Democrats think that taking money from billionaires to throw at problems will magically fix them. One look at public schools should be enough to disprove that theory.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made some waves criticizing socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the city’s public school spending. Bezos claimed that doubling what he paid in taxes wouldn’t help a teacher in Queens, which predictably drew progressive ire like moths to a flame. Mamdani countered, “I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ,” while California billionaire governor candidate Tom Steyer swore that Bezos’s claim was “bulls***.”
If anyone should know that Bezos is correct, it would be those two. New York spends nearly double the national average per pupil on education, yet its students score below the national average in math and average in reading. New York schools lag behind those in Florida, Texas, and Mississippi, even with the Empire State’s better-than-average teacher-to-student ratio and extravagant teacher pay.
Meanwhile, California has more than doubled its education spending since 2013, increasing spending at a rate three times that of inflation and twice the national average. But its math scores have dropped, its reading scores have remained stagnant, and the spending increases come even as California’s public school enrollment has seen severe declines. California already has a tax on the wealthy designed to fund education, to the tune of some $10 billion in revenue per year. That “temporary” tax has been in place since 2012, and California voters will be asked to make it permanent later this year.
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California and New York are not, and will never be, lacking for funds. The Democrats who run those states have made sure of it. But it hasn’t translated into academic success in either state. In fact, the top five states in education spending are New York, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. All five are run by Democrats and are underperforming states that rank among the lowest in education spending, including Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana.
Democrats are more worried about keeping teachers unions pleased and creating useless administrator positions than making sure students are actually learning. Therefore, Bezos is correct; taking more of his (or anyone else’s) money isn’t going to make schools in California or New York more successful. These Democrat-run states and cities have proven that they are wasteful and inefficient when it comes to education and just about everything else.