Hanushek on the govt monopoly's education spending-- in Kentucky and three other states

An excerpt from Eric Hanushek's latest work (co-authored by Alfred Lindseth) in Eduational Choice...

A popular conception is that we have systematically shortchanged our children by failing to provide adequate schools. This view ignores the fact that government at all levels has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the public education system, quadrupling per pupil spending since 1960. Even with such increases and the plethora of personnel, facilities and programs made possible by them, student achievement has languished....

Even in the face of this dismal record, politicians, parents and educators have been reluctant to change the framework through which education is delivered, especially when offering expanded choices to children outside traditional public schools. The courts have also been an important ally of the forces resisting change....

In our book, Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Achievement-Funding Puzzle in America’s Public Schools, we examined the four states – Wyoming, Kentucky, New Jersey and Massachusetts – that have had the longest running and most expensive court-ordered adequacy remedies. We asked a simple question: Are these states performing significantly better on the NAEP tests, relative to other states, compared to before the additional funding commenced? In three of the four states, the answer was no. Only in Massachusetts, where the legislature also enacted a broad range of reforms including new accountability measures and more local autonomy, did the students improve their relative standing....