non-teaching staff."  Do you see a definition anywhere?  

ETA: This link from Indiana is helpful

This site defines  “Non-teaching staff” as "a category defined as anyone employed by a school system who doesn’t serve as a classroom teacher. This can include administrative staff, guidance counselors, librarians, custodians, food service personnel, and even transportation workers."

The group that’s grown the most in this category is teachers’ aides – the people who help free a teacher up by tutoring kids in small groups, working with individual students on reading or other skills, or even doing clerical work. This group practically didn’t exist back in 1970, when they made up less than 2 percent of all district staff. Today, they represent about 12 percent.


If you look at the bigger picture in education, there is constant evolution of academic standards, accountability requirements, standardized testing – all things we’re familiar with here in Indiana.

Experts, like Concetta Raimondi with Indiana University’s School of Education, say a lot of the support positions we see now have been developed because teachers can’t meet all of those requirements on their own.

“We don’t have a one size fits all curriculum anymore,” Raimondi says. “We really have to develop instructional techniques that work with different populations of kids. And it’s very challenging for a singular teacher in a classroom that has a number of different learning needs, to differentiate for all of those, try as they may.”

Timing plays a big part in the current trend, too. The federal government passed a handful of laws over the last several decades to expand educational access for different groups of students. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1975 in particular could account for a large part of the surge in support staff; often times students with special needs require a personal aide to help them navigate mainstream classrooms.

Since the 1970s, the U.S. also gained Title IX for equal opportunity, the Bilingual Education Act, and the Gifted and Talented Children’s Education Act. In order to accommodate the needs of these different students, many districts responded by expanding support services – which requires hiring aides, speech pathologists, tutors and other specialized staff.

“We have a lot more children that come with challenges, not necessarily related to special education, but other kinds of personal challenges from community, culture, non-English speaking, the list can go on and on and on,” Raimondi explains. “As we’ve had a shifting population in this state, [aides] are going to fill important roles in order for us to educate all children well.”

 
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Compensation for teachers at public schools seems pretty good.  Certainly well above the median or even average pay in the United States.  You may be cautioning against teaching for reasons other than teacher pay, though.

https://www.city-journal.org/california-misguided-education-spending#:~:text=According to the Census Bureau,way of improving its schools.

180 x 8 = 1,440 so I think the hours they calculated for teachers assumes that teachers are not taking anything home.  They would have to do all lesson planning and grading during their free periods.  That's possible for some but others likely spend a lot more time.  

City journal is a biased source.  I believe most the people arguing that schools receive too much funding are the same ones who are pushing for vouchers and school choice.
This is a horrible assumption.

 
As I understand it, this is extremely region-specific, though.  Just because teachers in Westchester County, NY or San Francisco, CA do well doesn't mean teachers in Mississippi or Idaho get paid the same.
Not just region, but district specific. Some public school educators in our area are well compensated, but it varies wildly one district to another. The problems associated with teaching now are much more deeply rooted than just compensation though. Compensation is just the vehicle for justifying dealing with it.

 
The article starts with 'Several viral social media posts claim legislators have been draining education funding for years. A tweet from a high school football coach asserting that “they’ve been defunding education for years” has garnered over a half-million likes in just a few days.' 

He links to the tweet.  https://twitter.com/CoachTJMcKay/status/1269315660238041089 "Defunding the police sounds radical until you realize realize we’ve been defunding education for years."

The tweet has 612,000 likes and 192,000 retweets.  So the author is riffing off that when he continues with, "The problem is that we haven’t actually defunded education. We’ve done the opposite."
Its a high school football coach.  Speaking in broad generalities haven't we made things like athletics, band, etc.  more fee based as opposed to tax based?   That is haven't we at least partially "defunded" some programs in recent times such that from a football coach's perspective this is true, while from a broader perspective it is not?

(That being said,  the half dozen coaches of the local middle school football team and the half dozen sectional instructors for bands certainly argues against this around my parts.  So I'd think that this spending is way up since 1980s yet alone 1960, but maybe down since some point in between??????)   

 
Yet districts eliminate courses of value like the trades.  Schools have no problem bussing kids around 100 miles for a sporting event.
My wife, who is a teacher, and I were discussing this just this past week.  For a long time we pushed everyone to aspire to go to college.  Everyone doesn't need to go to college, we need plumbers, welders, HVAC repair, those type jobs.  Some people are better at that than I could ever be and there is nothing wrong with that.  Even where I live for awhile it was almost like a stigma to go to "trade school" for part of the day and not try to shoehorn everyone into the college prep stuff.

 

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