Flushing Test Scores: Why Money Won’t Fix Failing Schools

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Chris Markowski rips into America’s broken education system, where spending has surged 56% since 2013 but test scores are circling the drain. From flatlined reading and math results to the COVID-era collapse, he argues that the problem isn’t money—it’s culture, parenting, and priorities. Throwing more dollars per student won’t solve anything if parents don’t care and kids are glued to their phones.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact that we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, we did sound effects on this program. M'd be
flushing a toilet right now, because that's where test scores
are for our kids in public schools across the country. Here,
the numbers are, I mean amazing. Okay, let's first, let's
talk about the money. Go back to twenty thirteen. Spending

(00:40):
spending on education here in the United States is up
fifty six percent sixteen seven hundred dollars per student. That's
where we're at, up fifty six percent. Inflation since twenty
thirteen's up about thirty five percent. No, let's go to

(01:01):
the test scores. Twenty sixteen rat was a year they
just really started to tank. Reading scores were flat from
like twenty thirteen to wait, about two thousands right about
twenty seventeen, and then it just started going down, and
most certainly during COVID it really hit the skids. Math

(01:23):
as well, pretty much flat lined to twenty seventeen and
then double diamond ski slop. These numbers are brutal, brutal,
and you would think, you would think that they might
start to improve, you know, after we get through COVID.

(01:46):
But no, no, And again his little word to the wise,
to everybody out there that thinks that money is going
to solve your your education problems, the biggest bunch of
nonsense ever heard in my entire life. There are there
are good school districts. There are bad school districts. The

(02:06):
good school districts are the ones where the parents care,
period the end. Okay, you know you can conduct this experiment. Okay,
you know what, I have a you know, grab the
best school too, best teachers you've got supposedly have their
peers vote on them, take that whole lot of them
and put them into some crappy school district somewhere where

(02:28):
the parents don't give a damn and see how well
they do. Good luck with that. Okay, you could you
could throw you could throw it. You can spend twenty
five thousand dollars per student change anything. Ain't gonna change
a damn thing. And yeah, yeah, it's you know, has

(02:50):
has social media helped? Has phones made it more difficult?
And the irony of the entire thing is that phones
are powerful devices if you use them properly. You use
them to look things up that you don't know. You
could be walking along somewhere and see some historic building
and you want to you could, You could take a

(03:12):
picture of it. You can learn about what happened there
at what point in time. But no, you have people
who are to take a picture a little picture of myself. Dumb, dumb.
And again the argument I'm gonna throw us out there
as well, the argument out there that that the schools
shouldn't take the phones as soon as the kids walk
in damn straight right away. Of course it's a distraction.

(03:39):
And know your kid doesn't need it. For crying out
loud to is I went to school and we didn't
have phones back then, and we all made it out alive.
Watchdog on Wall Street dot com