This is a terrible trend, but unions and Democrats want to keep American children in a failed system.
![](http://cdn.pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/coulson_nat_ed_trends_chart_sept_2014.gif)
Data suggest that our educational productivity has collapsed: the inflation-adjusted cost of sending a student all the way through the K-12 system has almost tripled while test scores near the end of high-school remain largely unchanged. Put another way, per-pupil spending and achievement are not obviously correlated.