Education performance in Minnesota public schools over the last 40 years? Performance flat, Spending way up.

This is a newly released study by the Cato Institute on education performance on the state level.  With few execeptions the outcomes are the same wherever you live.  Academic performance is flat to slightly declining while spending is way up.

Here's a good summary of Cato's findings:

The performance of 17-year-olds has been essentially stagnant across all subjects since the federal government began collecting trend data around 1970, despite a near tripling of the inflation-adjusted cost of putting a child through the K-12 system."

While it's a multi-faceted problem, I point to a couple of considerations beyond the schools as critical but often neglected factors.  Strong faith commitment and intact families.  When these two factors are present in minority children the achievement gap is eliminated.

Today, faith is either dismissed or ignored and there seems to be little concern over the breakdown of the family.  In fact, family breakdown is celebrated by some people.  Until these two factors are given their due, I don't see the trend lines for academic performance heading in the right direction anytime soon.

Here's how things look in Minnesota.

Permalink for this state:
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/state-education-trends#/MN