Ben Stein’s economics teacher in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” asked his class, “Anyone? Anyone?” and got silence. Forty years later, I’d like an answer to a similar question, and the tab has grown. Public schools spent a record $17,619 per student in fiscal 2024, before adjusting for inflation. The seniors tested that year posted the lowest reading and math scores the Nation’s Report Card has ever reported for their grade.
I’m a father of three sons and a longtime youth sports coach. I’ve learned to read a scoreboard. This one shows spending climbing and results sinking, while the largest teachers’ unions spent the decade on politics. A pattern isn’t proof of cause, so I’ll lay out the evidence and let you grade it.
Begin with the scores. Fourth and eighth graders read about as well as they did in the early 1990s, and that slide began before the pandemic. Among seniors, 45 percent fell below the basic level in math and 32 percent in reading, the largest shares ever recorded. Eighth grade math fell 8 points between 2019 and 2024, and no state posted a gain.
Money didn’t fix it. A Texas A and M research center found that inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending rose 20.4 percent between 2003 and 2022. In 36 states, spending went up while eighth-grade math and reading scores both finished below their 2003 marks. Six states improved in both subjects. State comparisons can’t prove cause, but they make the “just add dollars” theory hard to defend.
So where did the dollars go? EdChoice economist Ben Scafidi found that from 1950 to 2009, enrollment grew 96 percent while full-time school employees grew 386 percent. He later reported that inflation-adjusted teacher salaries fell 2 percent after 1992. Critics at the National Education Policy Center claim achievement and dropout rates have improved.
Two economists tested the union angle directly. Johnathan Lott and Lawrence Kenny measured each state’s teacher union strength by dues per teacher and union spending per student, then found lower proficiency rates in states with stronger unions. The data are observational, and the authors argue the mechanism is political money buying influence over the rules schools live under. It’s the closest test of my thesis I could find.
Follow the money. The North American Values Institute, a watchdog that tracks ideological activism in education, reports that the NEA spent at least $547 million on political activity and advocacy from fiscal 2016 through 2025. That combines $458.9 million filed as political activity and lobbying, including $116.9 million to the union’s own super PAC, with $88.2 million to groups the institute calls progressive advocacy. The AFT reported another $383.2 million in political activity and lobbying. The institute has a viewpoint, and the spending is legal. A September Senate HELP Cmte report says about 10 percent of the NEA’s $450 million budget goes to representing members.
Priorities also show up in outcomes. A Harvard, American Institutes for Research and NWEA study of 2.1 million students found that high-poverty schools that stayed remote more than half of 2020-21 lost about half a school year of typical growth, while math gaps held steady largely in-person districts such as Texas and Florida. In early 2021, AFT leaders reviewed draft CDC reopening guidance before its release, and Weingarten denies any conspiracy. The study doesn’t blame union political spending, but it does show what closures cost the children who could least afford them.
Then there’s the classroom door. This past July, the AFT adopted a resolution rejecting state policies that require schools to notify parents about a student’s gender identity, which it calls forced outing. Its aim is student safety, and some families may agree. I believe a parent has a right to know what happens to their child at school. In Ludlow, Massachusetts, parents sued over a school policy that kept a middle schooler’s chosen name and pronouns from them. They lost, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case in April, which settles nothing on the merits.
Classroom advocacy is documented, too. On December 6, 2023, 75 to 100 Oakland teachers held an unsanctioned teach-in. The local union said 60 percent of its representatives voted to proceed, and some speakers urged students to boycott Israel-based companies. The superintendent called the materials “harmful and divisive.” The district later declined to discipline anyone.
Defenders will say money matters, and the best evidence is real. Economists Kirabo Jackson, Rucker Johnson and Claudia Persico found that court-ordered spending raised long-run outcomes, but only when it funded smaller classes, higher teacher pay and more school days. How the money gets spent decides the result. I agree. Dollars that reach classroom teachers can work. The staffing numbers show where much of the recent money went instead.
Florida offers a hint of the alternative, with caveats. Its fourth graders outscored the nation in 2024 in math, 243 to 237, and in reading, 218 to 214. Its eighth graders didn’t, scoring 267 in math against a national 272, down 12 points since 2019. State NAEP results cover only public- school students, so they miss the private and home-school students in Florida’s choice programs. I’d call that suggestive and unsettled.
Here’s what I’d do. Make unions publish political spending in plain language where every member can read it, since NAVI says routing money through political intermediaries makes dues harder to track. Let teachers opt in for political funding instead of opting out. Fund students instead of systems; more than 30 states already let families use public dollars for private tuition and other options. Tie non-instructional hiring to enrollment until reading recovers. Pay the people who teach.
Epictetus held that your business is “to act well the character assigned you.” The unions were assigned to represent teachers. The schools were assigned to teach children reading, writing, and arithmetic. Parents have no payroll stake in either, which qualifies us to ask the question nobody wants to answer. At your next school board meeting, ask it. Anyone? Anyone? How many of our children can read and write?
Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management. He writes about issues in finance, constitutional law, national security, human nature, and public policy.