Richard Rahn
Rahn on Econ101
Thursday, 04 November 2010

The U.S. Department of Education was created with the primary stated
goal of increasing students' test scores, but test scores for 17-year-
old American students have remained essentially flat since 1970. The
department's budget has grown to a whopping $107 billion this year.
Per pupil, taxpayer-financed education spending (adjusted for
inflation) has risen by more than 200 percent since 1970 (and 150-plus
percent since 1980). Clearly and unambiguously, the department
deserves a grade of F.

The employees and bureaucrats at Education have been rewarded for
failure each year by ever-increasing budgets, which give them more
control of state education departments and local school boards. If you
reward failure, you tend to get more of it, and if you reward success,
you tend to get more successes. Thus, it is no surprise that test
scores have not improved.

Suppose Congress said to the department, "We are going to cut your
budget and payroll by 20 percent per year until test scores start
improving, and if they have not substantially improved within five
years, the department will be dust." What do you think would happen to
test scores?

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