Brigette Russell (2)In his commentary here at NMI the other day, Bill Jordan wrote: ”Education—which represents the largest single expenditure for the state—saw some of that increased spending. And not a moment too soon. At the end of the Johnson administration, New Mexico ranked 38th in the nation in K-12 per-pupil spending. That’s 38th worst, not best. We ranked 42nd on education-related salaries. By 2006-07, we had moved up to 33rd in overall per-pupil spending, and 36th in salaries. We’re still far from where we need to be, but we’re improving.”

We’re still far from where we need to be, Jordan concludes.  But where, precisely, do we need to be?  In  first place?  Or at least in the top ten?  Recall that it is the per pupil spending rank that we are discussing here, not test scores or graduation rates or whatever litmus test you prefer.

There are 50 states in the United States.  Only one of them can be first in any criterion of academic achievement, whether objective or subjective, and only one of them can be first in per pupil spending.  Some state or other has to be last, and all the other 48 must fall somewhere in the middle.  If we all try to be first in per pupil spending, as opposed to first in some area or other of academic performance, what we will end up with is an insane race to throw money at the problem.  It’ll be a fiscal version of the pre-WWI arms race in Europe, and we all know how that turned out.

The implication of Mr. Jordan’s column, and any number of other opinion pieces in newspapers throughout the United States, is that if we are not first — or at least very near the top of the list — in per pupil spending, then we are selfish, uncaring monsters who want to keep our own money while our children suffer in ignorance.

This is the same sort of mentality that makes parents want their children to be the oldest — or at least one of the oldest –in their grades so that they’ll be the most intellectually and physically advanced, and have a better shot at being the best student or jock in the class.  This has what has led to the epidemic of “red-shirting,” holding children back a year so they’re not the youngest child in the class.  Now, of course, you have children turning seven in kindergarten because their parents thought they were too young to start at five.  This also means that some of the children who start kindergarten at six will turn 18 in eleventh grade and be old enough to drop out without their parents’ permission more than a full year before they would graduate.

Just as some child has to be the youngest in each class, some state has to be the lowest in per pupil spending.  All 50 can’t be first, or even in the top ten, and wringing our hands about being in the double digits, or even midway down the pack, simply does not make sense, especially when per pupil spending and academic success are not even correlated.

Rather than focus on education spending, we should be looking at results.  In New Mexico, those results are not great.  But it is not necessarily the lack of money that makes this so.  For years, we have all known how much better Catholic schools educate students than public schools do, and we have known too that Catholic schools achieve their impressive results at a fraction of the cost of public education.  More recently, charter schools have done exactly the same thing.

Moreover, per pupil spending has been steadily rising in all 50 states for decades, and academic performance has not only not risen with it, but has declined. In 1960, per pupil spending averaged about $375 (around $2,300 in inflation-adjusted dollars).  Today, the average is approaching $10,000, more than four times as much, even after adjusting for inflation (figures here, page 3).

Under Governor Jeb Bush, Florida’s public school children made significant gains in reading and math scores, and without a tremendous increase in spending.  These gains resulted from a combination of innovative educational policies:  parental choice (vouchers and charter schools), a ban on social promotions, alternative routes to teacher certification, a revamped early childhood literacy curriculum, and strict state standards that have not been dumbed down to cover up failures in the school system.

I can only hope that the next governor of New Mexico and the state legislators who will be elected along with him or her will take a long, hard look at Florida’s achievements and New Mexico’s deficiencies in education before advocating the all too simple solution of throwing more money at little Johnny in hopes that he not only learns to read, but actually stays in school until he graduates.