This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
In this piece, Manhattan Institute fellow Danyela Souza Egorov takes a look at ballooning public education spending and asks: What are we getting for this money? Her answer may surprise you.
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American K-12 public education spending <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED679904.pdf">reached</a> $1 trillion for the first time in 2024.
But what are students getting for that money?
While <a href="https://edunomicslab.org/roi-over-time/">spending grew</a> by 56% since 2013, reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — known as “the nation’s report card” — declined. Over the next decade, national student enrollment is <a href="https://bellwether.org/publications/how-student-enrollment-declines-are-affecting-education-budgets/?activeTab=2">projected</a> to decline by 5.5%, around 2.7 million students.
There are some bright spots. According to the Georgetown University Edunomics Lab, students in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia have seen <a href="https://us19.campaign-archive.com/?u=179e2a9db6ce62a03ab6a0a74&amp;id=1262a5adf2">some</a> recent gains, with Mississippi <a href="https://www.progressivepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/PPI_Mississippi-Marathon.pdf">leading</a> in reading improvement.
However, most states with increased education budgets have not improved student outcomes, and some have even experienced declines.
What they have done is hire staff. A lot of staff.
K-12 staff <a href="https://edunomicslab.org/staffing-v-enrollment-trends/">grew</a> from 5.9 million in 2014 to 6.6 million in 2024, even as schools served about 1 million fewer students. This disconnect between spending and enrollment has resulted in situations such as a Chicago school <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/chicagos-empty-ghost-schools-teach-us-about-how-system-failing">with</a> 28 staff members for 27 students.
There’s also a Memphis charter <a href="https://www.tnfirefly.com/news/memphis-shelby-county-school-board-renews-public-charter-school-despite-enrollment-of-just-14-students">school</a> that was renewed despite having only 14 students enrolled — it may have helped that the principal is <a href="https://dailymemphian.com/email/23233/view">married</a> to the Memphis-Shelby County Schools superintendent, who is responsible for charter renewal — and 112 New York City schools projected to enroll <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-public-schools-enrollment-zohran-mamdani">fewer</a> than 150 students, effectively creating micro schools and raising per-pupil spending to <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/08/30/us-news/nyc-doe-projected-to-spend-over-42k-per-student-this-school-year-the-most-in-the-country/">approximately</a> $42,000.
But while lots of states are snatching up staff, they’re not all spending money the same way. Take the four largest states — Florida, Texas, California, and New York — which collectively educate 34% of American students.
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The red states are expanding school choice. Florida dedicates nearly 12% of its budget to school choice programs, <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/2026-edchoice-spending-share-rankings">more</a> than any other state. Currently, 53% of Florida students attend a school of their choice rather than the one assigned to them by the government based on their home address. Texas recently passed a bill <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/national-school-choice-week-republican-states">allocating</a> $1 billion to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts, now the largest first-year education savings account program in the country, with over 274,000 students <a href="https://comptroller.texas.gov/about/media-center/news/20260402-texas-comptrollers-office-releases-comprehensive-overview-of-texas-education-freedom-account-applications-1775142014682#:~:text=%E2%80%9CTexas%20didn't%20just%20meet,showed%20up%20in%20record%20numbers.%E2%80%9D">applying</a> in its first year.
Meanwhile, California and New York are moving to limit school choice for families. California previously saw rapid charter school growth, with about 80 new schools <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED558484.pdf">opening</a> annually. However, <a href="https://edsource.org/2019/new-era-for-charter-schools-newsom-signs-bill-with-compromises-he-negotiated/618099">a 2019 law</a> that allowed local school boards to deny charter applications <a href="https://laist.com/news/education/buffeted-by-change-california-charter-schools-continue-to-grow-amid-scrutiny">reduced</a> new charter openings from 80 in 2014 to 12 in 2023.
Similarly, New York has imposed limits on school choice. Statewide, charter schools enroll <a href="https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/migrant-influx-helps-curb-new-yorks-k-12-enrollment-decline/#:~:text=Enrollment%20in%20charter%20schools%20grew,Homeschool">about</a> 7% of students, with higher concentrations in major cities like Buffalo (25%) and New York City (16%), where the number of charter schools has been capped.
This gap may widen next year as states decide whether to participate in the Federal Scholarship Tax program, which offers taxpayers a $1,700 dollar-for-dollar federal tax reduction for donations to scholarship-granting organizations.
Participation requires states to opt in, and neither California Governor Gavin Newsom nor New York Governor Kathy Hochul has done so. As two of the top states in federal tax payments, their nonparticipation could result in California losing $3 billion and New York losing $1.5 billion in potential donations from their residents that will benefit low-income kids in the other 27 <a href="https://www.k12dive.com/news/27-states-opting-into-federal-school-choice-program-IRS-Congress/818087/#:~:text=States%20are%20awaiting%20rules%20defining,building%20is%20pictured%20on%20Feb." target="_blank" rel="noopener">states</a> that have already opted in, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YTP9avQpzmXRpQ96zxQ0w60g81A3cdK8/view" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Democrats for Education Reform. On Tax Day, all four senators from California and New York <a href="https://www.kelly.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/MCG26237.pdf">joined</a> 30 Democrats to propose repealing the program.
Differences in how states allocate the $1 trillion on education resources will continue to influence where families live and how many students can access high-quality education. As David Shor, head of a major Democratic consulting firm, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-david-shor.html">told</a> the New York Times, “education has gone from being basically one of the best issues for Democrats to basically neutral now.”
As red states continue to expand family choice in education spending, Democrats will inevitably face challenges in explaining to voters policies that limit educational options for families.
Danyela Souza Egorov is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

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Schools Received More Money Than Ever. Parents Aren’t Seeing The Results.