Yesterday, I posted on the observation of Andrew Coulson at Cato who contends that public schools were like old, expensive Chevy Impalas.
Here’s why he makes that analogy:
U.S. student achievement at the end of high school has stagnated (reading and math) or declined (science) since nationally-representative NAEP tests were first administered around 1970. Meanwhile, education spending has risen by a factor of 2.3 over that same period, from $5,247 per student to about $12,000, in inflation-adjusted (2008) dollars. [To get the most up-to-date figures you have to use multiple sources and adjust to 2008 dollars yourself, but an older data series can be found in this table.]
Coulson offers a solution of “public education [as] part of our free enterprise system, with financial assistance to ensure universal access to the marketplace…”