It's not about the money

I'm so sick of people blaming America's education performance on lack of money. That is such a bunch of crap. Sure America might not score well worldwide in all sorts of metrics. But it has nothing to do with money. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the only two countries that spend more per student that the United States are Switzerland and Austria. We spend more per student than: Norway, Denmark,France,Italy,Germany,Japan,Australia, and Sweden. Go look at the test scores in those countries, might make you think a little. Read more here: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student

Another fun exercise is looking at how much states spend per student and average SAT scores. For example, New York ranks 49th in average SAT score of 996.00 while spending $13,703.00/studnet, and New Jersey 50th (1005) while spenging $14,117.00. Utah is number one with an average score of 1114 while spending only $5,216. Check it out yourself here: http://www.datamasher.org/mash-ups/spent-student-and-sat-scores. It's almost a negative corelation.

So stop complaining about education cuts, we spend too much money on education already. Maybe some cuts will actually force people to address the real problems.

References
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051700035.html
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2010/section4/indicator38.asp
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student