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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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I almost want to say real education spending has never been tried. Literally though a big issue is the cities with lot of money have powerful teacher unions that just find ways to gobble up the money to their members.

The data is really bad on more money and schools. The one thing that has me seeing a little daylight is it appears Mississippi has actually succeeded at fixing the schools.

They fixed it via ending social promotion and by mandating phonics, right? Did they do anything else? Without looking it up, I would assume their spending is very low by US standards.

I mostly agree spending hasn’t been important in US education. Learning is mostly having a floor of resources and then independently grinding thru a textbook.

But I would still say spending more hasn’t been tried. Because the blue cities turned their schools into job programs.