Kevin D. Williamson, on NRO's The Corner, has just posted a
comment on Newsweek's rankings of public high schools, and asks a
good question: How much money per pupil do these high-achieving
school districts spend? He cites some flossy districts in
Pennsylvania that put out $23-$25,000 per pupil, and then mentions
Lubbock, TX, which spends about $6,500.
When I worked for the local newspaper in Westfield, NJ, another
high-achieving, high-spending community, the school board simply
would never say what they spent per pupil. We could easily have
published a fairly accurate number by dividing the annual school
budget by the number of pupils (which Williamson mentions, and
does), but our publisher was too chicken to do it.
Paul Mulshine, of the Newark Star-Ledger, annually compares per
pupil spending in high- and low-achieving New Jersey school
districts, with the sorry and expected result: Some of the most
expensive districts perform the worst.
To be fair, some states support schools in different ways. In
Texas, schools get some portion of state oil revenues, for
example.
The point remains. It isn't money that makes a good school.
The disconnect is not total, but almost.
topics:
Oil
