Free Republic

Public school administrators say they need more money. They say they don’t have enough money to provide the classroom instruction required by the state. Administrators could well be right about the need to increase funding for instruction, but they’re dead wrong about needing more money. A study commissioned by the Governor’s Business Council finds annual operating costs increased $11 billion dollars from 1997 to 2004. Only $6 billion of this increase can be accounted for by enrollment growth, inflation, and increased costs associated with a growing population of economically disadvantaged students. Yet public schools spent an additional $5 billion above...

Heather Hartz is a sun-bronzed 21-year-old who loves hanging out at the beach with her friends. But this summer the Florida State University student is teaching in the Chicago public schools, working with some of the city's most academically challenged pupils. "This is a great thing to put on my resume," she said enthusiastically before her first day in the classroom. "It's only going to make me a better person." Hartz and 146 other young adults are part of a six-week summer program, just out of its pilot phase, that is one of the Chicago Public Schools' efforts to lure...