Christopher W. Hammons, Alabama Policy Institute
April 2004
Every time our K-12 education system fails to educate a child, it costs us. Perhaps the most direct cost is the money spent on remedial education. According to this report, in Alabama, 42 percent of community college students and 18 percent of regular college students require such courses (the national figures are similar). But society also pays in other ways to cope with folks like the "employee who 'invented' her own filing system because she lacked the skills to alphabetize folders by name." After tallying the cost of training and technology provided by employers, of reduced productivity, etc., the true cost to society balloons: in Alabama between $304 million and $1.17 billion per year (depending on the methodology), with a best estimate of $541 million. (Alabama contains about 1.5 percent of the U.S. population, which would mean the national cost is in the tens of billions each year). What's the solution? This report offers commentaries by Jay Greene and Matthew Ladner, arguing that graduation standards and school choice would help. (Alabama lacks public school choice, vouchers, tax-credits, even charter schools.) Greene contends that K-12 systems should bear some costs of remedial education, via "some sort of 'money-back guarantee' for high school diplomas." Unfortunately, those hoping for an intriguing analysis of the economic benefits of education will be disappointed by this report, which does not examine education's impact on prison populations, welfare programs, future earnings, and the like. But its methodology is simple: it assumes that the benefit of education must be at least as much as its cost to the state (because, to an economist, the state wouldn't otherwise make such an investment). Of course, this ignores the reality that school funding decisions are political, not economic, in nature. Still, the report tackles a difficult problem and reports some staggering costs created by a deficient K-12 system. To read more, click here.
