Better education through lower taxes

Education tax credits can also be offered directly to middle-income families, cutting taxes on parents who shoulder the cost of their own children’s education. Such direct education tax credits already exist in Illinois and Iowa, and are in use by hundreds of thousands of families.

Both the savings of education tax credits and the costs of public schooling add up quickly. The Colorado Department of Education’s most recent budget document reveals spending of about $13,000 per pupil in 2009-10, notes Independence Institute scholar Ben DeGrow. So it now costs $169,000 to put a child through the K-12 system — far more than double the $77,000 price tag of the mid-1970s, adjusting for inflation.

The defeat of Proposition 103 suggests that Coloradans feel they haven’t got much for the extra $90,000 per student they’re now spending on a K-12 education. And it suggests that they might prefer a reform measure that has been proven to both improve academic achievement and save taxpayers millions of dollars a year.

Andrew Coulson directs the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and is the author of Market Education: The Unknown History.