Democrat lawmakers employ fear tactics claiming school choice will bankrupt their states. It’s a massive lie, and they know it. As a recent Wall Street Journal report notes, school choice programs provide enormous savings for a state’s budget — savings to the tune of millions of dollars each year.
Martin F. Lueken reports in the Journal that “a recent EdChoice analysis of 48 school-choice programs across 26 states through 2022 estimates that school-choice programs generated cumulative net fiscal benefits for taxpayers worth between $19.4 billion and $45.6 billion.”
Lueken continues, “Put another way, for every dollar spent on these programs, taxpayers have saved between $1.70 and $2.64 — a significant return on investment.” Indeed, school choice programs generate tremendous savings.
Public education spending has skyrocketed with no improvement in student learning. On average, across the nation, $17,280 is spent per year on each of the approximately 50 million K-12 public education students. The spending jumped from roughly $11,066 per student just 10 years ago — an astonishing 56 percent increase. New York state spending is a staggering $33,440 for each K-12 student, yet only 45 percent of third-grade students are proficient in reading. Regarding math achievement, only 42 percent of the state’s eighth-grade students scored proficient.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress exam administered to fourth-, eighth-, and 12th-grade students reveals that reading scores have declined for each tested grade level over the last 10 years.
More money spent on public education has proven not to increase student learning, yet
