New Posts

Cost Increase of K-12 Education vs Change in Achievement Since 1970

by stix1972 on March 1, 2011

The Cato Institute published another eye opening article entitled “Ditching Collective Bargaining Won’t Control Public School Costs. Here’s What Will…” which compares among other things, the cost increase of a Kindergarten through 12th grade education with the increase in student achievement since 1970.

The Cato Institute based many of its findings on data provided by public sector teacher’s unions. As one may have guessed the findings show an enormous increase in real inflation adjusted cost with little or no perceptible increase in student achievement. No wonder teacher’s unions fight tooth and nail against any kind of objective measurement of teacher performance.

Cato Graph Comparing Cost Increase v Student Performance since 1970

As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. A view of the last graph on the Cato post is worth at least a million words. The mantra of teacher’s unions and the politicians they put into office, that more money is needed to “fix” education is again solidly debunked.