With SAT scores at their lowest in 40 years, one conservative education analyst says taxpayers are not getting a lot of return on the billions of dollars spent on public education.
Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute says many factors have to be considered when looking at SAT scores, but when compared to other statistics for measuring academic achievement, the scores present a disheartening picture.
"When you look at it in conjunction with things like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is nationally representative for 17-year-olds, and you look at international exams, you can't help but conclude that we are at best just standing still," he offers.
McCluskey asserts there is no correlation between student achievement and the amount of money spent on education.
"You can see that spending per pupil in the last 40 years or so has well more than doubled, but then we get these scores -- SAT now, but also the NAEP scores, the international assessments -- either it's stagnant or getting worse," the analyst explains.
He contends the answer to bumping up student achievement is school choice, which promotes innovation and healthy competition among schools.