| Written by Raven Clabough |
| Thursday, 29 September 2011 14:40 |
The lingering institutional wisdom when it comes to education is that increased spending will bring about improved results — even as history continues to reveal otherwise. For example, recent reports indicate that though education spending has increased 64 percent since the inception of the federal No Child Left Behind program, there has been little improvement in America’s test scores. Meanwhile, American schools continue to make little progress against other industrialized nations.No Child Left Behind mandates that public schools meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) levels by 2014, thoiugh many states are far from this standard. At the time it was proposed, NCLB purported it would do the following:
- Set higher standards by establishing measurable goals to improve individual outcomes
- Require states to develop assessments in basic skills in order to receive federal funding
- Not set a national standard, instead allowing individual states to construct their own
Years later, however, NCLB has proved to be a colossal failure. Now, the Obama administration has sought to rescue states that are struggling under the provisions of No Child Left Behind by granting waivers to schools that are not meeting the standards set forth in the educational program, as well as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), passed by Congress in 2001.
According to the Department of Education, education spending has increased dramatically in order to implement No Child Left Behind. In the first year of the program, mandatory and discretionary spending for elementary and secondary schools increased by $9.5 billion. By 2002, spending increased 33.6 percent from $42.1 billion in 2001 to $56.2 billion.
Over the course of the last decade, spending increased 63.8 percent, with an increase of $24.6 billion to the Education Department’s budget.
By comparison, before No Child Left Behind was implemented, spending for the Department of Education went up less than $3 billion per year.
The Department of Education website contains data which show the total amounts of spending per year since 1997. The figures reveal the dramatic increases in spending since the inception of No Child Left Behind. CNS News succinctly summarized the numbers as follows:
1997 - $33.52 billion
1998 - $35.67 billion
1999 - $38.31 billion
2000 - $38.44 billion
2001 - $42.06 billion
2002 - $56.17 billion
2003 - $63.25 billion
2004 - $67.21 billion
2005 - $71.47 billion
2006 - $100.04 billion (due to a jump in Federal Family Education Loans)
2007 - $67.12 billion
2008 - $68.57 billion
2009 - $138.00 billion (regular spending of $39.88 billion plus $98.23 billion under the Recovery Act)
2010 - $63.00 billion
The 2011 Continuing Resolution has education spending sitting around $70 billion, but under President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget, that amount would increase to $77.4 billion.
The astronomical figures could theoretically (but not constitutionally) be defendable if there has been a marked and significant increase in educational achievement in America’s public schools. Unfortunately that has not been the case. CNS News reports:
Results from the Nation’s Report Card for Fourth Grade reading proficiency in 2002 found 38 percent below basic, 32 percent basic, 23 percent proficient and 6 percent advanced. In 2009 for reading, 34 percent were below basic, 34 percent at basic, 24 percent at proficient and 7 percent at advanced.
More specifically, reading scores for 8th grade reveal that between 2002 and 2009, 26 percent of students were below basic proficiency... continued at original
