California’s (il)literacy epidemic intensifies

In EdSource, journalist Karen D’Souza breaks down the Golden State’s fall from literacy, tentatively attributing our dismal 77% of mid- to high adult literacy statistic to “underspending,” among other factors. Larry Sand takes to City Journal to rebut the misguided theory that CA should throw more money at public schools — that, instead, we must reform what amounts to a “subpar education” for local youths.

According to the Census Bureau, California spends $15,837 per K-12 pupil, ranking 19th among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. In 2019, the state spent about $79 billion on education, yet these expenditures have done little in the way of improving its schools. And a new “deluge of state and federal funding” included in Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2021-2022 budget will add another $15 billion to the state’s education coffers.

Only half of all California students performed at grade level in reading on the state’s most recent standardized language arts test, and just 34 percent of California fourth-graders scored proficient in math on the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), placing the state 44th nationwide. Minority students in big cities perform particularly poorly. In Los Angeles, for example, just 9 percent of blacks scored proficient in eighth-grade math, compared with 12 percent of Hispanics and 51 percent of whites on the recent NAEP. A recently released “States with the Best Public Schools since the Pandemic” tracker ranks California 44th nationally….

None of these programs will change the fact that California’s public school students receive a subpar education. As the state embarks on another massive spending spree, it ignores simpler solutions to improving its education quality. California should hire better teachers and pay them according to their worth. Capable teachers can handle larger classes, and a merit-based pay system would attract better educators. The state should consider increasing class sizes, for while smaller class sizes are generally assumed to be best, numerous analyses show that class size has no effect on most kids.

Californians would also benefit greatly from school choice…. Researcher Greg Forster reports that 32 out of 34 empirical studies found that “school choice improves academic outcomes in public schools affected by the program, while one finds no visible difference and one finds a negative impact.”

This article originally appeared in City Journal. Read the whole thing here.

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