Posted on 08/22/2008 2:31:30 PM PDT by reaganaut1
In the contentious world of education politics, the need to spend more on public schools stands out as a rare point of agreement. Our recent national survey of American adults ... found that those who support increased spending on public schools in their district outnumber those who want spending to decrease by a five-to-one margin. [A] solid majority (59 percent) of Americans express confidence that spending more on the public schools in their district will increase student learning.
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Do Americans have an accurate grasp of how much is currently being spent on public education?
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[A]mericans dramatically underestimate the amount spent on the public schools in their district, even when prompted to consider the full range of uses to which school spending is devoted.
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The amount of money actually spent annually on children in school districts across the United States varies widely. For the districts in which our sample members live, per-pupil spending in 2004–05 ranged from $5,644 to $24,939,with an average of $10,377. This last figure is slightly higher than the true national average of $9,435.
How well informed is the public about these financial commitments? Not very. Among those asked without the prompt listing possible expenses, the median response was $2,000, or less than 20 percent of the true amount being spent in their districts. Over 90 percent of the public offered an amount less than the amount actually spent in their district, and more than 40 percent of the sample claimed that annual spending was $1,000 per pupil or less. The average estimate of $4,231 reflects the influence of a small percentage of individuals who offered extremely high figures.
(Excerpt) Read more at hoover.org ...
There have been studies done, which show that some of our big cities such as Washington spend well above the national average in per capita education spending. And yet some of these places have some of the worst student educational achievement and highest drop out rates.
Money should be wisely spent, but the point is, just jacking up education spending with “President” Obama is not going to solve some of the deep seated problems in public education.
Until people realize that pampering students isn’t helping them learn, all that’s going to happen is that Republicans are going to be accused of racism and not caring about students.
I’ve seen studies that say only about 55 cents of every dollar spent on k-12 education actually makes it to the classroom. The rest is eaten up by bureaucracy and support staff. Perhaps we should just fire a lot of those people. What private business could get away with wasting almost half of every customer’s dollar that they spent on services and then continuing to jack rates up every year(ie higher taxes? None. But the government can.
1) Kick out the kids who don’t want to be there and are disturbances
2) Fire the extraneous staff that we can do without
3) Provide vouchers for the per pupil cost of education for children in bad districts like DC.
If I was running the DC schools I would just take the 10 grand or whatever they spend per pupil and give it in a check to the parent(s) of each child, and let them put their kid in a private or public school. It won’t save money, but you know at least the kids stand a much better chance of being educated. God knows it won’t happen in most DC public schools.
4) Break up the teacher unions. They are a cancer on our society and have no place in our school system.
I forgot proposal #5:
Go back to teaching the basics: reading, writing, arithmetic. Then science and social studies, and a foreign language perhaps. None of this feel good mumbo jumbo that seems to consume more and more time in each school day. The politically correct stuff may sound really nice but the kids can sit around and sing kum-ba-ya when they’re out of school. When they’re in school they should be learning.
Perhaps a simple solution might produce the best effects: Simply require that teachers have real degrees in the subjects to be taught, and get rid of that joke called an “education” degree.
If money was th answer then Home schooled children would not be as successful as they are.
MOST home schooling parents do not have the resources to pay their taxes and then still have a lot left over to spend in their own efforts to educate their own children.
That most home schoolers I know personally and there are over a dozen, I would stack them up against any children in the districts that they live in.
MONEY is not the answer. It is in what is taught, how it is taught and why it is taught.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States
Education in the United States
Funding for K-12 schools
Many people have claimed that U.S. public schools are underfunded, but this claim is debatable. According to a 2005 report from the OECD, the United States is tied for first place with Switzerland when it comes to annual spending per student on its public schools, with each of those two countries spending more than $11,000 (in U.S. currency). [14] Despite this high level of funding, U.S. public schools lag behind the schools of other rich countries in the areas of reading, math, and science. [15]
According to a 2007 article in The Washington Post, the Washington D.C. public school district spends $12,979 per student per year. This is the third highest level of funding per student out of the 100 biggest school districts in the U.S. Despite this high level of funding, the school district provides outcomes that are lower than the national average. In reading and math, the district's students score the lowest among 11 major school districts - even when poor children are compared only with other poor children. 33% of poor fourth graders in the U.S. lack basic skills in math, but in Washington D.C., it's 62%. [16]
According to a 2006 study by the Goldwater Institute, Arizona's public schools spend 50% more per student than Arizona's private schools. The study also says that while teachers constitute 72% of the employees at private schools, they make up less than half of the staff at public schools. According to the study, if Arizona's public schools wanted to be like private schools, they would have to hire approximately 25,000 more teachers, and eliminate 21,210 administration employees. The study also said that public school teachers are paid about 50% more than private school teachers. [17]
In 1985 in Kansas City, Missouri, a judge ordered the school district to raise taxes and spend more money on public education. Spending was increased so much, that the school district was spending more money per student than any of the country's other 280 largest school districts. Although this very high level of spending continued for more than a decade, there was no improvement in the school district's academic performance. [18] [19]
According to a 1999 article by William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, increased levels of spending on public education have not made the schools better. Among many other things, the article cites the following statisitcs: [20]
* Between 1960 and 1995, U.S. public school spending per student, adjusted for inflation, increased by 212%.
* In 1994, less than half of all U.S. public school employees were teachers.
* Out of 21 industrialized countries, U.S. 12th graders ranked 19th in math, 16th in science, and last in advanced physics.
In Upstate NY cities, spending per pupil is $14,600 per year - the highest in the country. Yet the City of Buffalo, Syracuse, etc... average a 46% graduation rate.
Increased spending, particularly in teacher and public-sector union dominated states like NY is actually becoming an inverse indicator of performance.
The basic premise of the article is wrong.
My city (Falls Church, VA) claims to spend about $18k/kid/year.
If you dig into the city budget, it is actually about $26k/kid/yr.
Any school district that claims a cost of 10k is lying.
Shout it from the rooftops!
Beyond shocking, anymore. Of course the great big elephant in the room is: who are the parents of these children, and how do their life choices play a role in this abyssmal statistic? See, we're not allowed to ask that question, or even intimate that it might be relevant. And THAT is why we will continue to watch 62% go even higher.
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