Why does public education cost so much?

Question

I feel that this countries public schools are the biggest waster of funds anywhere except maybe the military.

In my state the average cost of a k-12 grade education is over $10,000 per student per year. Some fantastic private schools charge much less.

I know some of the costs are associated with things like students getting free breakfast, free lunch and those students who don't even know english but this is still absurd.

One small district here in WA spends OVER $40,000 per student per year!

That is insane - is there any reasonable explanation?

Answer 1

The private schools I know cost much more, especially the fantastic ones.

Free meals are generally paid for by state and federal programs, so they add little to school costs. School construction costs a great deal. The cost of maintaining a facility inhabited by hundreds or thousands of energetic kids 5 days a week is huge. Add in the salaries and benefits of teachers, custodians, groundskeepers and office staff and the costs goes up. District offices to coordinate all this and provide the endless reports required by government add more. Paying for lights, heat, etc. is very expensive. Textbooks for one child can cost up to $500, and kids are hard on books. They rarely last more than a few years. Everyone wants to see more computers in schools, and they are hugely expensive. Plus the costs of networking, online access, software, maintenance, etc. I could go on and on.

I think if you spent a few days going over the budget of any typical school, you would marvel at how much they do with so little. If you look at how much the government spends on education, it's actually far less as a percentage of spending than it used to be, and far less tahn most developed nations. There's a reason why our kids don't do as well on standard tests as kids from Japan, Denmark, Switzerland or many other countries.

As the bumper sticker says: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

Answer 2

I am a child care provider, and it costs about $8,320 for a full time child in our care with a 1:8 staff to child ratio. Even at this rate, we are struggling to keep our doors open with the high cost of utilities, mortgage, property tax etc. This is paying our staff a less than "living wage" and no benefits. So, I can understand why the cost of public education is so high. They have to pay salaries plus benefits, and salaries typically have to be agreed on by a Union. Private schools and some charter schools don't have to pay staff union wages. Public schools have extra administrative costs that really add up and State and Federal mandates that are not funded enough. They also have facilities to keep up - unfortunately in many cases the facilities are so old and decrepit that it takes lots of money to just keep it safe. I do think that the teachers should be paid at least as much as the administrative staff - and that Superintendents are paid way too much (those of you with a positive CEO mentality will disagree). I think that school board members should be volunteers except for extra meetings and reasonable expenses - many districts pay them quite well. I wish there were a way that teachers and students could reap the benefits of funding more than facilities and administration.

Answer 3

Public schools can be expensive, and some savings can be achieved. The question is whose salary would you cut? Which programs would you eliminate. Remember as you cut programs, you make enemies who will vote against you in the next election.

Public education is less expensive than prisons which cost from $25k to $40k per inmate per year. Same for those on welfare. Depending on the state 60-70% of those in prison or on welfare are high school dropouts.

Answer 4

In my school district they spend $6,400.00 per student on paper but it is actually much less.The schools are all over crowded and have undocumented children so it more like $4,200.00 per kid.Schools will actually encourage students to embellish those school lunch forms because that is additional NCLB federal government funds the school needs.I would love to live(rent) in a school district that spends that much on educating a child but I would never be able to afford a home in that district.The real estate taxes alone would kill me.I am paying $2,400.00 now.

Answer 5

It's called "bureaucracy", and is the reason I believe the government needs to be shrunk down greatly.
However, I disagree on the military comment. The Constitution stated taxation could be used to maintain a military. No such mention was made for the other hundreds of government programs we taxpayers support.

Answer 6

most of the money is into administration and infrastructure. Also money is paid to retired people.