Drunken school spending.(Scan)

Democrats vehemently accuse George W. Bush of not spending enough money on education. Presidential hopeful John Kerry declares in his book A Call to Service that the Bush administration has "undermined education funding as part of a larger strategy of directing every available school dollar toward tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans." The Bush team has responded by bragging about its generosity, and berating states for leaving $6 billion in federal education aid unspent.

Since 2001, the federal Department of Education's discretionary budget authority has increased by 39 percent. The main program providing federal dollars to schools serving poor children (called Title I) has grown by 52 percent. Title I spending increased more in the first two years of the Bush administration than during the previous seven years under President Clinton.

The reality is, American schools are plenty well-funded. Education spending in the U.S. more than tripled between 1960 and 2000. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that the U.S. spends significantly more on education than any other nation. On a per-pupil basis, the United States spent 66 percent more than Germany, 56 percent more than France, 27 percent more than Japan, 80 percent more than the United Kingdom, and 122 percent more than South Korea for elementary education. High school figures were similar.

Despite all our spending, America ranked 15th among the 31 countries that participated in the OECD's latest reading exam, and 19th of 38 countries in the math exam. Most troubling is that U.S. standing actually deteriorates as students spend more time in school.

Americans are actually spending even more on schools than we think. The accounting guidelines that public schools use would bring smiles to an Enron auditor. Unlike private-sector businesses, public school bookkeeping systems exclude from "current expenditures" such major costs as property acquisition and capital construction.

UCLA business professor Bill Ouchi has calculated that debt service, school construction, and renovation added $2,298 per pupil to ...