How much do we spend on our public schools in America? Quite a lot, actually, but you wouldn’t know it if you posed the question to the average voter. In poll after poll, Americans vastly underestimate per-pupil education funding and overall school spending.
For example, in a recent national poll commissioned by the Friedman Foundation, more than a quarter of respondents thought their state spent less than $4,000 per student on schools—the real number is well over $10,000 (depending on estimates).
To test the public’s education spending knowledge in my own state of Pennsylvania, Commonwealth Foundation commissioned a similar poll. The results show a remarkable knowledge gap.
When asked how much Pennsylvania spends on education per student, nearly three-quarters underestimated the actual figure of $14,600. And the average guess wasn’t even close, at 46 percent lower than reality.
Notably, more than two-thirds of voters were surprised to learn that Pennsylvania spends almost $3,000 more per student than the national average.
After learning the facts on state spending, however, minds changed. Support for funding increases dropped by 9 percentage points, and a majority of voters said they would be unwilling to personally pay higher taxes to increase education spending.
Voters across the country share this sentiment, as an Education Next poll found, with support for increased education funding dropping when voters learn how much we currently spend and are informed that additional funding is tied to tax increases.
Unfortunately, these misconceptions about education spending could play a pivotal role in upcoming elections in several states. Why don’t voters have a better understanding of what their tax dollars fund?
For starters, the public school employee unions have waged a massive misinformation campaign.
In Pennsylvania, the American Federation of Teachers and the Pennsylvania State Education Association (an affiliate of the National Education Association) have spent a fortune from union dues on mailers, newspaper ads, and commercials claiming that Gov. Tom Corbett and lawmakers “cut” more than $1 billion from public schools in Pennsylvania.
The reality is funding only declined when federal stimulus dollars vanished. Spending from state tax dollars actually increased. And contrary to the claims of union leadership, funding for Pennsylvania’s public schools is at an all-time high.
Despite record funding levels, many districts are cutting staff and programs. Why? Skyrocketing pension costs.
Teachers’ union leaders from PSEA and AFT will argue that payments for teachers’ pensions shouldn't figure into the education equation because they are not “classroom spending.” This arbitrary choice to ignore massive cost increases is simply a self-serving effort to mask the public pension crisis facing states and schools across the country.
Playing politics with pension funding has created a perverse incentive to underfund pension plans and spend that money on pet projects elsewhere. Over many years, lawmakers in Pennsylvania—and in Illinois, New Jersey, California, and Detroit—have promised unsustainable pensions while pushing payments into the future, but the day of reckoning has finally arrived.
Over the past six years, Pennsylvania school districts’ combined payments for employees’ retirements grew by nearly $2 billion—a stunning 500 percent increase. To put it in perspective, that increase could pay the average salaries of more than 30,000 teachers.
What’s the return on taxpayers’ ever-growing investment in education? When informed of students’ scores on “The Nation’s Report Card,” 53 percent in Pennsylvania said schools deserve a grade of D or F. Similarly, the Education Next poll found only 20 percent of respondents nationwide rate public schools an A or B, with a minuscule 3 percent awarding an A.
This is inexcusable, but meaningful reforms—from addressing the pension crisis to seniority and tenure reforms to embracing school choice—are undermined by the misinformation campaign being waged by teachers’ union leaders.
Voters across the nation need accurate information to make informed decisions about how we fund public education. But while we are stuck arguing over the facts, children in our public schools continue to suffer.
