K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Education spending skyrockets year after year, but student achievement stays stagnant. “Since the early 1970s, the federal government has tracked the academic achievement of American 17-year-olds. The results have been essentially flat despite the fact that per-pupil spending has more than doubled, even after adjusting for inflation. . . . The average state has seen a three-percent decline in math and verbal test scores, and a 120-percent increase in real spending per pupil.”