My favorite education chart was created by the late Andrew Coulson and it shows that massive increases in K-12 education spending have not produced higher test scores.
Today, let’s look at some additional evidence. Here’s a table showing that Florida has the third-lowest level of education spending but third-highest reading performance for kids in the fourth grade.
The table comes from a new report from the American Enterprise Institute.
Authored by Kathryn Perkins, Paul Powell, and Jeff Wasbes, the report highlights big improvements in student outcomes, but than also points out that Florida gets very good results while spending much less money. Here are the key excerpts.
A decade ago, Florida was decidedly in the middle of the pack on NAEP. Across the four most recent rounds, however, there has been rapid progress—particularly steep over the past four years—resulting in 2022 scores that place Florida fourth graders third and fourth nationally in reading and math, respectively… Florida’s achievement in elementary grades is headline making in its own right. But what objectively demands our attention is Florida’s spending relative to its results. During its high-progress period, Florida’s per-pupil spending has been consistently low. Its roughly $11,000-per-pupil expenditure places it in the bottom three nationally when adjusted to an equalized dollar across the 50 states,3 and it is three times smaller than the top spender’s (New York’s) budget. What is more, the two states on par with Florida in fourth-grade reading (Wyoming and Massachusetts) spend nearly twice as much per student (1.98 and 1.89 times—or $21,185 and $22,174 respectively).
So what has Florida done a better job than other states?
The authors acknowledge that there are several factors. But my two cents is that it is driven by the fact that Florida is a leader in school choice and also because teacher unions are comparatively powerless in the Sunshine State.
P.S. Since they did not challenge the government’s education monopoly, it is no surprise that Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Obama’s Common Core were both expensive failures.
Dan Mitchell is co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity and Chairman of the Board. He is an expert in international tax competition and supply-side tax policy.
