WNTK posed the question...How do you solve the school funding problem?

WNTK posed the question...How do you solve the school funding problem?

First there is not a funding problem there is a spending problem. Cut back spending and the "funding problem" will disappear.

Any individual can obtain information about their school's finances for the past several years. Analysis of said finances would show that schools are spending faster than the rate of inflation with some school districts exceeding inflation by as much as 50 - 100%. Limit spending to the rate of inflation.

An analysis of student to teacher ratios will show that ratios continue to decrease with no improvement in student performance. The decreased student to teacher ratios inflates the cost of education.

I am 44 I am sure many of my older readers remember a time when we did not have teacher aids. If there was any help in the classroom there was a room mother and they were not in classroom that often. The switch to teacher aids also inflated the cost of educating our children, as well as having another group of tax eaters demanding more of our tax dollars.

We need to get rid of the state department of education. It is just a bunch of bureaucrats wasting are tax dollars, furthermore they are just another lobbying group for educrats and education tax dollars. They have no direct educational influence on our children. Getting rid of the state department of education would send a ton of money back into the classroom or back into taxpayers’ pockets. I would like to see an analysis of student performance results, dropout rates and literacy rates before and after the state department of education existed.

We need to get rid of tenure. The only people it benefits are poor and mediocre teachers and the families that benefit from that paycheck.

We need to get rid of the teachers' pension plan. It is a Ponzi Scheme that has no benefit to New Hampshire's public school students. Our legislators need to switch from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. Today our pension system is 1.6 billion under funded. It is constitutionally protected with the taxpayers going to have to eventually foot the bill.

Increase the age of retirement.

We need to get rid of the SAU's this is yet another group of bureaucrats eating our tax dollars with no direct influence of the education or educational performance of our children.

These are just a few steps that could solve the school-spending problem but it will never happen. Because of greed on the part of those that believe "It's for the kids." If education were truly "for the kids" the funds would follow the child and not the institution. When will our legislators stop pandering to educrats and start really caring about the education of New Hampshire's children.


Public schools are nothing more than government schools and like many forms of government there is waste, patronage and corruption.

Sabrina Avedisian: Home schooling has given me tremendous opportunities

The following piece appeared in the Union Leader.


Sabrina Avedisian: Home schooling has given me tremendous opportunities
Monday, May. 12, 2008

HOME SCHOOLING provides amazing opportunities for students. At the age of 12, I planned to squeeze four years of high school into a two-year-period by studying through the summers. At this rate, I would graduate high school by the age of 16. This was my grand plan until through home schooling I became involved in a national speech and debate league.

Instead of graduating in two years as I had planned, I quickly realized that I wanted to spend five years in high school. From the ages of 12 to 16 I was seriously involved in speech and debate, winning many awards. I was able to win several state championships and go on to place in the national tournament.

Last fall, I decided that I would stop my "career" as a speaker and move on to something that I could not live without: music. After studying various forms of music for many years, I decided to attend a music conservatory in Cambridge, Mass., for voice. I am enrolled in the Young Performer's Certificate Program. I also began to teach piano. Home schooling has allowed me to follow my dreams and major in music for high school.

Home schooling presents the incredible opportunity for each student to follow their educational dreams. Anything is possible. Advanced aviation, music and science are all at the finger tips of these students.

None of this, however, would be possible if it weren't for dedicated parents who stand ready to support their students in their dreams. I am especially grateful for my parents, and particularly my mother. Every Saturday she makes the three-hour round trip to the conservatory.

One benefit of home schooling is the unique relationships built in home-school families. Home schooling has brought my family together in a special bond. As a family, we have been able to learn and travel together in a way only possible in home schooling. I am truly grateful that I can home school.

Although not every parent or every child was meant to home school, I feel that every child should have the opportunity. I also believe that every parent should have the choice. Home schooling provides students with opportunities that they might not otherwise have. Home schooling is a choice I am grateful my parents made for me.

__

Sabrina Avedisian is a home-schooled student from Auburn.

Within the comments section someone who appears to be a teacher named Joan made some snide remarks to the above eloquently written essay.

The following response which was not posted on the Union Leader to Joan comes from Jim Peschke.


I think what we have here is a teacher with poor reading comprehension trying to demean the well-written letter from a successful homeschooler. Joan, you get an "F" for Reading Comprehension, because Sabrina most certainly did back up her main point with copious examples from her personal life. Did you even read her letter?



Sabrina is NOT mistaken in her inference that her opportunities would be denied a public school student. No matter how much a student might get from their public school, it remains watered down because of the one-size-fits-none approach of public ed, endless red tape, and incompetence protecting tenure.



Sabrina is not responsible for "inspiring students in a group environment". That is the responsibility of the school teacher, a responsibility they frequently fail to meet.

10-year-old scholar takes Calif. college by storm

The following piece about a homeschooled boy appeared in My Way News.

10-year-old scholar takes Calif. college by storm

May 14, 7:30 AM (ET)

By JOHN ROGERS

DOWNEY, Calif. (AP) - With the end of another school year approaching, college sophomore Moshe Kai Cavalin is cramming for final exams in classes such as advanced mathematics, foreign languages and music.

But Cavalin is only 10 years old. And at 4-foot-7, his shoes don't quite touch the floor as he puts down a schoolbook and swivels around in his chair to greet a visitor.

"I'm studying statistics," says the alternately precocious and shy Cavalin, his textbook lying open on the living room desk of his parents' apartment in this quiet suburb east of Los Angeles.

Within a year, if he keeps up his grades and completes the rest of his requirements, he hopes to transfer from his two-year program at East Los Angeles College to a prestigious four-year school and study astrophysics.

One of his primary interests is "wormholes," a hypothetical scientific phenomenon connected to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. It has been theorized that if such holes do exist in space, they could - in tandem with black holes - allow for the kind of space-age time travel seen in science fiction.

"Just like black holes, they suck in particulate objects, and also like black holes, they also travel at escape velocity, which is, the speed to get out of there is faster than the speed of light," Cavalin says. "I'd like to prove that wormholes are really there and prove all the theories are correct."

First, he has statistics homework to finish. Later, he'll work with his mother, Shu Chen Chien, to brush up on his Mandarin for his Chinese class. Then it's over to the piano to prepare for his recital in music class.

His father, Yosef Cavalin, frets about the piano-playing, noting that his only child recently broke his arm pursuing another passion, martial arts. He has won several trophies for his age group.

"Finals are coming and everything and he cannot play with both hands. He'll just try to play with the right hand," he says. "I don't know how his grade's going to be in piano. It worries me a bit."

If past success is any indication, his son will find a way to compensate. Cavalin, who enrolled in college more than a year ago, has maintained an A-plus average in such subjects as algebra, history, astronomy and physical education.

College officials couldn't immediately say whether he is the youngest student in the school's 63-year history. Among child prodigies, Michael Kearney, now 24, is often cited as the world's youngest college graduate, having earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Alabama at age 10.

Cavalin's professors can't recall having a younger student in their classes.

"He is the youngest college student I've ever taught and one of the hardest working," says Daniel Judge, his statistics professor. "He's actually a pleasure to have in class. He's a well- adjusted, nice little boy."

Cavalin was an 8-year-old freshman when he enrolled in Guajao Liao's intermediate algebra class in 2006. By the end of the term, Liao recalls, he was tutoring some of his 19- and 20-year-old classmates.

"I told his parents that his ability was much higher than that level, that he should take a higher-level course," Liao says. "But his parents didn't want to push him."

Cavalin's parents avoid calling their son a genius. They say he's just an average kid who enjoys studying as much as he likes playing soccer, watching Jackie Chan movies, and collecting toy cars and baseball caps with tiger emblems on them. He was born during the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac.

Cavalin has a general idea what his IQ is, but doesn't like to discuss it. He says other students can achieve his success if they study hard and stay focused on their work.

His parents say they never planned to enroll their son in college at age 8, and sought to put him in a private elementary school when he was 6.

"They didn't want to accept me because I knew more than the teacher there and they said I looked too bored," the youngster recalls.

His parents home-schooled him instead, but after two years decided college was the best place for him. East L.A. officials agreed to accept him if he enrolled initially in just two classes, math and physical education. After he earned A-pluses in both, he was allowed to expand his studies.

"He sees things very simply," says Judge, his statistics teacher. "Most students think that things should be harder than they are and they put these mental blocks in front of them and they make things harder than they should be. In the case of Moshe, he sees right through the complications. ... It's not really mystical in any way, but at the same time it's amazing."

Vote NO on Article 7

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Eagle Times.
Vote NO on Article 7

The spirit of SB2 provides better representation, allowing citizens to vote their conscience without the stigma of open air voting. State and national elections operate in much the same way, and with good reason.

Case in point is our 2008 Croydon town meeting. I motioned to reduce the school budget proposal and have the vote taken by secret ballot. Opposition to the ballot was strong and almost exclusively from the teachers and education staff who directly benefit from increased spending.

We lost the vote, but it was closer than much more controversial votes conducted by show of hands. Clearly ballot voting permitted residents to cast votes unencumbered by social taboo.

Nowhere are the benefits of SB2 better known than in Newport, where the citizens recently rejected the proposed school budget. Uppity Newport voters dared to challenge runaway school spending and won. How dare you!

This is precisely why we have SB2; to allow people to vote as they choose without intimidation.

It is also the real reason a group calling themselves "Concerned Citizens of Newport" launched an all-out campaign to rescind SB2. Their flyer, replete with emotional appeals, was carefully designed with a "grass roots" appearance.

But make no mistake. This is not "grass roots", its Astroturf. Grass roots groups don't organize against year old supermajority public votes with expensive mass mailings. Astroturf groups do.

Before going to the polls on May 13th, voters should know that Article 7 is NOT about restoring Democracy. Its about restoring runaway school spending.

SB2 has freed the genie of democracy. Special interests created Article 7 to put the genie back in the voter intimidation bottle.

Vote NO on Article 7!


Jim Peschke
Co-founder Citizens for Reasonable And Fair Taxes - Croydon


Jim wrote the above piece in response to the anonymous piece of propaganda that was sent out by a group called "Concerned Citizens of Newport" on a hot pink piece of paper this past week.

How ironic that an anonymous group sent out a piece of propaganda wanting to disallow voters from voting anonymously. Interesting... it must be from a group of large tax eaters who had a budget not pass recently because of SB-2. The people who have acted in such a cowardly manor and who want voting not to be anonymous should at least have the guts to step forward and not remain anonymous themselves. - Cathy

Student Tests – and Teacher Grades

The following article eloquently points out what is wrong with the monopoly called the American Public Education System which has been hijacked by special interests groups not limited to the National Education Association.



The following piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal.



Student Tests – and Teacher Grades

By JOHN MERROW
WSJ: May 9, 2008; Page A15
Suppose a swimming instructor told his 10-year-old students to swim the length of the pool to demonstrate what he'd taught them, and half of them nearly drowned? Would it be reasonable to make a judgment about his teaching ability?

Or suppose nearly all the 10-year-old students in a particular clarinet class learned to play five or six pieces well in a semester? Would it be reasonable to consider their achievement when deciding whether to rehire the music teacher?

These questions answer themselves. Only an idiot would overlook student performance, be it dismal or outstanding.

However, suppose test results indicated that most students in a particular class don't have a clue about how to multiply with fractions, or master other material in the curriculum? Should that be considered when the math teacher comes up for tenure?

Whoops, the obvious answer is wrong. That's because public education lives in an upside-down universe where student outcomes are not allowed to be connected to teaching.

Ten years ago, I encountered this view in an interview with Jack Steinberg, the vice president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Here is the exchange:

He said, "You're asking, can you evaluate a teacher on the performance of the students?"

I said, "Yes or no?"

He said, "No, you cannot."

I, incredulously, said, "You cannot evaluate a teacher on the performance of his or her students?"

He said, "Right."

Today, the notion that student performance cannot be used to judge teacher performance is the law in New York.

Until recently, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein could consider whether teachers successfully used "analysis of available student performance" to improve their teaching when he was deciding whether to grant tenure. This isn't the same as using student test scores to judge a teacher's performance, of course. But the mere hint of connecting student performance to teacher effectiveness caused fits at union headquarters. Richard C. Iannuzzi, the president of the New York State United Teachers, complained that "Student assessments are designed to assess students, not teachers."

State and city teacher unions lobbied the state legislature, and last month Albany gave in to the pressure. Today, the law reads, "The teacher shall not be granted or denied tenure based on student performance data."

Celebrating the victory, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said, "There is no independent or conclusive research that shows you can accurately measure the impact of an individual teacher on a student's academic achievement."

Independent analysts disagree. Eric Hanushek, who specializes in the economics of education at Stanford University, told me recently that "It is very clear from the research into variations in teacher quality that such information would be useful." Calling this "very bad public policy," Prof. Hanushek added dryly, "I guess only friendships and politics count – just what the unions have always railed against."

Ms. Weingarten denies that her members are afraid of accountability. That may be a hard sell to the public.

School administrators have reams of data about student performance, thanks largely to the No Child Left Behind Act. Now that administrators are required to "drill down" to find out who is learning and who is not, they can also pinpoint who seems to be an effective teacher.

I've met superintendents, principals and department chairmen armed with this data. They all have named teachers who, they said, were either outstanding or deficient at teaching specific skills. One educator singled out a specific teacher and said he "doesn't seem to be able to teach his students how to multiply with fractions." He then showed me student performance data and contrasted it with data from another teacher's class.

Of course, not every kid comes to class equally able to complete the day's assignment. Some are new immigrants, others are gifted, and still others might have a learning disability. These factors affect test scores as much as or more than who is teaching.

Still, students at whatever level of performance can also be evaluated on how much they've improved over a given period of time.

Test data is not going to go away. So it is up to union leadership to decide if they'll ignore it, or if they will help school administrators figure out how to use it in the years ahead – and help the public understand its limitations.

Forward-looking union officials would push for creative uses of student performance data – such as using it to help teachers in areas where the data reveals they are not reaching their students. This would put union officials in a position of pushing to improve the quality of our public schools, instead of simply wielding their political power to protect every union member's job.

Denying any connection between teaching and learning is a dangerous course for teacher unions to chart. It contradicts what experience teaches us. And it flies in the face of common sense. If unions are telling us that there's no connection between teaching and learning, why should we then support teachers, or public education?

Mr. Merrow, a former teacher in high school, college and federal prison, is education correspondent for the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" and president of Learning Matters, Inc

The Quote of the Day "That's because public education lives in an upside-down universe where student outcomes are not allowed to be connected to teaching." John Merrow.

Tenure for K-12 Teachers is Bad Policy

The following piece comes to us from our friend Pete the Finance Guy from Illinois. The piece is from his BLOG titled General Eclectic. To learn more about the problems with tenure go to The Hidden Costs of Tenure


Tenure for K-12 Teachers is Bad Policy

Tenure in educational institutions below the college level is an obscene concept.

A college can be described as a colloquy of fiefdoms. In universities professors are expected to conduct research free from biased criticism to advance the state of knowledge in their field.

Tenure is or should be granted based on the demonstrated advancement and the capacity for future advancement of knowledge.

Classroom teaching is an adjunct to all this and demonstrates the professor's ability to communicate the ideas which make up the body of knowledge. The college professor works from a base salary augmented by research grants.

In the K-12 field, tenure is based nearly exclusively on the time in position. Even before that time has been reached, discharge of the teacher based on classroom performance is nearly impossible for a school board to conclude.

K-12 teachers receive monetary increases usually based on a matrix with term of service along one axis and additional educational attainment along the other. For the most part the additional courses taken are in the education field and not in the subject matter taught. Methodological courses are taken in the evening and during the summer. Some high school teachers do work towards graduate degrees to obtain and extend subject matter mastery.

It is subject matter mastery as well as a love of both the material being taught and the ability to communicate that affection and respect for the pupils that define effective instruction.

Independent research such as is accomplished by professors at the college level is not part of teacher duties at the levels below college. Tenure is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for effective teaching.

It is an element of the closed shop of Public Education, which along with the lack of periodic testing of teacher Subject Matter knowledge (recertification), the dumbing down of standardized tests by the state agencies and the norming up of scores, has helped to create the sub prime results we see.

These outcomes are hindering the nation's performance in the 21st Century world economy. Tenure may provide security in teacher employment. It affects job performance in the rest of the economy.

What you do not know can hurt your families finances.

The following piece appeared in the Hoover Institution's Journal Education Next. Is the Price Right?
Please visit the Hoover Institution website to read the whole article and the links for more information. This piece is a must read for all voters before approving more dollars for education.

By William G. Howell and Martin R. West

Probing American's knowledge of school spending

Article opening image: Contestants on 'The Price is Right' try to guess average teacher salary and per-pupil expenditure.

In the contentious world of education politics, the need to spend more on public schools stands out as a rare point of agreement. Our recent national survey of American adults (“What Americans Think about Their Schools,” features, Fall 2007) found that those who support increased spending on public schools in their district outnumber those who want spending to decrease by a five-to-one margin. What’s more, a solid majority (59 percent) of Americans express confidence that spending more on the public schools in their district will increase student learning.

Our findings paralleled those of other surveys, which routinely show that Americans rank inadequate funding among the most important problems facing the nation’s schools. According to the 2007 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll, for example, 22 percent of U.S. adults identified a lack of financial support as the biggest problem facing the schools in their community. The second-ranked problem, a lack of discipline, was mentioned by only one in ten respondents. It is no surprise, then, that every Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2008 has called for increased federal spending on education, and that no Republican candidate (with the exception of libertarian Ron Paul) has proposed a spending cut.

Yet while the public’s views about spending on education are well known, the same cannot be said about the information on which those views are based. Do Americans have an accurate grasp of how much is currently being spent on public education?

The 2007 Education Next–PEPG Survey directly addressed this question. In addition to asking Americans whether school spending should be increased, we asked them to estimate both per-pupil expenditures in their districts and teacher salaries in their states. We then used data on actual spending and salaries, matched geographically to each respondent’s school district or state, to compare the public’s perceptions with reality.

The results are striking: Americans dramatically underestimate the amount spent on the public schools in their district, even when prompted to consider the full range of uses to which school spending is devoted. They also think that teachers earn, on average, far less than is actually the case. The public’s strong preference that more be spent on public schools is based, at least in part, on faulty information.

Measuring Knowledge about Spending

In February and March of 2007, we surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,000 American adults about a wide range of education issues. (For overall results, see “What Americans Think about Their Schools”) Within an extensive battery of questions, we included the following: “Based on your best guess, what is the average amount of money spent each year for a child in public schools in your school district?”

Half of the sample, randomly chosen, was also offered a prompt to encourage them to consider the full range of costs associated with educating a child. These respondents were told that “Individual student costs go toward teacher and administrator salaries, building construction and maintenance, extracurricular activities, transportation, etc.” With this prompt, we anticipated, respondents would have an easier time answering the question.

We also asked people to estimate the average annual salary of a public school teacher in their state. We asked about teacher salaries at the level of the state, rather than the specific district, because that is the lowest level of aggregation for which information on actual salaries is readily available nationwide. With information about where survey respondents lived, we then compared their answers to actual per-pupil expenditures in their districts and to teacher salaries in their states in 2004–05, the most recent year for which this information is available (see methodology sidebar, below).

Methodology

For the analyses of per-pupil expenditures, we matched survey respondents to school districts using either census blocks or zip codes. When we relied on zip codes, we could not match some respondents to a unique school district. For such respondents we calculated the average per-pupil spending levels for each district that served the relevant zip code, weighted by districts’ population sizes. Teacher salary data, by contrast, are available only at the state level. We were able to match all survey respondents to the states in which they resided.

Data on per-pupil spending come from the National Center for Educational Statistics Common Core of Data, “Local Education Agency Finance Survey.” Data on teacher salaries come from the American Federation of Teachers publication, “Survey and Analysis of Teacher Salary Trends 2005.” Both sources cover the 2004–05 academic year, the latest for which this information is available. The two-year lag between 2004–05 and the time we conducted our survey should lead respondents to overestimate actual expenditures, as spending on public schools tends to increase over time.

On any survey item, there are likely to be some respondents who either misunderstand the question or, for one reason or another, choose not to take it seriously. To ensure that such responses would not cloud our analysis, we eliminated 21 answers of zero to the spending question and another 25 of zero to the salary question. We also eliminated 18 answers of more than $50,000 for per-pupil spending and 17 answers of more than $100,000 for average teacher salaries. In the end, we were left with 1,926 valid responses for per-pupil spending, of which we were able to match 1,656 to districts with available spending information, and 1,932 valid responses on teacher salaries, of which we were able to match 1,911 to states with available salary information.

Not Even Close

The amount of money actually spent annually on children in school districts across the United States varies widely. For the districts in which our sample members live, per-pupil spending in 2004–05 ranged from $5,644 to $24,939,with an average of $10,377. This last figure is slightly higher than the true national average of $9,435.

How well informed is the public about these financial commitments? Not very. Among those asked without the prompt listing possible expenses, the median response was $2,000, or less than 20 percent of the true amount being spent in their districts. Over 90 percent of the public offered an amount less than the amount actually spent in their district, and more than 40 percent of the sample claimed that annual spending was $1,000 per pupil or less. The average estimate of $4,231 reflects the influence of a small percentage of individuals who offered extremely high figures. Even so, the average respondent’s estimate was just 42 percent of actual spending levels in their district (see Figure 1).



As expected, reminding people of the range of expenses school districts face improved their assessments—but not by much. The half of the sample who saw the prompt claimed, on average, that their districts spent $5,262, about $1,000 more than the others, but still only 54 percent of the actual per-pupil spending levels in their districts. The median answer remained $2,000, and more than one-third of the sample still thought that their districts spend no more than $1,000 per student each year.

Teacher salaries also vary considerably across states, ranging from a low of $34,039 in South Dakota to a high of $57,760 in Alaska, with a national average of $47,602. When asked about the average teacher salary in their state, members of the public again offered significantly smaller figures. The median response was just $35,000 and the average was $33,054. On average, Americans understate average teacher salaries in their own state by $14,370.

In percentage terms, estimates of teacher salaries better approximated reality than did estimates of per-pupil expenditures. On average, Americans underestimated teacher salaries in their states by 30 percent. It is possible that people formulated better answers to this question because they used their own pay (or that of a family member) as benchmarks, while they lacked as much context on the per-pupil spending item.
Closer to the Truth?

Are some citizens better informed about education spending than others? To explore this question, we looked at whether the accuracy of Americans’ beliefs about spending and salaries varied among different groups within the overall sample.

Some interesting differences emerged. For instance, the responses of men to both items were significantly higher—and therefore closer to the truth—than were those of women. On average, men thought that per-pupil spending was $1,483 higher and teacher salaries were $2,065 higher than did women. The magnitude of these differences, as well as those reported below, attenuate somewhat when accounting for respondents’ demographic backgrounds. It bears mentioning, though, that the more accurate responses offered by men do not appear to stem from the fact that they are more likely to be in the workplace; the same pattern emerged when we restricted the comparison to men and women working full time.

All else equal, parents of school-age children also gave more accurate responses about teacher salaries, perhaps because they are in regular contact with working teachers. But they were no better informed than nonparents about per-pupil spending levels.

Homeowners, who pay the property taxes that typically account for local spending on education, have a clear incentive to stay informed about spending levels. On average, the estimates of per-pupil spending offered by homeowners were $427 higher than those of non-homeowners, a difference that is not statistically significant. But homeowners do appear to be much more responsive than other Americans to higher spending levels in their districts. In districts spending more than $10,000 per pupil, for example, the responses of homeowners were more than $1,100 higher—and therefore closer to actual spending levels—than those of individuals who rented or lived with other families.

Homeowners were also much better informed about teacher salaries, offering responses that were $7,502 higher than non-homeowners’ responses.

Again, these differences were even more pronounced in states that had especially high teacher salaries, indicating that homeowners’ information may be more responsive to marginal changes in spending than the rest of the general public.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that the differences observed between all of these groups are dwarfed by the overall gap between the public’s understanding of school expenditures and teacher salaries, and the truth. Even homeowners, for example, were off by more than $5,000 on average for per-pupil spending and by more than $11,000 for teacher salaries.

Knowledge and Views on School Spending

Does ignorance about these factual matters bear on public attitudes toward school spending? As noted above, the public as a whole expresses strong support for increasing or at least maintaining current spending levels on public education. More than half of Americans say that spending on the public schools in their community should increase, compared with 38 percent who say it should stay the same and only 10 percent who say it should decrease.

It is quite possible that information plays an important role in explaining overall levels of support for school spending. On average, those who support increasing spending on their local schools underestimated per-pupil spending by nearly $6,000 (see Figure 2). In contrast, those who said that spending should decrease underestimated spending by only $4,267.The estimates of those who felt that spending should remain the same fell in between these two extremes, at $5,602. In short, while even supporters of decreased spending substantially underestimated true spending levels, their estimates were considerably closer to reality than those of supporters of increased spending.Figure 2

Similar patterns emerge when looking at the difference between estimated and actual teacher salaries, though the differences are slightly less pronounced. Respondents who support increased school spending underestimated teacher salaries in their state by almost $15,000, while those who wanted to see school spending remain the same offered estimates that were $14,230 below the truth. Those who support decreased spending offered modestly higher figures, underestimating teacher salaries by only $11,896, on average.

Americans with more accurate knowledge of school spending also tend to be less confident that increased spending will improve student learning. Among those who offered a figure for per-pupil expenditures within $5,000 of the truth, 20 percent were “not confident at all” that more spending would lead to higher achievement. People who either grossly underestimated or overestimated actual spending, by contrast, report lower levels of skepticism about the rewards of higher spending.

Note, however, that these findings do not necessarily support the contention that misunderstandings about school finance cause people to support spending increases. It is quite possible, after all, that the public’s assessment of how much is being spent may derive from, rather than contribute to, their policy views. Based on direct observations of conditions in local schools, for instance, some portions of the public may decide that whatever is being spent is not enough. When they are asked to hazard a guess, these concerns may lead them to underestimate actual spending.

In point of fact, we do find that Democrats offer significantly lower estimates of teacher salaries than do Republicans. (Differences between Democrats and Republicans on per-pupil expenditures disappear when accounting for respondents’ demographic backgrounds.) It is difficult to explain such a finding by reference to the two groups’ prior knowledge about school finance. Rather, we suspect that Democrats are especially likely to believe that the government does not give teachers either the professional respect or support that they deserve, and that such underlying convictions lead Democrats to offer lower estimates of teacher salaries. Indeed, the Democrats in our sample are 25 percentage points more likely than Republicans to say that they are either “very confident” or “somewhat confident” that additional spending on schools would improve student learning.

Conclusion

In sum, Americans think that far less is being spent on the nation’s public schools than is actually the case. The vast majority of the public thinks we spend amounts that can only be described as minuscule, and almost 96 percent of the public underestimate either per-pupil spending in their districts or teacher salaries in their states.

Important questions about the public’s understanding of school spending remain. Why are their estimates so low? Is this phenomenon unique to education, or would we find the same thing if people were asked about the salaries of other public servants, say, postal workers or police officers? And crucially, does the public’s understanding of school finance shape their policy preferences, or do the public’s policy preferences shape their understanding of school finance?

At this point, though, one matter seems certain: whatever motivates people’s concerns about school finance, it is not sound information about what is actually being spent.

William G. Howell is associate professor in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Martin R.West is assistant professor of education at Brown University and an executive editor of Education Next.