Posted on 12/23/2024 9:48:19 AM PST by John Semmens
Results reported for Texas public schools bolster the case for privatization and universal education savings accounts to fund students directly. A study by Vance Ginn, an economist who runs the Texas-based Vance Ginn Economic Consulting firm, found that taxpayers pay over $15,000 per pupil per year for maintenance & operations and over $27,000 for debt service. Meanwhile, the average tuition for private schools is $11,000 per pupil.
State Rep. Glenn Rogers (R-Graford) called the comparison "unfair to the public schools. Private schools can concentrate on education to the exclusion of other concerns. One of the big benefits that public schools have over private schools are their robust investments in athletic facilities like football stadiums and basketball arenas. These facilities are not cheap. However, the taxes levied to build and maintain them are all approved by voters. This tells me that the extra $30,000 per student per year cost at a public school is worth it."
Jorge Borrego, policy director of K-12 Education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Next Generation Texas, questioned Rogers' reasoning, saying "I don't think voters are fully informed by the bond campaigns. Over the past decade, the number of students in the public schools has increased by 5%, the number of teachers by 10%, the number of principals and assistant principals by 39%, and the number of administrative staff by 95%. It seems like administrative bloat to me."
Ginn said "politicians at the state and local levels are forcing Texas taxpayers to over-fund government schools. Funding per student has increased by 42% since 2011, while student proficiency in 8th-grade math has declined by 40%. Every taxpayer is paying more, yet our children are getting less education for those taxes."
"Well, it's been my experience that students like football more than they like math," Rogers observed. "I don't see anything wrong with giving them what they really want."
Once upon a time, we got a good public education back in Arizona, including honors classes the enabled me to skip one year of Chemistry and one term of Calculus at MIT, and to get into MIT in the first place.
Others of my classmates got into Princeton, Smith, and Stanford, and most went to the University of Arizona.
Yes, my high school had a big football stadium, and a big band to play at the games. Good—to each their own.
Now my old high school is not worth very much. And they no longer teach Latin or German, both of which I took.
Private schools seem like a better option. But it would be good to bring back quality public education, somehow!
First you need to get rid of the Department of Education, and woketardian state and district school board members, and DEI administrators/teachers and propaganda textbooks in the anti-American, pro-abortion, pro-sexual perversion, and pro-Demonicrat cesspools of indoctrination.
Put schools of education at the top of that list. All of the bad ideas start there.
The incoming Trump administration plans to get rid of the Dept of Education.
The rest is up to the states. And Arizona’s governor is a low-IQ disaster!
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