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!
Beg pardon, I doubled his tuition for the year. Non-pilot student tuition is around $30K, and it's another $10K for the student pilots.
I thought about this, but then decided that this explanation does not make sense. The state pays the public high school the $6,000 or whatever, per student, then the high school pays the tuition for the student who is attending the junior college. The only benefit that I can see to the state would be not having to subsidize the student's tenure at the junior college after graduating from high school. But there is no guarantee that the student attending the junior college for free while the state pays the high school for him or her will continue on to a state 4-year college, or as a resident of the state and pay taxes, etc., etc. So I still don't understand why the state thinks it is less expensive to pay the high school for the student while the high school pays the junior college for the student, and the student attends the junior college for free.
I actually got a snail-mail fan mail letter for this, today, from a family in FEWFC.
"Thank you for writing what we all have been thinking..."
LOLOLOLOLOL
(Never got fan mail before. GRIN)
you forgot to tell them you're dancing around this place.
this guy is just so darned silly, it's cute :)
Yes, but it is FUNNY! I was expecting hate mail.
Can't wait to see if the schools superintendent responded in tomorrow's paper.
it doesnt surprise me a bit you have fans ;)
You all notice we were out today? I swear to god, it didn't start snowing until 3 and now I'm betting we will be out tomorrow and today was our last snow day. Now we will have to come in Friday of spring break.
She, actually - Dr. Berlin is a woman. Let you know tomorrow.
Paper will be at my house after work on Thursday, we shall see.
LOL.
ask Leda for dad's website - he lives in Clark.
we had tons of snow ..but not plowable snow...poor patton :(
who knows what tomorrow morning will bring. we used up all
of our snow days already and have to make up one already too.
the make up day is 3/30, which was supposed to be a teacher
work day for the end of the quarter.
There is a terrible amount of waste in public school education. I can't find the article I read before about how the vast majority of funds in public schools are spent on special education students. It was something like the average cost per pupil was $12,000, but the average cost per pupil NON-special-ed was like $3500. I can't remember the exact numbers, and it's been a while since I read it, but it was something close to that. Maybe someone else remembers better than I do.
I was also getting a cheeseburger for lunch today when the cashier rang up my bill and somehow the computer didn't tell her how much change to give me. She cursed, said they didn't give her "no calculator", then looked at me and asked, "OK, so your bill was $4.74 and you gave me $5...?" I sighed and told her 26 cents. She's probably got a high school diploma, sad to say. Now HER education was tax-payer money well spent. /sarc
12k is a long way from 26k, don't you think?
The $26k figure included a lot of expenses not included in the $12k figure. They're not comparable numbers and shouldn't be used that way.
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