From M.Q. Sullivan and the EmpowerTexans team:
"Texas taxpayers now spend $11,084 per year per child on public education. But less than half of it makes it toward instructional expenses.
Ten years ago Texas was spending just $5,857.
(If per-pupil spending had increased with inflation, it’d be just $7,542 now, not $11,084.)
So where is the money going? Looking at data on the Texas Education Agency website, it's not going to the classroom.
If you think of each kid the way school administrators do -- as bags of money -- and consider your average third-grade class which has a cap of 22 students per teacher, that's $243,848 sitting there.
The money isn't going to the teacher. Average teacher pay was $47,313 in the 08-09 school year (up from $34,357 a decade ago). So where's the other $200,000 derived from our average classroom going? Seems a bit much for overhead, doesn’t it?
Certainly not instruction-related expenses. Of the $11,084 spent per pupil on public education in 2009, only $4,831 went for anything that could even remotely be considered "instructional" expenses as defined by the Texas Education Agency.
Over the last decade, student enrollment has risen 15 percent -- from 3.9 million students to 4.6 million students. In that same period, the number of teachers grew accordingly, at 19.3 percent. We have 14.4 students for every teacher (in 1999 it was 15.2 students per teacher).
But non-teachers? That’s where the growth is. We had 22 percent more non-teachers on the payroll in 2009 than in 1999. So for all this spending, for all these new, non-classroom employees, surely there's been some marked improvement in academic performance. Right? I mean, that’s why we spend money in public education…
Actually, there's been a decline in results. The average Texas SAT score in 1999 was a 992. In 2009, it dropped to a 988. The SAT may not be a perfect barometer, but it’s a pretty consistent outside measurement. Given what we’re paying per kid, surely it’s reasonable to expect a little improvement, right?
Our public schools are spending dollars almost faster than the taxpayers can earn them. We're told to support public education spending for the sake of the children. But the money doesn't seem to make it to where the kids, and their teachers, spend their days.
As parents and taxpayers, we have to demand that more dollars flow to the classroom, not from our pockets but from the over-fed bureaucracy whose bloated weight is dragging down our teachers and academically endangering our kids. So when your superintendent or school board next asks you for more money, bigger budgets and growing staff, we should demand they show us precisely how it will directly improve the education Texas’ kids receive. We’re clearly not getting our money’s worth.
The place to make these changes is at the local level. Your school district has a lot more power over their spending than they might want you to believe. It’s time for us to demand a lot better."
For Texas,
Michael Quinn Sullivan& the EmpowerTexans.com
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The Source Of Money For The PISD
Not only do we need to understand how our tax money is being spent on public education, we need to understand where the money is coming from and whether the source of the money is sustainable.
Everyone should understand that the money being spent on educating our young comes from local or non-local sources. Most of the money being spent to operate our PISD comes from outside sources; this is not a stable situation. While money from local sources can usually be depended upon, money from non-local sources cannot. Most money from local and non-local sources depends upon taxes from a strong economy or upon borrowed money.
A strong economy depends largely on the value of our natural and human resources. Unfortunately, our natural resources are being depleted and much of our human resources are not highly valued in the global market place. Too many of our young lack the problem solving skills and the knowledge of other languages to compete in the global market. Too many of our young people are restricted to local markets and must live off one another.
Most of us realize that borrowed money is money that we are obligated to repay. Most of us understand that money borrowed locally or by our state and national governments should be repaid. When borrowed money is not repaid in full with interest, credit worthiness is lost. This is as true of states and nations as it is for individuals.
Some of those employed in public education and others appear to have developed a “grant mentality” that is the equivalent to expecting free lunches. All taxpayers should understand that educational grants from our state and local governments are just more obligations for everyone to repay. Other than grants from a few private foundations, there are no free lunches.
Everyone should realize that funding for public education and other entitlements are based on promises and economic assumptions. As everyone eventually learns promises are sometimes broken and many assumptions are found to be invalid.
We should be more concerned with the cost and quality of the product produced by our public schools now more than at any time in the history of our nation. Our survival as a nation depends on the quality of the education of our young people.
The Significance Of Tablet Computers In Education
Everyone concerned with education should recognize the potential of tablet computers to lower education costs and to improve learning at all levels.
The advent of powerful and inexpensive tablet computers marks the end of the era of conventional PCs. Tablet computers empower users to do almost everything that is now done on personal computers. Tablet computers with multitasking and other common capabilities will cause a rapid revolution in education.
Within the next few years, electronic books will probably replace most textbooks. Tablet computers will make it possible for slower students to catch up and for faster students to get ahead. Tablet computers connected to the Internet will enable most students to spend less seat time in classrooms and to be less dependent on our public schools.
Perhaps some of the home-schooled and private-schooled students will want to return to the public schools for a portion of their education. Perhaps some of our public-schooled students will want to join the home-schooled students. Perhaps the sharing of economic and other resources is an idea whose time has come. The widespread use of tablet computers may even cause, with the exception of those involved in expensive extracurricular activities, a decrease in the cost per student per year.
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