The Costs vs. Benefits of Education

[PoliticalChic]

Figures in the Statistical Abstract of the United States show that we are spending $11,749 per pupil per year in the U.S. public schools, grades pre-K through 12.

In March, the Cato Institute issued a report on the cost of public schools. Policy analyst Adam Schaeffer made a detailed examination of the budgets of 18 school districts in the five largest U.S. metro areas and the District of Columbia.

According to Schaeffer school districts were understating their per-pupil spending by between 23 percent and 90 percent. The school districts cried poor by excluding various categories of spending from their budgets -- debt service, employee benefits, transportation costs and capital costs:

Los Angeles, which claims $19,000 per-pupil spending, actually spends $25,000.
The New York metropolitan area admits to a per-pupil average of $18,700, but the true cost is about $26,900.
The District of Columbia's per-pupil outlay is claimed to be $17,542; the real number is an astonishing $28,170 -- 155 percent more than the average tuition at the famously pricey private academies of the capital region.
School districts also cheat by simple slowness in publishing their budgets, says O'Rourke:

The $11,749 is from 2007, the most recent figure available; it's certainly grown.

The Digest of Educational Statistics (read by Monday, there will be a quiz) says inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending increased by 49 percent from 1984 to 2004 and by more than 100 percent from 1970 to 2005.

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test scores remained essentially the same from 1970 to 2004.

SAT scores in 1970 averaged 537 in reading and 512 in math, and 38 years later the scores were 502 and 515.

American College Testing (ACT) composite scores have increased only slightly from 20.6 (out of 36) in 1990 to 21.1 in 2008.

The extraordinary expense of the D.C. public school system produced a 2007 class of eighth graders in which, according to the NAEP, only 12 percent of the students were at or above proficiency in reading and 8 percent were at or above proficiency in math.
End Them, Don?t Mend Them | The Weekly Standard

 

[Oddball]

Interesting juxtaposition with this recent column from Dr. Walter Williams.

Compare our level of satisfaction with the services of those "in it just for the money and profits" to those in it to serve the public as opposed to earning profits. A major non-profit service provider is the public education establishment that delivers primary and secondary education at nearly a trillion-dollar annual cost. Public education is a major source of complaints about poor services that in many cases constitute nothing less than gross fraud.

If Wal-Mart, or any of the millions of producers who are in it for money and profits, were to deliver the same low-quality services, they would be out of business, but not public schools. Why? People who produce public education get their pay, pay raises and perks whether customers are satisfied or not. They are not motivated by profits and therefore under considerably less pressure to please customers. They use government to take customer money, in the form of taxes.

<snip>

The big difference between entities that serve us well and those who do not lies in what motivates them. Wal-Mart and millions of other businesses are profit-motivated whereas government schools, USPS and state motor vehicle departments are not.

In the market, when a firm fails to please its customers and fails to earn a profit, it goes bankrupt, making those resources available to another that might do better. That's unless government steps in to bail it out. Bailouts send the message to continue doing a poor job of pleasing customers and husbanding resources. Government-owned nonprofit entities are immune to the ruthless market discipline of being forced to please customers. The same can be said of businesses that receive government subsidies.

A MINORITY VIEW

 

[PoliticalChic]

Interesting juxtaposition with this recent column from Dr. Walter Williams.

Compare our level of satisfaction with the services of those "in it just for the money and profits" to those in it to serve the public as opposed to earning profits. A major non-profit service provider is the public education establishment that delivers primary and secondary education at nearly a trillion-dollar annual cost. Public education is a major source of complaints about poor services that in many cases constitute nothing less than gross fraud.

If Wal-Mart, or any of the millions of producers who are in it for money and profits, were to deliver the same low-quality services, they would be out of business, but not public schools. Why? People who produce public education get their pay, pay raises and perks whether customers are satisfied or not. They are not motivated by profits and therefore under considerably less pressure to please customers. They use government to take customer money, in the form of taxes.

<snip>

The big difference between entities that serve us well and those who do not lies in what motivates them. Wal-Mart and millions of other businesses are profit-motivated whereas government schools, USPS and state motor vehicle departments are not.

In the market, when a firm fails to please its customers and fails to earn a profit, it goes bankrupt, making those resources available to another that might do better. That's unless government steps in to bail it out. Bailouts send the message to continue doing a poor job of pleasing customers and husbanding resources. Government-owned nonprofit entities are immune to the ruthless market discipline of being forced to please customers. The same can be said of businesses that receive government subsidies.

A MINORITY VIEW

One lays out the problem, the other compares the first to a free market situation.

The problem is that we will not arrive at the solution that Dr. Willliams implies due to the extraneous, or, rather, additonal factor: the Democrat Party is held in thrall to the educrat taskmasters.