In a surprising turn of events, the Bush team has responded not by calling for more responsible and efficacious education spending but by bragging about its generosity and berating states for leaving $6 billion in federal education aid unspent.
The administration is factually correct, for what it's worth. Since 2001, the Department of Education's discretionary budget authority has increased by 39 percent. Title I, the main program providing federal dollars to schools serving poor children, has grown 52 percent. In the Bush administration's first two years, Title I spending increased more than during the previous seven years under President Clinton.
In fact, this entire NCLB spending debate is serving to obscure the fact that American schools are actually well-funded, by any reasonable standard. After-inflation education spending in the U.S. more than tripled between 1960 and 2000.
In fact, it may surprise some to learn that we rank at the top of the international charts when it comes to education spending. In 2000 (the latest available data), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) calculated that the U.S. spent significantly more than any other industrial democracy, including those famous for generous social programs. In primary education, on a per-pupil basis, the United States spent 66 percent more than Germany, 56 percent more than France, 27 percent more than Japan, 80 percent more than the United Kingdom, 62 percent more than Belgium, and 122 percent more than South Korea. High school figures were similar.
Despite this spending, the U.S. ranked 15th among the 31 countries that participated in the OECD's 2000 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reading exam. Ireland, Iceland, and New Zealand were among those that outperformed us while spending far less per pupil. The results in math are equally disquieting: on the 1999 TIMSS study, the U.S. ranked 19th of 38 participating countries. Most troubling is that America's standing actually deteriorates as students spend more time in school.
Not only are we investing education dollars without adequate return, but we're actually spending even more than we think. School accounting guidelines would bring smiles to an Enron auditor. Unlike private-sector businesses, public school bookkeeping systems exclude such major costs as property acquisition and capital construction when computing "current expenditures."
UCLA business professor Bill Ouchi has calculated that, in New York City in 2001-02, debt service, school construction, and renovation added $2,298 per pupil to the $11,994 in reported current expenditure - meaning that the district actually spent upwards of $14,000 per student. In Los Angeles, the true per pupil cost in 2001-02 was $13,074, compared to the $6,740 reported by the district.
A reasonable estimate is that widely reported per-pupil spending figures represent only 70-80 percent of what the U.S. spends on education. Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby has estimated that in 2000 we actually spent more than $9,200 per pupil, compared to the widely reported "official" figure of $7,392.
From 1995-96 to 2003-04, U.S. public education spending grew by more than 53 percent, from $287 billion to more than $440 billion. In California, which for three years has wrestled with massive budget shortfalls, personnel costs outstripped revenue growth in 13 of the state's 20 largest school districts between 1996-97 and 2001-02. Sacramento had enrollment growth of four percent, revenue growth of 33 percent, and yet increased personnel costs by 41 percent - the result of more employees (many of them non-teachers), more generous salaries and more opulent benefits. In short, public school personnel costs are out of control. They are even outpacing the constant growth in school revenues. This helps to explain why so many school system officials feel strapped amidst what the rest of the world would regard as ample, rising budgets.
The steady growth of spending in the past decade, as in previous decades, has allowed schools to avoid cutting fat even as other organizations have slimmed down. In 1949-50, schools employed one non-teacher for every 2.36 teachers. By 1998-99, there was a nonteacher for every 1.09 teachers. In Washington D.C., the school system employs 11,000 people (for 65,000 students), less than half of whom are teachers. Meanwhile, school systems resist proposals for outsourcing support functions, shuttering unneeded school buildings, terminating ineffective programs, or installing technology-assisted methods of instruction and assessment that reduce the demand for personnel.
Dismissing concerns that money is being spent thoughtlessly, educators complain that, until they get even more money, they cannot reasonably be held responsible for helping all students to succeed. Ken Baker, principal at the Wyoming High School in Cincinnati, complained during 2003: "We're supposed to drive all the kids toward success, and we have to do it with one hand behind our backs. The fact is that there are going to be students left behind." (In 2001-02, the Cincinnati school district spent $10,328 per attending pupil.)
Such comments are not the exception; rather, the mindset they represent is pervasive. When asked by Public Agenda about the most pressing issue facing their districts, 27 percent of superintendents agree that "lack of funding is such a critical problem that only minimal progress can be made" in the school systems for which they're responsible.
It's possible that, even if we spent every penny wisely, creating the schools we desire would end up costing more than we are currently spending. However, until we start wringing out inefficiencies and finding ways to use today's dollars more effectively, there's no way to know. Until we start rethinking how we use education dollars, boosting expenditures is little more than a costly recipe for avoiding hard decisions.
Tough-minded reformers must unapologetically argue that we ought not boost spending on schools until we see proof that money is being spent in a more disciplined fashion. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has permitted the conversation to be framed so that it finds itself proclaiming support for heightened school spending as the way to prove its bona fides on the issue. While the administration's stance is understandable given election year political pressures, this line of argument weakens efforts to promote radical change and leaves would-be reformers crouched in a defensive posture.
Buying off the status quo is no way to focus the education debate on accountability, choice, flexibility, or results. Rather than brag that they, too, can spend like drunken sailors, reformers should instead demand that educators aggressively pursue efficiencies. The truth is that our schools can do a lot better for the money we currently spend. This fall, elected officials should remember that - and run on it.
Frederick M. Hess (http://www.aei.org/scholars/scholarID.30,filter.all/scholar.asp) is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Common Sense School Reform, published this month by Palgrave Macmillan. (See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=141#1746 for more information.)