The Answer to Failing Schools is More Money?

According to the most recent report from the National Center for Education Statistics, the amount of money (in real dollars) spent on educating K-12 students is almost 4 times today what it was 50 years ago.  Yet the quality of education has not improved and by many measures has declined. What are the odds that the remedy for this is spending even more money on the same education?  If your Ford dealer told you that the best solution for a car that didn't run well was to spend ever more money on it, would you? Or would you perhaps try something different? And how would you feel if government told you that if you did try something else, you'd have to keep paying ever more money to that Ford dealer?


Total and current expenditures* per pupil in public elementary and secondary schools

1920          $  598
1930            1251
1940            1562
1950            2325
1960            3568
1970            5546
1980            7027
1990            9705
2000          11302
2014          12509

*Constant 2015-16 Dollars