Posted on 02/26/2007 8:20:35 PM PST by patton
This morning, I was waiting with my five-year old daughter at the bus stop, for her daily commute to Kindergarten on the cheese wagon. Our golden retriever waited with us, being her usual hyperactive self.
While we waited, two things of note happened - first, there was a spectacular car wreck at the light a block down the street. Cops arrived in mere moments, the ambulance a few minutes later, as they should. Good for us - we have excellent city services. Prayers for all involved - I hope their injuries are not too serious.
Then, a city work crew showed up, lined their trucks up across from the bus stop, and proceeded to offload their equipment.
The bus was delayed by the car crash, so while the police sorted things out, we watched the city crew get to work.
Snowblowing the city park.
"I beg your pardon?", you are thinking.
Snowblowing the city park.
Hmmm. Perhaps we have too much government.
Anyway, Kelly got on the bus, and I went on with my day, with a burning curiousity about what, exactly, we are paying for, in our little Virginia city of 10,000 residents.
A web search was in order.
First, the schools - we have a city-wide K-12 enrollment of 1863 kids. Dividing the schools budget by that number, we spend $21,000 per kid for education each year.
But wait - we just built a new school, at a cost of $30.8 million. I called the city comptroller, and he informed me that loan is being paid off like a mortgage, at about $3m per year. Add another $2000/kid each year, as this is in the city budget, not the school budget. Hmmm.
Armed with this tidbit, I glanced at the rest of the city budget, to see what else was in there.
Another $2000/kid per year, for things like maintenance of the school rec fields, by the parks department.
So, from what I could find on the web during lunch, sending a kid to kindergarten in Falls Church, VA, costs about $25,000 per year, per kid.
I could not find data on the mandatory-until-12-years-old after-school daycare, or on the assorted fees paid directly by parents (e.g., I paid $150 for my 17 year old to park at the HS), and, ironically, the cost of snow removal from the schools.
But let us assume this averages another $1,000/kid, per year.
We are in the ballpark of $26,000 for a kid in kindergarten.
For reference, Harvard tuition is $30,500 per year. So public school kindergarten in my city is cheaper.
But just barely.
The very exclusive private school Al Gore attended in DC, when his dad was a Senator, currently charges $19,000 per year.
Wow. That is cheaper than kindergarten in Falls Church!
Of course it's less expensive than public school, CC credits usually cost somewhere around $70. It was $50 for me... I got two years of my college education for 3k, and it all transferred to my four-year school.
PAGE 2! LOL. Printed as a letter to the editor, but they printed it.
It is not the teachers - frankly, they are underpaid (the good ones).
From what I figgured out, 39% of the budget goes to teachers and facilities.
THE OTHER 69% is OVERHEAD!
Somebody need to do some requiremnts defintion, IMHO. Why do we pay for all this crap?
Madiera, the ONLY private school in the DC area that costs more than public school, includes dressage lessons. WTFO?
On the other hand, my wife (leda) has a MS in SpED, 15 years classroom experience, changes diapers on teanagers, etc., serves as a teacher consultant, works till 8 pm often, has had to deal with parents who send lawyers to parent teacher conferences, you name it.
She makes so little, it would shock you. For the DC area, if she were a single mother, she would be on food stamps.
It is not the teacher cost in our Ao, it is the dang overhead costs.
(VA has no collective bargaining for teachers.)
(And that is a good thing.)
Sooo...does our HS really need to offer golf lessons?
I see some things where we might say, "Yes, but..."
And that is the problem.
Nobody ever says, "We could do that, but do we want kindergarten to cost more than a year at harvard?"
All Harvard students receive a subsidy - even students who do not qualify for need-based aid receive a substantial subsidy, or implicit scholarship, from the university because the price charged covers only about two-thirds of the cost to Harvard for the education provided. The remaining third is paid for largely by endowments and gifts
so yes, the public schools are inefficiently educating your kids, but equating the cost with a private school education is not accurate. i say be happy you aren't coughing up any more than your tax dollars. if you want to pay for the private school education, you can do so : )
I talked to Dr. XX at work, who has PhDs from both Harvard and MIT.
He says Harvard is about $70k per student per year, really.
But, still. As taxpayers, we can either give each kid a voucher to go to ST. Anselm's, or, for a measly $7k more, send them to public school.
Would you have appreciated a $20k per kid per year education voucher?
That is a lot less than the public schools cost, in FC.
I think it would take a platoon of forensic accountants to decifer what it costs for a public education in DC.
I would not try it.
But given that the schnooze printed it - how many folks are going, "Do say what?"
LOL. That earned me some credit, somewhere.
i have always been in favor of vouchers and i guess since my kids have never gone to public school i am just perplexed that people haven't been aware of the huge ripoff that's been going on for forever. if catholic/private schools just decided to close their doors and their students appeared on the public school doorstep tomorrow, demanding their education, they might have to scramble a bit to find somewhere to put them and decide how they are going to afford to educate them... i guess i am just not understanding your point bc i thought it was obvious and everyone knew it already. i missed the article, i have no access to the FCNP except for the orthondontist ofc and we aren't due there for another month.
Good on you. Can I suggest that you write this all down on paper, and walk door to door delivering this information. Then run for school board, and require that all funds being spent are revealed to the community. Here I thought it was about $6000 a year to educate a child.
By the way, does anyone know the cost of a child at the Hillsdale Academy in Michigan?
I am writing a paper for class, Public Education vs. Vouchers.
Guess where it is going. LOL.
I think we could easily give every kid in the US, from K to 12, $20k a year for school, and save BILLIONS.
But that is just me.
Better than going door-to-door, I got it published on page 2 of the local liberal rag. LOL.
oh ok, so you only came to this realization because a class made you focus on it! we have known this for years, so i kept trying to figure out exactly what your point was!
No, that is not correct.
I knew we were getting rode hard and put away wet, the class just inspired me to go see how hard.
And it was worse than I imagined.
I told our chief scientist in STL about this yesterday, how Madiera provides a better education for the student, and the HORSE, for about the same price...
He said, "So you are telling me, you want a pony?"
Well, yeah. LOL. I want a pony.
I want to send my kids to catholic school, for a fraction of the cost of public school.
And I want my taxes to go down.
And I want a pony.
It's "Madeira" and that's cheap. I just checked this year's tuition for boarding students at my prep school - $41,535. Maybe the fees at Madeira were just for day students.
I can't spell in multiple lnguages, you know. In fact, in all of them. LOL.
Yes, I used the day student rate for comparison - does your public school provide room and board? Mine doesn't.
Thank heavens - what would that cost...and how bad would it mess up our kids...
well good luck with that... ; )
Okay, then, that's comparable. My school listed day tuition as $29,820 for this year. And the stables provide horses, but they don't GIVE you a horse. At my school, you could take riding as part of the phys. ed. program, and either use the school's horses, or bring your own from home and board it there, for a pretty hefty fee.
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