Does the U.S. spend more on education than other industrialized countries? That's what a couple of presidents and secretaries of education have gone around the country telling us. And that's why no one was surprised when President Bush proposed to reform America's schools without serious increase in education spending. If we already pour money into our schools and get lousy results, more money is obviously not the answer. The trouble is, this picture of America as the educational big spender is a myth. I'm not saying that just spending more on education will solve all our problems, but we're kidding ourselves if we think our investment in education is extremely generous.
Last year, the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, reported that 13 other industrialized countries invest more public dollars in education, in proportion to their economy, than the U.S .. Critics in the U.S. Department of Education and elsewhere attacked this finding because it was based on only one measure of expenditure. According to the critics, other measures, like per-capita or per-student expenditures, would present a quite different picture. But a recent study by the American Federation of Teachers applies all the measures critics called for and finds that, no matter what measures you use, public spending for education is lower in the U.S. than in a number of other industrialized countries.
In "International Comparison of Public Spending on Education," economist F. Howard Nelson looks at the income (gross domestic product, or GDP) devoted to education, at per-capita expenditures, per- pupil expenditures, pupil-teacher ratios and teacher salaries and finds that the U.S. tags behind a number of other industrialized countries in every comparison. And this, despite the fact that we have the world's highest standard of living and enroll the most students.
Here are some of Nelson's findings; the majority are based on 1987 figures, the most recent available:
--The U.S. spent 3.7 percent of its GDP on elementary and secondary school education. This put us 11th among the 15 nations, Denmark, the top-ranking nation, spent 5.5 percent; Canada spent 4.5 percent.
--We ranked 9th in public spending for higher education even though we have the highest post- secondary enrollment rate in the world---double that of any other country except for Canada.
--Our per-capita public expenditure on education was $960. Four other countries spent more, among them Canada, which spent $1,153 per capita. U.S. per-pupil expenditure of $3,398 was 6th among the 15 nations
--Our classrooms are among the most crowded of the countries studied. The pupil-teacher ratio in the U.S. was 19 children for every teacher; the IS-country average was 16.
--U.S. teachers do not earn as much as their counterparts in other countries. Average pay in the 1980s consistently ranked in the bottom third of the nations studied. Also, U.S. teachers make less in relation to the salary of the average worker than teachers in any other country surveyed, except for Sweden. It's no wonder we have a hard time recruiting teachers from the upper half of college graduating classes.
In short, the argument that the U.S. is the world's biggest spender on education has no basis. Does that mean we need to spend more? Not necessarily, but if we look at the discrepancy between what we hope to do-and flow much we plan to pay for it-I think the answer is obvious.
Most people agree that it's essential for our country's economic and political health to achieve the national education goals set by President Bush and the nation's governors; it's a top national priority. But how will we reach the goal of making sure that "by the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn" -- without spending more money? And if we meet that goal, where will we find the resources to make the U.S. students first in math and science by the year 2000? Or to make sure that every adult American is literate?
How will we carry out the ambitious program to restructure U.S. education that President Bush presented a few weeks ago without spending more money? How will we set up a national examination system and fund 535 dazzlingly innovative schools? People say that creativity and will are necessary, and they are. But the president's proposals are going to require money, too; and there's no way that private initiatives will be able to supply what we'll need.
It's time for us to stop thinking about education as something in which we already invest too large a percentage of our resources. Instead, we should be thinking in terms of what we must invest to turn our schools around. People say that we are in tough economic times and that spending money is no guarantee of success. Both are true, but when it comes to top national priorities, we usually ignore arguments like these and spend the money. That's how we built the weapons and the military establishment that won the war in the Persian Gulf And we didn't ask how much was barely enough to do the job -- maybe that's why we did it so well. What's wrong with trying this approach in reforming our schools?