IPI Publication Press Release
IPI Policy Report - # 158
Related Publication Title:
No Voice, No Exit:
The Inefficiency of America's Public Schools
Released by Sonia Hoffman on 07/17/2001
IPI Policy Report - # 158
Related Publication Title:
No Voice, No Exit:
The Inefficiency of America's Public Schools
Released by Sonia Hoffman on 07/17/2001
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Press Release (07/17/2001)
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Standard Prescriptions Don’t Help Ailing Education System
IPI CENTER for EDUCATION FREEDOM
For IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 17, 2001
Contact: Sonia Hoffman, (972) 874.5139 or shoffman@ipi.org
Dallas, TX: The United States spends 1300 percent (inflation-adjusted) more on education than it did in 1919, but you wouldn’t know it by today’s scholastic achievements. When such tremendous financial effort produces such meager results, it’s obvious that more money isn’t the answer to creating efficient public schools.
Most teachers, parents, and government officials remain confounded or frustrated over how we got here and what to do about it. In the quest to dig up answers, a profuse amount of research has been conducted to analyze education inputs vs. outputs. Nearly 400 studies have analyzed the effect of spending, class size, and teachers' salaries on education.
But what do their findings add up to? The IPI Center for Education Freedom of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) recently compiled the results of the most important education studies and interpreted their collective meaning in it’s report “No Voice, No Exit: The Inefficiency of America’s Public Schools.”
After sifting through all the various inputs and outputs associated with education, Dr. Robert Franciosi, author of the study and a senior research fellow at the Goldwater Institute, concludes that: “The standard prescriptions for fixing what is wrong with America’s schools – spending more, lowering class size, raising teachers’ salaries – cannot be relied upon to deliver consistent results.”
For example, the increasing flow of resources into public schools has allowed steady improvements in dimensions popularly associated with “quality” education. Over the past 40 years, the number of pupils per teacher has fallen, the number of teachers with advanced degrees has more than doubled, and the experience level of teachers has increased.
Despite these “improvements,” 20 percent of today’s students still fail to attain basic proficiency in the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, and SAT scores and graduation rates continue to decline.
"If we want inputs to once again equal outputs, we must increase schools' accountability to parents, instead of bureaucrats. The most feasible way to do this is through school choice,” advised Franciosi.
This information is from IPI report “No Voice, No Exit: The Inefficiency of America’s Public Schools” by Robert Franciosi, Ph.D. For further information, call Sonia Hoffman at (972) 874-5139 or email shoffman@ipi.org.
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