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Heritage
Foundation
How Escalating Education Spending Is
Killing
Crucial Reform
By Lindsey Burke
October 15, 2012
Abstract:
In August 2012, the White House
released the report “Investing in Our Future: Returning Teachers to the
Classroom”
to bolster President Obama’s call for massive new education spending.
The
report suggests that, absent an enormous infusion of more tax dollars,
the
nation’s public schools will lose teachers and programs, damaging
American
education. This claim ignores the fact that over the past 40 years,
both
teaching and non-teaching positions in public schools have increased at
far
greater rates than student enrollment. And, of all education jobs,
teachers
make up only half. Heritage Foundation education policy expert Lindsey
Burke
explains how another federal education bailout will act as a
disincentive for
state and local leaders to implement necessary reforms—and keeps
taxpayers on
the hook for funding policies of dubious value.
The
Obama Administration has proposed spending
$60 billion on new education programs—in addition to its budget request
of
nearly $70 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2013 for the U.S. Department of
Education. Part of the proposal includes $25 billion specifically to
“provide
support for hundreds of thousands of education jobs” in order to “keep
teachers
in the classroom.”[1]
In
August, the White House released the report
“Investing in Our Future: Returning Teachers to the Classroom” to
bolster
President Barack Obama’s call for the $25 billion in new federal
spending. The
report suggests that, absent a massive new infusion of federal
spending, the
nation’s public schools will face reductions in teaching staff,
increases in
class size, and a loss of education programs.[2]
However,
teaching and non-teaching staff
positions in public schools across the country have increased at far
greater
rates than student enrollment over the past four decades. From 1970 to
2010,
student enrollment increased by a modest 7.8 percent, while the number
of public-school
teachers increased by 60 percent. During the same time, non-teaching
staff
positions increased by 138 percent, and total staffing grew by 84
percent.
Teachers now comprise just half of all public-education employees.
Instead
of putting taxpayers on the hook for
more federal spending, school districts should trim bureaucracy and
work on
long-term reform options for better targeting taxpayer resources.
Read
the rest of the article, with charts, at
the Heritage Foundation
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