Carpe Diem compares education inflation to gas prices.
. . . real per pupil expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools have increased from $6,051 in 1985-86 to $9,295 in 2005-2006, a 53.61% increase . . . Over the same period, real inflation-adjusted gas prices rose by only 10.9% according to EIA data, from $2.24 per gallon in January 1986 to $2.484 per gallon in January 2006 (the mid-point in the school year). Even adding two more years of real gas price increases and using the January 2008 price of $3.059, real gas prices have only increased by 36.6% since January 1986, far below the 53.6% increase in real public school spending from 1985-86 to 2005-06.
What did we get for increased school spending? Higher teacher pay, smaller class sizes and more programs for students with special needs.
Sadly, we don’t seem to have gotten 53% better-educated students.
I’m not really a wonk on this, so maybe I’m wrong. Is there ANY proof out there that students of 2008 are significantly better-educated than students of the 1980’s?
How can “more money” honestly be advanced as the answer to any educational question at this point?
A better way to look at soaring education costs: what percentage of an average parent’s salary does it take to educate their children?
In 2006, the median annual household income according to the US Census Bureau was determined to be $48,201. At ten grand, the average (2.1 children per woman) household spends over 40% of their yearly household income on education.
Another way to look at education costs: a mother could grab ten local kids, give them private lessons in her living room, and earn $100,000k per year while easily demonstrating higher test scores.
“Higher teacher pay, smaller class sizes and more programs for students with special needs.”
I understand that an increasing number of people in administration soaks up money. I’m told that there are some school districts which have one person in administration for over teacher, while private schools are more like one for ten teachers.
Are they still doing that tired old comparison?
It’s astonishing that a professor of economics would think he could get away with such a fallacy. He must think very poorly of the intelligence of his readers.
The price of gas is a *price* point. The amount of money spent on learning is a *spend* point. These are two very different types of things.
Why, one might ask, doesn’t he compare the amount of money *spent* on gas compared to the amount of money spent on education? Because you knwo and I know, they spend much more on gas today than they did 20 years ago.
And you know - for all that extra spending on gas, they score no better on standardized tests!!! (That’s about as relevant, too)
Private school tuitions have gone up even more than public per-pupil expenditures. My parents paid ~$1500/yr for me to attend a secular private school back in the early ’80’s. That works out to around $3300 in today’s dollars. That same private school now charges $15,500- nearly five times as much in constant dollars.
Stephen Downes,
SHHHH! You can’t go injecting facts and logic when there’s an article from an anti-public school think tank being put forward as gospel.
Check out the American LegislativeExchange Council website and its straight out of the Business Roundtable playbook. Class size reduction is not needed, merit pay for teachers and privately run charter schools are.
Be sure to check out the “studies” from the Hoover Institute et. al.
The blogger linked also thinks we’re not in a recession and there’s nothing wrong with CEOs making $40 million a year while their company’s tank and their shareholders get hosed.
“The price of gas is a *price* point. The amount of money spent on learning is a *spend* point. These are two very different types of things.”
Than-kyew Doctor Science.
Were you planning to explain the snickeringly obvious difference? If so you might want to get about it.
So far all I know is that the “two are very different types of things” and that Mike in Texas is your new, best friend. Pardon me for not being appropriately impressed. Probably some insufficiency in my informational milieu.
“The price of gas is a *price* point. The amount of money spent on learning is a *spend* point. These are two very different types of things.”
I too would like to know what this means.
Me three.
Gas is both a price point and spend point. If the The price for gallon of gas is $3.059, that means I have to spend $3.059 to obtain a gallon of gas.
Education is also a price and aspend point. If the average price to educate a student is $11,470 (which it was in 2004-05), then taxpayers have to spend (via taxes) $11,470 to obtain a year’s worth of education.
Yo, Senor Downes, we’s a-waitin’…