From the Cato "Daily Digest":
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MORE MONEY DOESN'T EQUAL A BETTER EDUCATION
"Given its investment in education, the United States isn't getting the return it expects when compared with the performance of other nations, a report shows," The Associated Press reports (
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ation_compared )
"Among more than 25 industrialized nations, no country spends more public and private money to educate each student than the United States," according to an annual review by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
"But American 15-year-olds scored in the middle of the pack in math, reading and science in 2000, and the nation's high-school graduation rate was below the world average in 2001."
David Salisbury, director of Cato's Center for Educational Freedom, made the following comments regarding the report: "In spite of the fact that the U.S. spends more than any other nation on education, U.S. students show only mediocre performance on math, reading, and scientific knowledge in comparison to their international peers. What this should make perfectly obvious is that putting more money into education will not raise student
performance. What will? Cut out the bureaucracy in public schools at the federal, state, and local levels; give teachers and schools more autonomy to select their curriculum, textbooks, and methods; and, most importantly, allow student funding to go to whatever public or private school the parents choose for their child. Giving parents control over the dollars being spent on education is critical if we expect to see improvement in education."
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This of course isn't unbiased, but I'm interested in hearing what people think.