New National Poll Shows U.S Taxpayers Not Happy Investing In Public School

A new national poll shows an overwhelming number of American voters don't believe taxpayers are getting their money's worth from public schools.

The U.S. spends about $9,000 a year per student on education -- and according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll, 72 percent of voters say it is a bad return on investment for taxpayers. Scott Rasmussen, founder and president of Rasmussen Reports, admits he was taken back by the numbers.

"I was surprised at just how strong the reaction was that people don't think taxpayers are getting a good return on their investment," he tells OneNewsNow. "There's two sides to the investing discipline in our lives: one is having the discipline to set the money aside, and the other is investing it wisely.

"If you set your retirement money aside and gave it to Bernie Madoff, you're not doing very well these days," he continues, "and that's kind of the way people are looking at some of the money going into education at this point."

Rasmussen summarizes another aspect of the poll's findings. "We also asked if more money was spent on education, would that improve student performance -- [and] only about 1 out of 3 said 'yes,'" he shares.

"So [there's] a lot of concern about the results of all this education spending. People don't mind putting the money aside, but they're not happy with what's coming back."

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