Throwing Money at Education Won’t Improve Outcomes

With every town hall, debate, and caucus, we're inching closer to a Democratic presidential nominee. Several candidates have made astronomical spending promises during their campaigns in the area of education. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, vowed to quadruple federal Title I grants for disadvantaged students to $450 billion over 10 years. These kinds of wild spending proposals are becoming commonplace. A report released last year by California-based education consulting firm WestEd recommended that $8 billion be spent over the next several years for North Carolina school initiatives, in response to a decades-long educational inequality case. Cries to increase funding in the name of correcting inequality perpetuate the narrative that a lack of “proper” funding is the source of public education's woes.