The Journal Times has an article today headlined "Unified to lose $19.1 million." Scary stuff right? How can we possibly teach our children with per student spending that exceeds tuition at The Prairie School?
The JT article points out that Unified had a budget last year of $294 million. And over the years, student enrollment has held steady at about 21,000 students, that is if you trust the pizza party/principal head shaving on the roof/free ipod counting methods currently used to calculate student enrollment. Anyway, grab a calculator and divide the big number by the little number and you get $14,000 in spending per student. Shave $19 million off, recalculate and the per student spending exceeds $13,000. Prairie tuition is tad short of $13 K. And most private schools are far less expensive then Prairie.
These are numbers to keep in mind when the usual suspects cry foul and implore you to vote for increased spending referenda.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
What an idiotic thing to say. Yes, the ENTIRE budget divided by the number of kids is how much they spend because salaries, overhead and supplies are all free Denis.
Not sure I understand your point anon. Just to be clear I am not saying those things are free but rather they, like every expense, is for the purpose of educating kids and should therefore be counted towards per student cost. Unless RUSD has some other mission beyond educating kids that they are not telling us about.
Yes Denis, you're stupid. These are all separate budgets, requiring admins and assistants to develop and oversee every single one. The fact that you can run your small store without ten principals, twenty assistants and fifty assorted admins indicates your stupidity.
Actually Anonymous, you are the stupid one. Why would anyone need 80 people to run a small store?
YOU'RE STUPID!!!
Sorry... just wanted to get in on this extremely cerebral and pointed debate - the result of which will certainly lead to intellectual awakenings and a new level of reasonable and certain discourse.
Sheba - did you ever go to a county fair? One of the attractions is a large pole with a bell on top and a little lever at the bottom and a small weight. The object is to hit the lever with a sledgehammer hard enough to make the weight travel up the pole and ring the bell. With this imagery, replace the bell with a sign that says "sarcasm" and then re-read my post. When you get it, you can choose any prize on the middle shelf.
I liked it much better when we all just called each other stupid....
Anon 11:22
The point is, with the all in cost of $13,000 (teacher salary, administration, building expenses, etc) where would you rather send your children - Prairie type schools or the public schools? Most people would prefer the private sector. Vouchers for all!!
How did Ron White put it "you can't fix stupid". Denis you are 100% correct, all administrative, maintenance cost are figured into the cost to educate students. Seems that anon was never part of a basic econ class! I by choice, without financial aide from the state, chose to send my children to private school, my wife and I believe that our children are getting a quality education in an atmosphere that is not hampered by Liberal rederic. As for anon, My wife and I are not financially well to do as is the argument from all Liberals, we simply live in a modest home and drive older model vehicle to ensure our childrens future.
6:23 - there is the point! Go ahead, splurge. Buy a bigger house. Take wonderful vacations. Smoke and drink and eat mountains of jelly donuts. Then whine that some rich people aren't paying their fair share of your expenses and health care. Why should you be in the true minority of responsible people (replace "responsible" with "greedy" for all you Obamabots)?
WOW am I getting bitter. Why should I be guilted into buying a child a coat to go to school, when mom has jewelry, car, and full data package on one of those fancy smartphones?
There are many needy people and I end up not helping them. There are many hardworking people in public sector unions but I am forced to compensate WAY too many chunks of dead wood.
As a former processional fundraiser you are forgetting in your calculations the hundreds of thousands of dollars alumni, families and Johnson Wax donates every year. Tuition is pretty unrelated to cost at private schools
I didn't forget anon, I just didn't mention it. It is true that the actual spending at Prairie consists of money privately donated. Of course, anyone is welcome to donate to RUSD as well. They don't of course, and this says something about the actual, non coerced support for that institution, but that is perhaps a discussion for another day.
Post a Comment