| The 3 vertical bars on the left show the range of funding per student for 22 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). A line is shown for elem. grades K-8, secondary grades 9-12, and the composite average funding per student for grades K-12. The U.S. spends more per K-12 student than any of these 22 nations which includes all the highly developed nations such as Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, etc. |
United States academic peformance is among the lowest in the world.
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The 22 OECD nations from the previous graph are listed here in rank order of their academic scores in mathematics, science, and problem solving. Note that the high spending U.S. ranks very low on these lists. All of our money is not buying much. |
CONCLUSION: International evidence proves money doesn't buy academic performance.
The U.S. spent more money per student in 2001 than all 22 nations
Despite the high spending, American 15 year old academic performance is among the lowest
19th of 22 in math
16th of 22 in science
19th of 22 in problem solving