This is something people researched for a long time. Either way, you definitely need more than a single counterexample to wholesale claim that there is little relationship between funding and performance. I've linked a couple of studies below; one is a direct rebuttal to a previously done study claiming what you are.[1] Both sides are a little dated, so I've linked a 2016 Rutgers study which directly states in the conclusion that "The idea that 'money doesn't matter' is no longer defensible." [2] I'm sure you can look for additional primary sources in that paper's references.
I'd also like to know where the union was, although I suspect they were working on it or were fighting for other things. As I mentioned before, recovery to even pre-Recession levels has taken a long time even with educator union action, and even then has been uneven across the country[3]. If you're actually interested, I can reach out to those people in my life for more specifics, but it may be a few days before I hear back.
I disagree about the actions that a school administration would take. To me, it's more likely they'd just say "nope, that didn't work" and use them for in-class-only activities for a few years until the machines gave up, rather than spend money on replacements. Because it's a hypothetical, I don't see much of a way forward here, besides just agreeing to disagree.
I immediately notice that the study is funded by the American Federation of Teachers. That makes it credible like a smoking study funded by tobacco companies. This should not be getting served by a .gov web site! I also see that the authors have highly biased credentials, and that none are related to economics or statistics.
It says "Moreover, using models that estimate the spending levels required to achieve common outcome goals, we find that the vast majority of states spend well under the levels that would be necessary for their higher-poverty districts to achieve national average test scores." which is technically true because the needed funding is beyond infinite. No amount of school funding can fix bad students. The study's comment that this "would likely be a multi-generational effort" can be seen as an admission that the funding won't actually work.
The claim that "there is now widespread agreement" that the schools need more money appears to be an argumentum ad populum.
I see a repeated claim that schools serving students with poverty need more money per student. If true, this proves that money is not the problem. Bad students are the problem.
The "progressivity" idea throughout the document is really disgusting. The idea is that problems unrelated to school funding could be fixed by throwing more money at the problem. There is the assumption that we should prefer spending money to educate people who don't want education over spending money to improve the education of people who actually want it. That is wasteful.
BTW, regarding the actions that a school district would take regarding destroyed property, it's not a hypothetical. I think it was last week that I had a teacher explaining it to me, but I can't find the comment right now. The kids were tossing them down stairwells for fun, but I don't remember the brand of hardware. I've also known teachers, not just from my own childhood but as an adult, and it fits. Schools are horribly mismanaged. Bad management shouldn't be rewarded with larger budgets.
I suppose that's fair--funding bias is surely a thing, and may be valid in this case, although I disagree about the actual authors "highly biased" credentials. If someone was interested in education, those are the kind of credentials one would have. It would be like dismissing a civil engineer's opinion about the stability of a bridge, simply because other civil engineers might make money off the repair.
>> "would likely be a multi-generational effort can be seen as an admission that the funding won't actually work.
I squinted pretty hard, and failed to see that admission. I do see an honest acknowledgement that lack of funding builds systemic issues in areas with poor educational systems, which takes time to resolve. "Give all the money overnight and that will fix everything immediately" is completely different from "some extra money to make sure kids actually have pens and paper".
Also, describing "widespread agreement" isn't a logical fallacy in this case, it's a necessary precursor to public policy. Can you imagine setting policy based on the reverse? "Very few experts agree about this topic, so lets do...." It's as important in education policy as it is for choosing the next large particle physics experiment. The article is largely a meta-analysis anyway--describing the current consensus is sort of the point.
>> I see a repeated claim that schools serving students with poverty need more money per student. If true, this proves that money is not the problem. Bad students are the problem.
This sentence and the following paragraph comes uncomfortably close to being a dog-whistle about poor people (and let's be honest, many of whom are people of color) being fundamentally bad students and not worth spending money on because they don't care about learning anyway. I think your logic about what proves what is shallow and flawed, and the sentiment harmful.
I can't prove or disprove your anecdote about kids destroying computers, or how widespread that is, but it's sort of a sidetrack here anyway. There's a spectrum between "every family must pay for private tutors and materials out of pocket for the their children's entire education" and "let's have public schools give free laptops to students to destroy with no consequences". My point is that having thousands of kids in the "go to school but can't be successful because they lack access to the basic materials" part of that spectrum is the wrong answer, and one that is easily fixed by increasing funding for that purpose.
I suppose the fallacy was not a claim of correctness due to actual popularity. It was a claim of correctness due to non-existent popularity. We don't all agree.
Lack of money for pens and paper seems to be fake. Remember that they are dirt cheap. Blowing the budget on computers, then claiming that you can't afford pens and paper, is a great tactic to fight for an unjustified funding increase. When I see millions of dollars being spent on football stadiums, my blood boils. Clearly, the budget is far too large. It is purposely misallocated. You could increase the budget enough to buy every student a ream of paper and a box of pens every day, and there still wouldn't be enough money for pens and paper.
I know a person who taught in a DC school. There is no teaching. Nobody is willing to cooperate. That's how it goes, and no amount of money will fix it.
Spending all our money on bad students will harm society. We need high achievers. We need the gifted. Money spent on the better students is more productive, leading to great engineers and scientists who will produce the civilization-enabling technology.
If you own a trailer home in a bad trailer park, and you also own a cute townhouse in a fashionable neighborhood, where should you spend the money to install a marble floor? Putting the marble floor in the trailer home is a wasted investment.
Calling an article from the Cato Institute, which was published in the Washington Examiner (you know, the same one that published op-eds claiming that most climate models are worthless, by an author who received hundreds of thousands of dollars in fossil fuel company money?) is hardly a less-biased source. And the author's own funding is hardly independent and unbiased.
Lack of money for pens and paper is not fake. I'll link a few articles below to help you, just from this year, but it's not. I mean, it's just not. That's the reality of public schools. I don't know how else to convince you. Feel free to Google News or DDG "lack of school supplies" and you'll hit a ton of additional links from all over the country [1][2][3].
In any case, your last couple paragraphs are getting a little of base, but yeah, it boils my blood to see that much money spent on football stadiums too. No argument there. Yes, programs for the gifted and high-achieving are needed as well. But refusing to get kids the basics of what they need to even start being successful simply because they come from a poor family isn't just unethical, it prevents kids who would otherwise being high-achievers from even getting in the race. That cuts society off at the knees.
Yes, there is "lack of school supplies", but not for lack of money. It's malice or incompetence, probably both.
Imagine that you are a school administrator. If you save money, your budget will get reduced since you obviously don't need it. If you spend the money on pens and paper, things will function OK and people won't vote to increase property taxes. If you blow the money on something else, so that you run out of money for pens and paper, you'll get sympathy and maybe more money.
Well, the solution is obvious. You need to engineer the budget so that you can't afford pens and paper. Buy a new mural. Replace perfectly functional carpeting in your office. Use up the paper by sending junk mail home with the kids. Replace the landscaping. Hire your cousin to seal the pavement.
Paper is $0.011 per page. Pens are $0.0865 each. It costs just $55.17 to give each student a new pen and 20 sheets of paper every single day for the entire school year. California spends over $20,000 per student. DC spends somewhere between $27,000 and $29,000 per student per year.
Just 0.19% to 0.28% of the budget is enough to fund that wasteful amount of pens and paper.
Comparison shouldn't be limited to the USA. Budgets in the USA are way above international norms, even ignoring the poor countries.
I'd also like to know where the union was, although I suspect they were working on it or were fighting for other things. As I mentioned before, recovery to even pre-Recession levels has taken a long time even with educator union action, and even then has been uneven across the country[3]. If you're actually interested, I can reach out to those people in my life for more specifics, but it may be a few days before I hear back.
I disagree about the actions that a school administration would take. To me, it's more likely they'd just say "nope, that didn't work" and use them for in-class-only activities for a few years until the machines gave up, rather than spend money on replacements. Because it's a hypothetical, I don't see much of a way forward here, besides just agreeing to disagree.
[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/003465430660033... (may need to use SciHub, etc. for access)
[2] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED596199.pdf
[3] https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/3-6-19s...