Money For... NothingSubmitted by MQSullivan on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 10:19am.
Texas' public education spending continues to inspire little confidence, with reports today that the SAT scores remain flat to declining even though fewer kids took the test in 2009. The Fort Worth Star Telegram reports Texas' kids scored just one point better on the math portion of the test, while the reading and writing sections dropped by as much as five points. For this we have increased the amount of money flowing to the bureaucracy by 113 percent since 1998? According to financial data available from the Texas Education Agency, expenditures on public education in 1998 were $27.8 billion -- $5,597 per pupil. In 2008, public education spending was at $9,998 per kid, or $46.5 billion in total. So we spent $27.8 billion in 1998 to achieve an average SAT score of 992. A decade later, increasing spending by 113 percent (or 78.6 percent more per pupil) and SAT scores have remained flat. Where is the money going? Not to the classroom. Despite spending $9,998 per pupil on public education in 2008, only $4,500 was actually spent per pupil on instruction. That's because we have 31 percent more non-teachers on the public school payroll than we did in 1998. There is a one-to-one ratio between teaching and non-teaching full-time employees. So while we have many wonderful teachers in the classroom, they increasingly cannot teach because of the stifling bureaucracy over them. We talk about the problems of teachers being required to "teach to" the test, but ignore the inherent lack of teaching that occurs when teachers have to report to so many bosses, none of whom are (demonstrably) adding value to instruction. When instructional costs account for less than half of total expenditures, it's no wonder academic performance isn't on the rise. Indeed, it's a testimony to the quality of women and men sticking it out in the classroom, despite such conditions, that our students are treading water and not sinking. If we're serious about improving the results achieved with our public education tax dollars, local school districts must be forced to cut the weight of the non-instructional staffing, eliminate the 19th Century organizational bureaucracy permeating public education, and empower teachers with more competitive pay that rewards performance. What we cannot do is continue to fund bureaucracies that excel only in expending ever increasing sums of money without producing the academic results our children need to thrive in the decades ahead. Bookmark/Search this post with: |
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Poor Schools/Poor Priorities
Unfortunately, even though the informataion given us is most likely true, we live in a country that is truly dying for lack of information. If we are to correct our public school issues we need to get to the foundation of the problem, informing voters-our tax paying base. This can only be achieved when we address our MEDIA, our MEDIA needs to be abolished and totally overhauled. As it is now we live in a society that gets More MEDIA coverage with NO QUALITY.
Your article is wonderful, an informative coverage for the lack of responsibility of our voted officials, BUT DO WE HEAR THIS ON THE NIGHTLY NEWS? LETS ALL UNITE, throw out the slackers in our MEDIA and GOVERNMENT and take back our COUNTRY and SCHOOL SYSTEM.
Thousands of property tax
Thousands of property tax dollars spent on education for illegals is absurd. Dallas public schools are a joke! I think the books need to audited to see just how much money has been "misappropriated."
Schools and Money
I think it a travesty that my daughter, who is enrolled in honors math at Arlington High School in Arlington, does not even have math book to use. I pay $9000. annually in school and property taxes and can’t even get a damn math book. We can’t blame the Dems for this. Surly we have people in Gov’t smart enough to figure this out. Either we have idiots in education or they are educated beyond their intelligence. Neither is acceptable.
School property taxes
School property taxes should be revoked. Public schools have no controls over their spending and they spend on what they should not. Taxpayers are forced to pay for the "educations" of illegal aliens, gangbangers, and the terminally stupid. What a waste. I, for one, am sick and tired of being a "cash cow" for a losing proposition like public schools. If public schools were turned into private schools, where each family had to pay tuition, and the schools could actually teach, the state would be better off, and I, and many other property tax payers would not be on the verge of bankruptcy because of such high school taxes.
My husband and two daughters
My husband and two daughters all are teachers. All are excellent in their field and they work hard. I can't even tell you how many hours are put in at home at night and during the summer. One daughter teaches pre-K and yes, she does have an aide part of the time to help her with the little one who have "no up-bringing". We're one of the "rich" school districts so we do without a lot.
The other daughter teaches 1st grade and the most stressful part is the teaching of tests that comes down from the state. I don't understand why teachers don't rebel. Not only that, the children are put under such stress thanks to the tests. Why do a few have so much power to make so many jump through hoops. There are many ways to determine how much a child knows, why don't those decision makers ask the one who know, the teachers?
Do you think maybe a strike
Do you think maybe a strike would work? Then the power
would shift to the people.(Teachers are usually parents too) In the mean time teach for someone else or look into an alternate profession.
If enough parents and teachers make an act of change, then we will see improvement. Yes, I made a change to homeschool.
Thanks 4 your post
School Taxes
I am very concerned with the cost of education in Texas, and in particular in Houston where I live. I live in the Cy-Fair Independant School District and the budget for this District is gargantuan. It is my personal opinion that spending is out of control, especially when you see the huge spending projects that have been undertaken in the District. How is this helping the students? The District puts out propaganda how great the schools are doing and I read in the paper and other places that they are not doing well. First, we should make it illegal for school districts and cities to pay lobbyists to influence the Legislature. These entities should make their cases directly with the people. Therefor, we need to change the way that School Districts are funded.
Thank you very much.
School Funding
The functions of our tax dollars that go to school are never for the student but for the benefit of the trustees, superintendent and the school administration. Anyone who things that their tax dollars go to the student is naive.
Just look at the scandals in the Dallas Independent School District: huge cell phone bills for the trustees in early 2000; limo driver for the superintendent; yacht fishing trips for the superintendent of information systems (who is now in federal prison because of it); the high-test paid salary in Texas to the Superintendent; poorly negotiated contracts with vendors; and a credit card scandal.
After the trustees misled the voters in passing a 1.32 billion dollar bond proposal last year after delaying a much awaited audit report that painted the trustees and administration as a bunch of clowns they try to escape accountability by changing their terms from 3 years to 4 years so three trustees despite the laps of said law (of which the Texas Attorney General slapped their hands). Oh yes the response by one trustee to the contents of the audit report expressed the glad news: “were not criminals just incompetent”.
And of course we need more tax dollars for this mess. I wonder where my elected state officials are on this as I have been complaining for years. All we get are higher taxes for this and more scandals.
Oh yes I have been told that this mess is “for the good of the children”! No it is only good for the administration.
Money for nothing........
I agree. In my opinion there needs to be a budget and not bonds to spend. Recently 2 large schools opened in our small Texas town. In the district over 220 million was spent. In this economy that is not the right thing to do.
Our area has a large homeschool group and others in surrounding cities. There is no need to continue to raise taxes! If the districts make a profit doesn't that make it a business?
I know from experience there is waste, I had volunteered many years when my children were in public school.
Unused supplies,electronics even sealed food being thrown away instead of given to the local food bank.
One of my children needed a special class(costs the school money) which he was tested for and denied. They told me he couldn't sit still to finish the test!? He failed in some classes ,was bullied and sometimes his lunch was thrown away because he ate too slowly!
I am so grateful for everything THSC does for families.
This is not just for homeschoolers. These laws pertain to parental FREEDOMS everywhere. Thanks Tim Lambert for setting a great example for the U.S.A
God Bless You,
R.D.
Before I started
Before I started homeschooling, I only *suspected* that our school tax dollars were being spent badly, because of news reports about the new multimillion dollar administration building. Now that I homeschool, now that my daughter tests above college level on several subjects and well above grade level on most of the rest, for a cost of about $400-500 per year, I KNOW they're wasting my money.
For this reason I live in a trailer that depreciates every year. Last year the taxes were about $5.50 (after homestead allowance). I don't feel so bad about them wasting 90% of $5.50.