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 07/09/2001
IPI Policy Report - # 158
Related Publication Title:
No Voice, No Exit:
The Inefficiency of America's Public Schools
Released by Sonia Hoffman on 07/09/2001
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Press Release (07/17/2001)
Press Release (07/09/2001)
Press Release (04/05/2004)
OpEd (07/07/2001)
OpEd (08/14/2001)
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Dallas, TX: It's taken brass-knuckle politics to get the Senate pass an education reform bill – one that even President Bush is promoting. It inputs the billions of dollars into the American public education system that Bush lobbied for, plus billions of dollars he didn’t – all with the hopes of achieving higher future outputs.
But is spending the answer to educations’ woes, as the Congress and the administration actions suggest? Not according to a new report “No Voice, No Exit: The Inefficiency of America’s Public Schools” by the IPI Center for Education Freedom of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI).
“Not only has the flow of resources into America’s public schools kept ahead of inflation and the number of students, but America leads the world in the amount of money it spends per pupil,” says IPI study author Dr. Robert Franciosi and senior research fellow at the Goldwater Institute. “Yet this effort has by no means been matched by gains in achievement.”
Consider U.S. expenditures towards education:
· In 1919, real spending per student equaled $552 (in 1998 dollars). By 1998, spending reached $8,000 – a 1300 percent increase and the equivalent of a 3 percent annual growth rate per year.
· Internationally, the U.S. devotes substantially higher amounts toward each pupil ($5,718 to primary education and $7,230 toward secondary) and spends $3000 more per student per year than Japan, whose students score significantly higher on standardized math tests.
· When compared to private schools, public schools annually spend one-third more on every student.
Yet what has the public received for its money?
· A public education system where 20 percent of students fail to attain basic proficiency in the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, and where SAT scores and graduation rates continue to decline.
· U.S. students that perform comparably with students globally at a young age, but fall behind as they move up in grade level.
· A decline in test scores from 1967 to 1980 cut labor quality 2.9 percent and in 1987 cost the U.S. economy $86 billion in foregone output. The cumulative cost of the decline between 1897 and 2010 is estimated at 3.2. Trillion (in 1987 dollars).
Continues Franciosi: “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.
"If we want inputs to once again equal outputs in the education equation, we must increase schools' accountability to parents, instead of bureaucrats. And the most feasible way to do this is through school choice.”
This information is from IPI report “No Voice, No Exit:
The Inefficiency of America’s Public Schools” by Robert Franciosi, Ph.D. The author is available for interview.
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The Inefficiency of America’s Public Schools” by Robert Franciosi, Ph.D. The author is available for interview.
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