K-12 District Schools with High Funding Still Have Low Performance

It has become standard procedure for Leftist organizations, like Save Our Schools, and Leftist politicians, like Katie Hobbs to harp continuously on the claim that Arizona district schools are underfunded and would be bastions of learning, if only they had more funding.

As luck would have it, the current race for mayor of New York City is shedding some light on this subject. In a recent opinion piece, candidate Andrew Cuomo had this to say about New York City’s district schools:

“The world’s greatest city deserves the best schools. Yet our education system is failing New York’s children. More than 40% of the city’s grammar-school students flunked state math and reading tests this year. That isn’t their fault; it’s the result of a system that’s abandoned them.”

The system that Mr. Cuomo is referring to, happens to be the one that spends the highest amount of money per student in the whole United States. More on that later, but first some background information on Mr. Cuomo.

Andrew Cuomo is the son of the late Mario Cuomo, who was governor of New York state from 1983 to 1994. Andrew was also governor of New York, from 2011 to 2021. Both men were unabashed Leftists. Now Andrew is running for mayor of New York City. Even a tax-and-spend politician like Andrew Cuomo can see that the New York school system needs fundamental fixing that money alone cannot provide.

Mr. Cuomo’s position is corroborated by at least one major New York newspaper. In an August 30 New York Post article, the author makes this statement:

“The city Department of Education will spend a staggering $42,168 per student this school year, budget experts project, even as enrollment declines and student achievement stalls.”

The headline for the article reads:

“NYC DOE projected to spend $42k per student this school year — the most in the country”

The following graph illustrates the correlation between spending and performance:

Except for the numbers, the shape of this graph should look eerily familiar to Arizonans. The same may be said about the comments made in connection with this subject.