MARK STEYN

Mark Steyn

From The New Criterion January 2004

[19 years ago]

It would be more accurate to say that American high school graduates are the most expensive illiterates in the world. In real terms, education spending has quadrupled in the last four decades to the point where America now lavishes more on its school students than any other country except Switzerland—in 1999, the Swiss spent $9,756 per pupil, the U.S. $8,157, Japan $6,039, Canada $5,981, the United Kingdom $5,608, Spain $4,864, etc. But the Swiss at least have something to show for that ten thousand bucks. By fourth grade, much of the damage done by U.S. teachers becomes irretrievable: that's the age at which a competent student stops learning to read and starts reading to learn. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, in 1998 only 29 percent of American fourth graders achieved such proficiency. 

 The cost to the taxpayer of educating each student to that point was $30,945. Yet, given the 71 percent failure rate, the real cost to taxpayers of producing a proficient fourth grade reader is $30,945 divided by 29 percent or $107,000. In the District of Columbia, it takes almost half a million dollars to produce one proficient fourth grade reader: when you look at it like that, it would be cheaper and more efficient to pluck children at random and send them to boarding school in Switzerland.