"The Fiscal Cliff" Really???

[kandrathe]

Why should education spending increase with GDP? Why should it not be measured as per capita spending adjusted for inflation?

Good question. If what you wanted to do was provide a 1950s education, you could just fix per-pupil spending at 1950s level, indexed to inflation. I think that's educational suicide, and that the requirements of keeping up technologically, of hiring teachers who increasingly have better employment options (current crisis notwithstanding) requires spending to at least track GDP. But you're right, there's no inherent reason the two numbers have to be linked.

The other reason would be international competition. If the US wants to keep up with other countries, you probably need to have comparable levels of spending. The US is doing okay right now, but it's not way out of line with similar countries.

I would then agree that the line would be flat with a small offset for acquiring new skills. But, if GDP doubles over 20 years, there is no reason the cost of education per pupil doubles.

Better would be per pupil spending at various levels. Like other labor intensive endeavors, it suffers here greatly from the rapidly inflating costs of employee benefits -- and is then exacerbated with unsustainable government sponsored pension plans.

Pay your teachers more, get better teachers. Pay your teachers less, get worse teachers. That includes benefits. Unless you're okay with a less and less capable slice of the population going into teaching each year, then the job has to stay competitive.

I think there is a fallacy in here. Underpay will get you worse, but there is no advantage to overpaying. Beyond that, there is resistance to linking the pay scale to student performance. Why? Teaching is only half the equation, the other half is learning. My experiences with my children are that a teacher has a hard job trying to adapt to the various learning styles of 20-30 children, and so creates one curriculum that suits their teaching style. Some kids thrive, while others starve. The emphasis historically has been on curriculum and teaching, and only more recently on creating environments for student learning. We also try to cram way to much into the curriculum to suit all ideas on what students should learn. The result is they get a smattering of everything, but lack depth in fundamentals - and are allowed to skip science and math altogether if they wish.

Where else? The point of education is to educate students, no? And the demand for highly skilled people already well exceeds the supply. I expect this to increase, but I suppose that's crystal ball territory.

Well, the source I linked shows that compared to OECD, we over pay and under perform. The money doesn't make it to the providers of the service, it gets siphoned off into administration and non-essentials.

Much like our health care system.

I'm not calling for less education, just lower costs. We've increased costs per pupil, but not the results as measured by SAT/ACT or other standardized tests. Just like military spending, more doesn't necessarily mean its spent wisely in the nation's interest. More often, it pads the pockets of a special interest.

If you can get more benefit for less spending, then all power to you. But education spending mostly goes to exactly where you'd think: paying teachers, keeping schools in repair, administering standards, buying textbooks, etc... It's not at all obvious where there are savings, and it's much easier to cut the bones of the programs, which are obvious, than the waste, which is not.

Here, we are seeing much success with vouchers