Obama administration spent billions to fix failing schools, and it didn’t work

No, that isn’t our headline. This comes direct from the Washington Post!

Such candor from the Post regarding one of former President Obama’s signature efforts, the School Improvement Grants program (SIG), is very attention grabbing.

Reports the Post:

“Test scores, graduation rates and college enrollment were no different in schools that received money through the School Improvement Grants program — the largest federal investment ever targeted to failing schools — than in schools that did not.”

I went to the actual report from the US Department of Education that triggered the Post’s article. Here are some findings from Pages 60 through 64 in the report:

1. SIG-funded models had no statistically significant impact on test scores, high school graduation, or college enrollment

2. There were no statistically significant impacts on student outcomes within student and school subgroups

3. In elementary grades, there was no evidence that one model was more effective at improving student achievement than another

4. In higher grades, we found larger student achievement gains in math for the turnaround model than the transformation model, but factors other than the model implemented may explain these differences

Basically, this isn’t a glowing report.

So, another $7 billion of our tax dollars has gone down the education system drain. This shows once again the folly of just throwing tons of money at our country’s education problems while not closely monitoring if that money is really creating improvements. It’s a lesson folks in both DC and Frankfort need to learn, and heed.