Not A Root Cause

The recent riots in Baltimore resurrected a common notion that the solution to social problems is always to spend more money on any particular issue; in this case, education.  Here's an example from Jon Stewart of The Daily Show on April 28:

"If we are spending a trillion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan's schools, we can't, you know, put a little taste Baltimore's way".  [See note at end of post on factual accuracy]

THC thinks Mr Stewart is missing the point. Here is the spending on Baltimore schools per pupil compared to one of the best performing school districts in the country, the Fairfax County Schools of northern Virgina, courtesy of Marginal Revolution (via Coyote Blog).  Baltimore spends $17,196 per pupil while Fairfax spends $13,593.

“If we are spending a trillion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan’s schools, we can’t, you know, put a little taste Baltimore’s way. It’s crazy.” - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/05/jon-stewart-wrong-on-education-in-baltimore.html#sthash.bpRraMKL.dpuf

“If we are spending a trillion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan’s schools, we can’t, you know, put a little taste Baltimore’s way. It’s crazy.” - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/05/jon-stewart-wrong-on-education-in-baltimore.html#sthash.bpRraMKL.dpuf

“If we are spending a trillion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan’s schools, we can’t, you know, put a little taste Baltimore’s way. It’s crazy.” - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/05/jon-stewart-wrong-on-education-in-baltimore.html#sthash.bpRraMKL.dpuf

THC checked the figures for the Amity School District within which he resides and which is one of the highest rated districts in Connecticut and found per pupil spending to be $17,545, about the same as Baltimore's.  The nationwide average cost per pupil is $12,198.

The other item to note is that in Baltimore, 81% of the costs are being paid by the state and federal government, not by local taxpayers, while in Fairfax only 25% of costs come from those sources, so that taxpayers across the country, as well as in Maryland, are already making quite a contribution already to the Baltimore schools.

How much money you spend on something is not often a good measure of the quality of the result you will obtain.  If it were our healthcare system would have the best outcomes in the world.  Yet many of the same people who decry the cost of healthcare because it does not give us the results they would like and thus are proposing ways to spend less, insist that continuing to spend more on education will give us the results we want, even though American spending on education has grown steadily for four decades with stagnating performance.  Spending is a very poor metric when it comes to addressing the kind of issues Baltimore faces.

[NOTE] And by the way, Stewart's assertion is factually incorrect as the Washington Post noted.  On an annual basis the Federal government spends more on Baltimore schools than it did in any year on schools in the entire country of Afghanistan!

“If we are spending a trillion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan’s schools, we can’t, you know, put a little taste Baltimore’s way. It’s crazy.”
–Jon Stewart, “The Daily Show,” April 28, 2015
- See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/05/jon-stewart-wrong-on-education-in-baltimore.html#sthash.aJArwSH8.dpuf

“If we are spending a trillion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan’s schools, we can’t, you know, put a little taste Baltimore’s way. It’s crazy.”
–Jon Stewart, “The Daily Show,” April 28, 2015
- See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/05/jon-stewart-wrong-on-education-in-baltimore.html#sthash.aJArwSH8.dpuf