Across Atlantic Canada education costs are on the rise. Between 1999 and 2010, per student education costs increased by more than 70% in all four Atlantic provinces.
One reason for this phenomenon is that even as school enrollment has been declining over the past 15 years, the number of educators in our school has continued to increase. Resources continue to flow into less than full schools, with expanding bureaucracies and rising salaries. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that all of this extra spending has led to improved educational performance for students.
The fact that student performance is not rapidly improving, despite much higher levels of per-student spending, shows that we can’t fix our schools just by throwing money at the problem. Instead, meaningful policy reform is needed to ensure that we’re spending smart and investments in our education system lead to better educational outcomes.