How do schools in Colorado stack up? Recently the federal government released 2024 results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which bills itself as “the nation’s report card.”
First the positive spin: Governor Jared Polis said, “While I’m proud that Colorado student achievement puts us above the national average, I’ll keep fighting to make Colorado schools the very best in the nation!” He implies that Colorado students are doing well and that schools are responsible for them doing well. Both presumptions are false.
Similarly, the Colorado Sun ran the headline, “Colorado students are performing better in reading and math than kids in other states.” This falsely implies that Colorado has something to brag about.
A headline from the Christian Science Monitor indicates part of the problem with comparing Colorado students to students elsewhere: “‘The news is not good.’ Nation’s report card shows US students slipping further behind.” So grading Colorado students on a curve is not so impressive.
Colorado schools failing kids
Insofar as Colorado students do slightly better than most students elsewhere, that is due mainly to the parents, not the schools. Colorado ranks ninth among the states (plus D.C.) in median household income and fifth in college degrees, so we should expect students here to perform better academically regardless of what the schools are doing.
Results for Colorado summarize math and reading for grades four and eight. What we find is that outcomes remain down from pre-pandemic levels, although they are up from last year except for fourth grade reading.
The NAEP categorizes performance as below basic, basic, proficient, and advanced. The scores indicate that Colorado schools are failing huge numbers of students. 23% of fourth graders and 35% of eighth graders test below the basic level in math. 35% of fourth graders and 26% of eighth graders test below the basic level in reading. In other words, Colorado schools are failing to educate around a quarter or more of students.
The racial divides remain shocking. In fourth grade math, while 88% of white students and 76% of Asian students scored at or above the basic level, only 65% of black students and 62% of Hispanic students did. This is largely explained by economic factors; 90% of students who are not economically disadvantaged scored at or above the basic level, while 63% of students who are economically disadvantaged did. We can find comparable splits in the other categories.
Throwing money at schools no solution
This all reinforces my view that the schools largely are irrelevant to academic outcomes, especially in the lower grades. Students from stable families whose parents routinely read with them and help them learn math tend to do well regardless.
Yet we read in the lapdog press, based on a state-sponsored study, that if we only spent $4 billion more on education, the schools finally would achieve good results. I call bullshit. Government already spends $14,845 per student annually on average, per the Department of Education (based on 2022–23 numbers). If you can’t educate a student for fifteen grand, more money is not going to make much difference. Money is not the basic problem.
Consider a multiverse scenario with me. Let’s say, rather than government spending some $15,000 per student on schools, government instead just gave every family with a school-aged child $15,000 per student, with no strings attached. This could even be means-tested, such that only relatively poor families receive the funds—a move that would radically reduce tax burdens. Do you think academic performance would go up or down in this scenario? I bet it would go up.
Take the example of a single mom with three kids in school. With an extra $45,000 per year, this parent might choose to give up her full-time, exhausting job in favor of an easier part-time job or even no job, with lots more time left over to raise her children and help them learn. Or she could spend some or all of that money on tutors or schools that actually teach her children how to read and do math.
True, some parents would abuse this sort of handout and spend the money on themselves rather than their children. Some people would have more children just to get the extra money. Some people would move to Colorado just to take advantage of this program (assuming other states did not have something comparable). Still, I think that, on net, children would learn more and be better-off more broadly.
This is just a thought experiment. We could talk about other approaches. But I think it’s a useful exercise to get us thinking about education in a more fundamental way.
Incentives matter
“4 stools cost as much as 3 chairs. 5 stools cost $28 more than 2 chairs. How much do 2 stools and 2 chairs cost?” That problem, with which many adults would struggle, is from my kid’s fifth grade Dimensions Math book. (My kid is in fourth grade but working a bit ahead in math.)
My homeschooled child, who is scoring in the top one percent of students his age based on one of the standardized tests, works on math for a half hour to an hour per day. We’re also spending twenty to thirty minutes per day working through Fix It Grammar books; he’s getting quite good at identifying adverbs, prepositional phrases, and so on. On top of that, my child learns from a variety of educational books and videos. Currently he’s reading Eragon and Grace Lin’s Moon series. He spends most of his time working on his own projects or playing with friends.
If you look at how much time students spend in class in typical schools compared to how much they learn, you must reasonably conclude that students waste almost all of their time in school. We should not be surprised by this. For the most part, schools get paid for filling seats, not for teaching students. Indeed, the worse the academic outcomes, the more schools can beg for more tax dollars. The incentives are all wrong.
Consider another thought experiment. What do you think would happen to academic performance if government just turned all the public schools into child-care centers (which is how most parents treat them anyway) and told parents they are responsible for their children’s education? These “schools” could then fire much of their staff and focus on maintaining a safe environment with lots of books and other educational resources. Children could work on their own projects, sign up for third-party classes or tutoring, or just play. I again bet that academic performance would go up, or at least not suffer, and kids would be happier too.
My point is not that all classroom teaching is worthless. If that’s what you think I’m saying, you’re reading into my words what you want to be there rather than what I’m actually saying. Many teachers are great, and many classes are rigorous and useful. But many teachers are not great, and many classes are at best a waste of time. My point is that the students who succeed in the current system generally would succeed regardless, but the current system is leaving many students behind.
The sad fact is that, currently, we are getting exactly what we are paying for: kids filling seats. If we’d rather pay for kids to be educated, maybe we should have a serious discussion about how to accomplish that.
Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.