If there is anyone left who thinks the only problem with education in America is lack of money, I feel sorry for you.
Some aspects of education may be underfunded, but that’s because there’s an institutional problem with how public schools allocate money, not taxpayers being stingy.
Upset Patterns 
October 3, 2009 at 12:41 pm
That’s amazing! Where did you get this chart? I liked to read more about the research and sources for it.
Do you know where most of the money goes?
October 5, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Something to keep in mind: the graph only shows federal spending. Some states spend (a lot) more than that general trend line and other spends (a little less) than the trend line. In terms of where it goes: who knows. A lot of education costs get cut up in “administration”, which is another word for corrupt bureaucracy. On average, only close to 25% of education spending goes to the teachers.
But forget the inefficient spending. The fact is, as we can see from every other country in the world (and pretty much any policy issue), just spending willy nilly on something doesn’t make it better. Other issues, like teacher accountability, school choice, administration accountability, have been shown to have a positive effect on achievement (though imperfect).
The main thing that ticks me off is that people often assume that if one is against tax increases for funding education, they are “anti-education” or “anti-poor people”. After spending a summer interning at an education reform think tank, the one thing I am certain of is that at the current situation our country’s education is in, insufficient funds is not a problem.