Educational Spending and Ranked Results

"We spend too much money on education administration."

On the contrary, we rank 37th in the world, in percentage of GDP spent on education.  The result is that our students are well behind the rest of the world in both performance and ability.  In fact, depending on which website you look at, there are some 15-30 countries that score better than the U.S.  American students are failing to compete with students from other countries that spend almost twice the amount that we do on education.  Surprise!

The State of Texas is facing a $15 billion revenue shortfall, due in part from a drop in sales tax revenue and federal mandates on Medicaid spending.  Because Texas operates on a balanced budget amendment, the revenue shortfall demands either an increase in the tax rate or budget cuts.  Given Texas rates 49th in verbal SAT scores and 43rd in math, nationally speaking, guess which way Texas Conservatives went?  That's right, regardless of our already winning the race to the bottom, Texas Republicans want to spend even less, wholly ignoring the fact that Texas ranks 6th in student population growth.

Texas high schools see 68% of their students graduate, ranking it 36th among other states.  The Texas school system is literally failing students and taxpayers, is at the bottom of the heap nation-wide, and is one of the driving forces pushing America well behind the rest of the world.  Rather than raise taxes to maintain this already subpar standing, Texas legislators are cutting educational spending by $5 billion.

Texas leads the nation and the world in a race to the bottom of high school student performances.

All this because Conservative Republicans fail to understand that there is a direct correlation between how much money a nation spends and the quality of services it provides.  Tax cuts hurt student performance, period.