Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Cato Documents Failure Of Public Education
As a new school year approaches policy analysts at my favorite think tank have been focused like laser beams on documenting the inherent structural problems with public education. Mark Harrison lists it's 7 deadly sins :
Today, John Wenders estimates that 35% of public educational expenditures in this country are wasted:
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It wastes resources, discourages good teaching, inhibits parental involvement, suppresses information, stifles innovation, creates conflict and harms the poor.I would add to this list the fact that, at least in many inner cities, it is safer for a parent to keep their child at home then to send them to school.
Today, John Wenders estimates that 35% of public educational expenditures in this country are wasted:
In the topsy-turvy world of public education, the incentive is for efficient, low-cost schools to imitate the less efficient, high-cost schools by spending more. The result is that U.S. public education is greatly over-funded. Public school per-pupil costs are roughly 40 to 45 percent higher than those of private schools. When we take into account the larger number of private elementary schools and further adjust for special ed, the difference narrows to about 36 percent.Most of these funds are tied up in labor:
Over the period 1980-2000, national student enrollment grew by 15.5 percent, but total school employment grew by 37.4 percent, and teachers grew by 35.2 percent. Public schools now have about one employee for every 6.5 students, and teachers make up only 40 percent of school employees. Our public schools have become vast jobs programs, reminiscent of the Depression era WPA, rather than educational institutions.This excessive spending is nothing to wink at since it equates to $141 billion a year, which I would guess is more than sufficient to buy every school-aged child a voucher so that they can attend the private or public school of their choice.
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