Thursday, March 09, 2006

Teacher monopoly

John Stossel says that the teachers unions are mad at him for saying things like this:
American fourth graders do well on international tests, but by high school, Americans have fallen behind kids in most other countries.

The constant refrain that "public schools need more money" is nonsense. Many countries that spend significantly less on education do better than we do. School spending in America (adjusted for inflation) has more than tripled over the past 30 years, but national test scores are flat. The average per-pupil cost today is an astonishing $10,000 per student -- $200,000 per classroom! Think about how many teachers you could hire, and how much better you could do with that amount of money.
The teachers unions always want more money, but money does not address the problems. Less money would be better.

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