My article was "Santorum's shifting views on education" from fox news. While some of this article focused on the presidential primary, the body of the article concentrated on government spending for public education. Santorum shows that he thinks less spending should be used for public schooling inferring that the education multiplier is not adequate. He instead believes we should be looking for support from parents in enhancing public schools in America. While Santorum's ideas may seem to be politically based it does ask a very good question. How much can increased government expenditures increase SAT performance if parents and students are not motivated?

This question present a kink in my analysis. It would be very useful for me to look into what motivated the parents and students. Is it purely a social phenomenon or can specific government finances shift this motivation. For example spending on new facilities can increase the motivation for the students to do better. From out readings in Chapter 4 it is safe to assume spending cannot directly influence motivation.

To help answer this question maybe we should look into non-financial based help the government can support. For example advocating a public service announcement instilling the importance of higher education. Finally there seems to be no one answer to the dilemma presented by Santorum. At the end of the day many districts are stuck in a poverty trap. Poor facilities combined with low motivation, due to unseen benefits, keeps many school districts under performing.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/01/spin-meter-santorums-shifting-views-on-education/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fnational+%28Internal+-+US+Latest+-+Text%29