I’ve been considering starting a grass-roots political movement to battle tax increases to fund government schools. Enrollment has been steady or declining, in the district I reside in, it has been declining since 1985, and for according to their 2006-2007 budget it was estimated that they would have 111 fewer students than the previous year. Regardless, they insist on more money. Across the country, this is not unusual. More and more parents are choosing private schools or are home schooling, and the government schools continue to insist that they need more money. Meanwhile the teachers unions remain the largest and most powerful political force in this country, and they ensure that their own retain their jobs regardless of productivity or the quality of their teaching, and make it nearly impossible to fire teachers that don’t perform. All this results in a declining quality of the education received from government schools.
A quick perusal of the 2006-2007 budget that is posted on the website of the district I reside in shows just how much money they brought in for the school year that just ended.
EXPENDITURE BUDGETS FOR ALL FUNDS
2006-2007 – $190,593,638Marginal cost pupil units are projected at 15,829.
Student / teacher ratios range from 27.5 to 30.5 for the elementary schools, 21.5 for the middle schools and 25 for the high schools.
Doing a little extrapolating from those numbers, that’s a total per-pupil expenditure of $12,040.79 for the 2006-2007 school year. Per classroom expenditures for elementary school averages out to be between $331,121.68 and $367,244.04 – assuming that per-pupil expenditures are equal for all students regardless of what school in the district they attend or what grade they are in. For middle schools, the average is $258,876.95 and for high schools the average per classroom expenditure is $301,019.71 (A classroom being defined as one teacher and 27.5 – 30.5 students in the elementary level, 21.5 for middle school, and 25 for high school.)
Rumors are that they will be putting forth a bond or levy referendum this fall. With per-classroom expenditures hovering around $300,000 per year, and figuring that the buildings themselves are, for the most part, paid for (new construction accounted for 10% of the budget), I can’t see how they can possibly justify asking for more money. Give me $300K/year and 25-30 kids and I will make sure they are ready for the Ivy League by the time they are 18 years old.
That was maybe an hour’s worth of digging. With more time, I am sure I could find more damning numbers.
I really want to see a resource become available that would allow people to very quickly find out this kind of information for their own district, wherever they might be. I can’t imagine it would be hard to get bond and levy referendums voted down with this kind of information in the hands of the voters of any district. When you put it in per-classroom terms, it is clear that, if anything, the schools have far too much money, and even the most naive homeowner who only wishes the best for the kids in his neighborhood would have a hard time voting to raise his own taxes in this light.
It’s amazing how everything that we allow the government to run goes straight to the pot. Take a look at the joke that we call the United States Postal Office. I know that here are a lot of issues that come allong with the prospect of free market in the school system, but the beauty of capitolism is that the money is the driving force for each company to put out the best possible product, therefor driving up the quality. IS there some way that this concept can be applied to the school system.
I don’t really know how wide spread it is, but in Michigan we have the “School of Choice” prgram. The basic premis is that if the district you reside in is not up to par by your standards, you can send your child to any other near-by school district. Of course, you must give up benifits such as transportation and the district you wish to send your child to must have opennings. I think this is a good comprimise. The Education is still public, (and free.) And the districts have an insentive to raise the quality of their “product.” If they provide a better education than the next district over, they get more students, which translates to more tax dollars being funneled to that district.
We have that here in Minnesota too. We call it “open enrollment”. In theory it’s a good idea, but in practice it is underutilized to the point of having no real effect on the quality of the schools. Generally, if people care enough to put their kid in a particular government school, they will move within that school’s enrollment area. I have known people who have taken advantage of it, my neighbors do, but they are extremely rare. Transportation, as you mentioned is an issue. My neighbors are not allowed to walk their son two blocks west to get on a bus that goes to a school in another district, they have to drive him.
The biggest problem, however, is that sending your kid to another government school is like buying stamps at a different post office. It will not affect the quality of education of either the school your kid goes to or the school he would go to if not for open enrollment in the slightest. The teachers unions have more power than any other lobbying group in the world, and they are allowed to run the show at every level of government. Change is resisted heavily, and accountability is non-existent. This is why I’d love to put together a database that would allow people to easily see how much money is being dumped into the schools in a way that they can understand. $8 million/year to a particular school is an academic number, as is $12,000/year per student. However, $300,000/year per classroom sure makes things easy to understand though. As people start to see this, they will be more likely to resist any and all tax increases intended for the government schools. It also makes it easier to understand why private schools can succeed with so much less money than the government schools claim to need. Not only are they better at making good use of limited funds, but they are accountable for everything they do and every dollar they spend. When government school students leave, the money stays with the school, allowing them to spread it out among fewer students.However, when a private school student leaves, their tuition dollars go with them.