re:  "Raise Your Hand Texas" and Budget Cutting

In a half-page advertisement advocating against cuts in the Texas education budget (Tuesday, A3), a group called "Raise Your Hand Texas" uses a non sequitur to make its point:  they cite an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) assessment in which the United States ranked 31st worldwide in mathematics performance, and a Financial Times article showing Texas ranking "44th out of 50 states in spending per pupil."

Some very important information is left out:  while US student performance is lagging compared to students in other OECD members (a.k.a. the "industrialized countries), US expenditures are among the highest on a per-pupil basis compared to those same countries.  In fact, the country whose students rank 1st "in math worldwide" was Finland.  According to the OECD's "Education at a Glance 2009" report, the United States spends nearly $3300 more per pupil than does Finland — over 43%.  Additionally, the same report also shows that the US spends a greater percentage of its national wealth on education than any other industrialized nation except Iceland.

Nobody is discounting the importance of a quality education to promoting a more prosperous society.  To suggest, however, that the problem is simply spending is to ignore the results seen elsewhere in the world.  The facts suggest that the problems facing the American education system is not suffering from a shortage of cash.

Sincerely,
Dave Smith
Houston, TX