EDITORIAL: The futility of spending more to fix education

What’s happening in Boston is definitive proof that money alone won’t fix a broken education system.

Nevada’s newest public school budget contains a massive boost in spending. Gov. Joe Lombardo proposed a more than $2 billion increase. That was the starting point. Senate Democrats boasted that the education budget they passed increased per-pupil spending by 29 percent. Next school year, Nevada will provide more than $12,800 in per pupil funding. The following year, that will increase to $13,368.

This isn’t the first time Nevada has followed such a path. Over the past three decades, the state has spent billions on class-size reduction. In 2003 and 2015, Republican governors pushed through massive tax hikes and directed the money to education. In 2021, then-Gov. Steve Sisolak also signed a tax increase for education.

Aside from higher tax bills, Nevada has precious little to show for it. The Nation’s Report Card shows Nevada’s fourth grade reading scores are lower than a decade ago. Just 21 percent of Nevada’s eighth graders are proficient in math.

Instead of taking accountability, members of the entrenched education establishment make excuses for the poor outcomes. Their favorite is that — no matter how much new money is showered on the system — Nevada still isn’t spending enough. This time, the excuse is being made proactively.

“While the increased funding is promising, it’s blunted by minimal increases in previous years,” the National Education Association of Southern Nevada tweeted earlier this month. It continued, “And because the Commission on School Funding’s recommendations were ignored, we’re still $4,000+ behind optimal.”

There’s an easy way to test this line of thinking. Look at places where per-pupil funding is above the national average. If money fixes education, students there should be thriving.

Boston is at the top of that list. According to the latest Census Bureau data, Boston Public Schools has the highest per-pupil spending among the country’s large districts. It spent $31,397 during the 2020-21 school year. That’s a staggering amount.

But all that money hasn’t produced results. Boston’s reading and math scores on the Nation’s Report Card are below the national average. Not only that, Nevada’s fourth graders have better scores in both subjects. Further, Boston’s enrollment keeps dropping. It’s closed or merged around 35 schools in the past 15 years. Things are so bad that the district had to sign an improvement plan with the state education officials last year.

Nevada’s public school activists have long conflated spending more as the key to establishing a successful education system. What’s happening in Boston shows that the key variable isn’t how much is spent, but how it’s spent.