In a recent post Stuart referenced a NY Times column by Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman.  In his column Professor Krugman asserted that the reason for our nations mediocre education performance over the past 30 years is a lack of resources.  He claims that as a nation we have given in to our anti-tax tendencies and allowed our children to suffer.  He further argues that in order to bring our great nation back from the brink, Congress must pass another big stimulus package.  This time around the stimulus dollars should be aimed directly at state and local governments to make sure our education system survives the financial crisis.

Professor Krugman’s final sentence claims:

“…we need to wake up and realize that one of the keys to our nation’s historic success is now a wasting asset. Education made America great; neglect of education can reverse the process.”

And I agree with this statement wholeheartedly.  However, there is no evidence we have neglected to adequately fund our education system (equity is a completely different issue). Not to mention Professor Krugman completely ignores the  fact that Department of Education is about to dole out $4.3 billion in Race to the Top funds most of which will go to the big states facing the largest budget problems.  But the myth of inadequate funding has legs.  Just last week the Ford Foundation announced it was giving  $100 million to the teachers unions to “shake up the conversations surrounding school reform”.  In its press release the foundation stated, “Many state finance systems fail to allocate enough resources to provide quality schooling for all students.”  Its time we stopped tilting at windmills and dealt with the real problems with our education system.

To convince yourself that money is not the problem take a look at (and listen to) this presentation .  It was put together by leading education economists Caroline Hoxby and Eric Hanushek.  The first seven slides do a beautiful job illustrating that money is most definitely NOT the problem. Here is a brief rundown of the highlights:

• Student achievement has been flat since 1970
• The U.S. is below the mean in education attainment for OECD countries
• U.S. students perform poorly on exams that allow comparison of achievement between countries
• Education spending per pupil has increased dramatically (more than doubled) in real terms since 1970
• Only Luxembourg spends more per pupil than the U.S.

If you have the time and inclination, the remainder of the presentation is also very good. It details what the evidence does tell us about our education system. I would recommend this presentation if you are an education researcher or just a citizen interested in education who has difficulty sorting through all the conflicting claims we often hear.

UPDATE:  Edited to remove the embedded presentation that annoyingly played automatically on page-load.