School funding: (my letter published in my local paper op-ed page)

I think good teachers deserve good pay but is more money really the answer for education? If that were the case the schools with the highest funding should be the best. In 2001 the average annual expenditure in the U.S. for grades K thru 12 was $7284 per student. The average for Indiana was $7287. The most costly school system in Indiana was Gary at $9349 per student. The top three states in spending averaged close to $11,000 per student. These were NY, NJ and Washington DC which have some of the worst performing schools in the country. Western European nations such as England, France and Germany spend much less on education than the United States and apparently get better results. It seems that, on average, school success has little to do with funding. The excellent education series printed recently in the H-T indicated that a child’s parents and peers are the main factors that determine success in school. I think most people already know this. It is praiseworthy that our country spends more to help bad schools but the figures show more funding will not overcome shortcomings in the home and the neighborhood.

References:
(1) http://ftp2.census.gov/govs/school/01fullreport.pdf
(2) http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/200101.pdf