Hidden, Now Revealed: the True Cost of Public Schools
The Cato Institute has an informative new video out about the cost of public schools…and the hidden costs of public schools. The per-pupil spending in the average public school is staggering enough (especially when you consider how little homeschool parents spend per-pupil and manage to out-perform their public school peers).
But as this presentation will show, there are considerably more hidden costs that even the published figures seldom reveal.
Throwing more money at public education (which is the only number liberals can sing) is a waste not only of the taxpayer’s money, but of the student’s time and potential.
From the video description:
What is the true cost of public education? According to a new study by the Cato Institute, some of the nation’s largest public school districts are underreporting the true cost of government-run education programs.
Cato Education Analyst Adam B. Schaeffer explains that the nations five largest metro areas and the District of Columbia are blurring the numbers on education costs. On average, per-pupil spending in these areas is 44 percent higher than officially reported. Districts on average spent nearly $18,000 per student and yet claimed to spend just $12,500 last year.
It is impossible to have a public debate about education policy if public schools can’t be straight forward about their spending.
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This is startling, but not surprising. Americans are beginning to ask questions about what the government does with our money and as we learn more we'll discover that exampes like this are the rule rather than the exeption. Medicare claims that administrative costs are only 3%, but this number is arrived at with some very fuzzy math that excludes costs from dozens of other agencies that suck at the Medicare/Social Security teat.
http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/wm2...
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf...
Thank you, Mr. Ellis for bringing this to our attention, even though I wanted to pull my hair out. My initial thoughts were expressed by Dr. Theo. I wouldn't be surprised if a good portion of these costs go directly to the education unions. Maybe we should call public schools, “private” schools, and private schools, “public”? Accountability would be nice for once.
You're welcome, Ryan. I'm glad you found it informative. I consider education to be of the utmost importance just as the Founders did, but given the sad quality of the product coming out of public schools, and seeing what homeschoolers accomplish on a fraction of the budget, it's maddening to me every time I hear that we “must throw more money at the public schools” to fix the education problem. As this report illustrates (D.C. in particular), no amount of money will overcome the real problems we face.
Very well said, thanks again. Even though, it's maddening and very frightening. America, wake up.