It is nice to see teachers dedicated enough to spend their own money on school supplies, with which this home-schooler can empathize, though I have the added indignity of paying property taxes for schools I don’t use.
The real problem here isn’t lack of funding, however, it’s that the bulk of U.S. education dollars never land in the classroom in the first place. With average per pupil expenditures topping $10,000, and average class size around 20 students, we’re looking at $200,000 per classroom. Most of that isn’t being spent on teacher salaries or materials.
Where does it go? Ask an Assistant Superintendent for Educational Quality in Ypsilanti, Michigan (price tag: $108,000 per year), or a Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Safety and Security in the Office of School and Youth Development in New York ($106,200 salary), or a Deputy CEO for Human Capital in Chicago ($104,000 salary). Just as spending per classroom has gone up and up for decades, so has the number of non-teachers infesting America’s school systems with their six-figure salaries. And student performance, meanwhile, has stagnated.
Coincidence?
School spending is a post from: Sand in the Gears