Starving public education

To the Editor:

In the The Sunday New York Times on Oct. 30, Ross Douthat inadvertently made the case for more public school funding. He wrote:

“Then there’s the public education system, theoretically the nation’s most important socio-economic equalizer. Yet even though government spending on K-to-12 education has more than doubled since the 1970s, test scores have flatlined and the United States has fallen behind its developed-world rivals.”

I checked the cumulative inflation rate and the 1970 U.S. population: $6 today is worth what $1 was worth in 1970 and the 1970 U.S. population was 205 million and is now 309 million. Therefore, if we use his figures, we are starving the public education system today.

Alfred Moskowitz, retired