Education spending skyrockets, but student achievement stays stagnant
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Since the early 1970s, the federal government has tracked the academic achievement of American 17-year-olds.
The results have been essentially flat despite the fact that per-pupil has more than doubled, even after adjusting for inflation.
Presented with this dismal national picture, many pundits and elected officials protest that their own states have done better.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The trouble is, there’s been no way to verify their claims. State-level test score averages don’t reach back that far, or, as with the SAT, they aren’t taken by a representative sample of all students.
But there’s a way over this hurdle: State-level academic trends can be estimated all the way back to 1972, and the results aren’t pretty.