Surge in Education Spending Preceded Record Low ACT Scores

U.S. Department of Education in Washington on July 6, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

A key measure of the nation’s performance in education has revealed the academics of American students has plummeted to new lows, despite the federal government setting another record in taxpayer funds funneled into the public school system.

Scores on the ACT college admissions, which tests student preparedness for college level course work, have dropped to their lowest point in more than three decades. Students in the class of 2023, whose scores were reported last week, showed a composite score of 19.5 out of 36, revealing a lack of student preparedness for college-level coursework, according to the nonprofit organization that administers the test.

“This is the sixth consecutive year of declines in average scores, with average scores declining in every academic subject,” ACT CEO Janet Godwin said in a press release. “We are also continuing to see a rise in the number of seniors leaving high school without meeting any of the college readiness benchmarks.”

Of the 1.4 million students in the United States who took the test during the last school year, only 21 precent met the benchmarks in all subjects for success in first-year, college-level classes, according to the organization. The average scores in math, reading, and science were all below the benchmarks the group says students must reach to have a likelihood of success in first-year college courses. Further, scores also indicate a decline in English skills. According to the organization, those who meet the benchmarks have a 50 percent chance of earning a “B” or better and nearly a 75 percent chance of earning a “C” or better.

Ms. Godwin said the results showed an urgent need for support from policy makers to make education a “shared national priority.”

“The hard truth is that we are not doing enough to ensure that graduates are truly ready for postsecondary success in college and career,” said Ms. Godwin. “These systemic problems require sustained action and support at the policy level. This is not up to teachers and principals alone–it is a shared national priority and imperative.”

However, calls from the organization for more national resources appear to be at odds with data that shows that greater increases in federal support, via funding, have had no causal link to improved academic performance.

Support Not Equal to Improvement

Stanford University economist Eric Hanushek reviewed nearly 400 studies on the topic and concluded that “there is not a strong or consistent relationship between student performance and school resources, at least after variations in family inputs are taken into account.”

Further, the past few decades have seen test scores plummet to new lows despite federal spending on education over the last 50 years having skyrocketed. In 1980, the amount spent by the federal government on elementary and secondary education totaled $16.03 billion. Ten years later in 1990 the spending had risen by the comparatively modest amount of $21.98 billion. However, by 2000 that number had soared to $43.79 billion, before exploding to $92.07 billion in 2021, the latest year for which data is available.

Aaron Garth Smith, the director of education reform at the Reason Foundation, told The Epoch Times that the perception that academic achievement is tied to funding has been severely overstated, if not flat-out wrong.

“There really isn’t a consistent relationship between spending and outcomes and we’ve seen evidence for this again and again in states across the country like Arizona and Florida” Mr. Smith told The Epoch Times.

Much of the increased funding goes to increases in staff, regardless of need, according to Mr. Smith. He points to states like Pennsylvania, where the number of staff members increased despite a decline in public school enrollment.

“What we have often witnessed is a surge in staffing but not in results,” said Mr. Smith.

If the trend is going to be reversed the nation is going to have to embrace a more competitive model of education, according to Mr. Smith.

“In terms of a solution, we know that competition works in education. Public schools need competition to improve, whether it be education savings accounts or charter schools that give parents options,” said Mr. Smith. “School districts have to compete for students and find ways to attract them by creating new programs and catering to the people, and if they do the end result will be that they have become more responsive to parent needs, and in doing so, will raise the educational standards for everyone.”