Liberals like to claim that the key to successful students is an ever-growing budget for education. More and more spending, they say, will lead to success for our children. But the data shows that the states with the highest educational spending have the worst student performance.
According to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the United States Census Bureau, the states with the highest spending aren’t doing as well as the lower spending states.
Per Just the News:
“Average U.S. public school spending per pupil in elementary and secondary schools rose 8.9% to $15,633 in fiscal year (FY) 2022 from the previous year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Annual Survey of School System Finances data,” the agency wrote in a post this spring.
The agency said New York topped the list of high-spending states, with an estimated $29,873 going toward one pupil. New York was followed by the District of Columbia ($27,425), New Jersey ($25,099), Vermont ($24,608) and then Connecticut ($24,453).
The lowest-spending states were Utah at $9,552 per pupil, Idaho ($9,670), Arizona ($10,315), Oklahoma ($10,890) and Mississippi ($10,984), according to the Census Bureau’s analysis.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also called the nation’s report card, showed that state student achievement in math and science for states like New York and the District of Columbia did not translate to higher scores on standardized tests.
The data adds that New York has some of the highest spending, but comes in worse than 48 other states. Washington D.C. also ranks up there in the amount spent, but is similarly in the bottom round for student achievement.
Meanwhile, the lowest spending states, such as Utah and Idaho, have far better student results than the higher spending states.
In other examples, the higher spending did not result in better metrics on other ways. For instance, New York found 8th grade reading results at about the same level as that of Idaho. However, the Empire State spends $20,000 more per student. Clearly it wasn’t all that helpful.
Family life is obviously another factor. Many of the deep blue states have far higher levels of single parent homes.
As Just the News concluded:
“Research shows that children in single-parent households score below children in two-parent households, on average, on measures of educational achievement,” reads one 2015 article on the subject. That research article found that there was more mild association than previous studies, but researchers continue to investigate the link household types have on academic performance.
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