1. We’re spending more money now on education than we ever have, for arguably worse results than when we were spending far less.

2. Teachers are not the ones getting rich off this.

3. Class sizes are smaller than they’ve ever been.

It ain’t lack of money that’s the problem with public education, and you should be suspicious of anyone who says it is.

The Digest of Education Statistics has numbers up to 2008.

From Table 194: Spending per student in California, in constant dollars, went from $4,928 in 1970 to $9,808 in 2008. Double. If you compare to 1960 it was triple. You remember the 1960s. We were putting men on the moon.

California is not the highest spending state. Average for the U.S. in 2008 was $11,134 per student. For the record, this is four times, in constant dollars, what we were spending as a nation in 1960.

If money equaled education quality, the District of Columbia (over $21,000 per student in 2008) should have the finest schools in the nation. Do they?

From Table 83: California teacher salaries in constant dollars went from $58,615 in 1970 to $68,093 in 2008. Not quite as large an increase, was it?

Class sizes (Table 70): I didn’t find numbers in California back to 1970, but in 2000, pupil/teacher ration was 20.6, and by 2008, this was 20.8. No change. Nationally (Table 68), pupil/teacher ratio in 1970 was 22.3 in public schools. In 2008, it was down to 15.3.

California is in the middle of a budget debate, and the education unions are spending huge loads of cash to make sure the tax money keeps coming in (the local paper mentioned “seven figures.”) Ads are everywhere. Along with little news bites like the one you posted.

The main function of the modern government education system is the growth of the modern government education system. Tax money needs to flow to the unions, and to the party that controls them.

Again, we put men on the Moon and built the greatest technological civilization on the planet with an education system that spent a quarter of what we’re spending now.

What’s wrong with this picture?

We get lied to by all sides every day where politics and marketing are concerned. Actually, politics and marketing are basically the same baby with two different bedrooms but you get screwed in both.