Our friends at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) recently released a report that analyzes state-by-state spending/performance of K-12 schools.
It should come as no surprise to Minnesotans that we spend a great deal ($13,515 in 2019 adjusted per pupil spending) which ranks Minnesota 21 out of 50 states in per pupil spending. Yet for all of that spending we continue to get lousy results for the kids that depend upon public schools to do their job.
The most telling finding in this report?
“It reveals that long before COVID the educational performance of disadvantaged children was much worse — and achievement gaps much larger — than most people realize.”
Yet Gov. Tim Walz and his cronies at Education Minnesota are increasing K-12 spending in the governor’s budget plan (“Due North”) released last week.
The AEI report summed up the “money for nothing” request like this: “It’s clear that a great number of schools have been failing disadvantaged children to a stunning degree for years, despite massive public investment that’s reached over $700 billion annually. We’re now heavily focused on getting schools open again, but reopening previously failing schools will unfortunately be much less help to children than many like to acknowledge.”
You can check out the state-by-state comparison here.
