Earlier this week, Education Week released their K-12 Achievement Index, updated with the most recent federal data. The score is a comprehensive assessment of student performance which factors in math and reading proficiency at both the 4^th and 8th-grade level, high school graduation rates and advanced placement (AP) levels and test scores.

Nevada fell two spots since the last update, from 38^th to 40^th.

Florida, however, catapulted from an already impressive 11^th to now having the 4^th highest K-12 achievement ranking in the nation!

Florida is also home to what is by far the most expansive school choice program in the nation. So while it’s obviously inappropriate to conclude that a full-throated embrace of school choice is why Florida’s schools perform so well, it would seem to throw cold water on the claims of some that school choice harms education.

(The fact that such claims are made exclusively by those who gain from and are a part of the existing monopoly public school system is also worth considering, as is the vast body of academic literature that finds school choice improves performance, civic engagement, and parental satisfaction.)

In the below chart, I’ve listed the K-12 Achievement Score of each state, as reported by Education Week in their September 2018 update, alongside that state’s 2016 per-pupil spending, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. Those dollar amounts have been adjusted to reflect the different price levels across the states, as calculated by the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Regional Price Parities report.

So while New York’s actual per-pupil spending was $22,366, it is reported as $19,348 in the chart below after accounting for it’s significantly above average cost of living.

Spending v. Achievement

The chart reveals absolutely no correlation between spending and performance, which once again reaffirms the notion that Nevada’s education woes stem more from a broken, top-down monopoly provider, rather than insufficient funding.

Despite this, however, those within the education establishment insist that further increasing Nevada’s per-pupil spending is the only way to improve performance.

It is, therefore, worth noting that an expansion in the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program would do exactly that.

Because those scholarships cost significantly less than the per-pupil amount spent by Nevada’s public school system, each scholarship granted translates into an increase in per-pupil funding for the students who remain in the traditional public school system.

Talk about a win-win. Students get to find a school that suits their needs, while advocates of the status quo get to see if yet another year (I’m at 40 and counting….) of increased funding is finally enough to turn the ship around.

Robert Fellner is policy director at the Nevada Policy Research Institute