As my more long-term readers know, one of the MANY irritants for me is the bogus accounting in public school costs.  To hear the educrats and politicos describe it, we heartless taxpayers spend a pittance on education -- "if ONLY we had enough money, we could improve life for 'our kids.' "

Let us put aside the total lack of correlation between the amount of spending and the quality of education.  That's an expose' for another time.  Let's just talk costs.

First off, we are here looking at ONLY the school district per student cost.  Not included in these per pupil costs are the massive spending on redundant county boards of education, the state school bureaucracy and the huge federal education juggernaut.

Below is a superb study by the Cato Institute on this matter.   They ran to ground the real total costs of eduction per student in 18 school districts, including the nation's five largest school districts. And it was not easy to put together.

What they found is that the districts' systematic understatement of funding is consistent.  And the real numbers will only serve to ruin your day.  

Sadly, they didn't do the San Diego Unified School District -- the second largest district in the state.  But it does look at California's largest district -- the LA Unified School District.  Here we find a stunning expose' that gives us some feel for how bad it can get.

The LA Unified staff turns out to be the biggest liars of all the districts studied (or, if you prefer, the most fiscally incompetent/ignorant).  Their claimed per pupil spending is an anemic $10,053 per pupil (anemic by THEIR standards, of course).  But when one looks at all the costs, they are in reality spending a breath-taking $25,208 per kid -- over 2.5 times more more than claimed. That's about TRIPLE the tuition cost for a median priced private school in that jurisdiction.

While I seriously doubt that our local San Diego County area school districts are anywhere near this dishonest, the study did find that -- of the districts analyzed -- the AVERGE real cost per student is about 44% more than the claimed cost.

While the 32 page report is worth reading for some, you MUST read the short summation below, and watch the riveting 3 minute video -- perhaps after first ingesting your favorite recreational drug of choice.

Share with others, of course.  You'll enjoy their responses.

 And never, EVER buy into the canard that California public schools need further tax increases to deliver quality education.

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 CATO INSTITUTE

They Spend WHAT? The Real Cost of Public Schools

by Adam B. Schaeffer

The media often leave out major costs of education and thus understate what is actually spent.

To document the phenomenon, this paper reviews district budgets and state records for the nation's five largest metro areas and the District of Columbia. It reveals that, on average, per-pupil spending in these areas is 44 percent higher than officially reported.

Real spending per pupil ranges from a low of nearly $12,000 in the Phoenix area schools to a high of nearly $27,000 in the New York metro area. The gap between real and reported per-pupil spending ranges from a low of 23 percent in the Chicago area to a high of 90 percent in the Los Angeles metro region.

To put public school spending in perspective, we compare it to estimated total expenditures in local private schools. We find that, in the areas studied, public schools are spending 93 percent more than the estimated median private school.

Citizens drastically underestimate current per-student spending and are misled by official figures. Taxpayers cannot make informed decisions about public school funding unless they know how much districts currently spend. And with state budgets stretched thin, it is more crucial than ever to carefully allocate every tax dollar.

This paper therefore presents model legislation that would bring transparency to school district budgets and enable citizens and legislators to hold the K–12 public education system accountable.

  Download the PDF of Policy Analysis no. 662 (551 KB)
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