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> underfunded Per-student spending has more than tripled since the 1960s and stands at over $15k/yr on average[1]. New York spends more than $38k/yr (!) per st

> underfunded Per-student spending has more than tripled since the 1960s and stands at over $15k/yr on average[1]. New York spends more than $38k/yr (!) per student, which boggles the mind. Of course, much of that money is absorbed in the ever-expanding bureaucracies of the system's program offices, services, departments, etc. Go find your local school district's website, download their most recent audit, and look at the proportion of employees who are teachers. When I performed the exercise, I found that fewer than 50% of employees were actually teachers. I think it's high time we started funding students, rather than systems. The last thing anybody needs is yet another hulking bureaucracy sucking the life force out of our institutions. [1]: https://www.publicschoolreview.com/average-spending-student-stats/national-data https://www.publicschoolreview.com/average-spending-student-...

throwawaygh 5y ago
We're not spending $15K on every student. That's just the total spend divided by the number of students. In reality, we're spending substantially less than that on most students and substantially more than that on a small number of students with exceptional needs. > since the 1960s Right. The 60s. The 60s are ALWAYS used as the reference point in these conversations. Every. Single. Time. The ESEA, a cornerstone of the War on Poverty, was passed in 1965. Most other federal/state mandates that brought nearly everyone into the public education fold were passed after 1960. What it meant to educate the populace changed dramatically between 1960 and 1980. Huge swathes of people previously excluded were brought into the fold. Of course costs went up -- those people were excluded precisely because they're not the low-hanging cheap-to-educate fruit. > fewer than 50% of employees were actually teachers. Teachers are not the only class of employees who spend most/all of their time in direct contact with students. See above. I'm not interested in the percent of employees who are teachers. I'm interested in the percent of employees who are not either in direct contact with students or providing essential services (janitorial, transportation, food services, etc.)
- mannerheim 5y ago
  In terms of education spending, the US spends more than ever other OECD country other than Luxembourg. The US spends an unusually large share on private education, but even public education expenditures are greater than that of the UK, France, Korea, and Japan, about the same as the Netherlands, and not that far behind Germany https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/5e4ecc25-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/5e4ecc25-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/5e4ecc25-en/index.html?i...
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    You eventually get there: the US blows a ton of cash on private education, but our public education expenditures -- which this thread has been about up to now -- are unexceptional compared to peer nations. Smack-dab in the middle of the usually pack, really. (And we're also a far less dense country than many of the countries we technically out-spend, which is notable because rural schooling is horrendously expensive on a per student basis.) If you rolled back to 60s level spending, even inflation adjusted, we'd be down the bottom of that distribution.
    - mannerheim 5y ago
      Either way, claiming that education is underfunded is unfounded unless most of the other OECD countries are similarly underfunding education.
  - r00fus 5y ago
    Why would we even count private education in this discussion? There are no policy controls on private school spend - of course, it's skyrocketing as the rich get richer.
    - mannerheim 5y ago
      This is moot; as I said, spending on public schools alone in the US is greater than many other OECD countries.
      - 5y ago
acdha 5y ago
> Per-student spending has more than tripled since the 1960s and stands at over $15k/yr on average[1]. New York spends more than $38k/yr (!) per student, which boggles the mind. Note that I specified teachers. A lot of that money goes to things like administrative overhead (often required by lawmakers) and support services for students — a single aide for a special needs kid costs far more than $15k. We run a lot of social programs through schools here which would be separate services in other countries which complicates these comparisons. I mention that because I know a number of teachers here in DC. The public school pay here is high compared to the national average but not when you look at the cost of living, and most jobs which require multiple degrees but have inflexible schedules and long hours pay considerably more.
- mannerheim 5y ago
  Teacher incomes in the US are greater than Denmark, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Japan, and Sweden. And while those countries may have universal healthcare, I don't think I've ever heard of a school district not providing health insurance to teachers. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/heres-how-much-teachers-around-the-world-are-paid.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/heres-how-much-teachers-arou...
  - acdha 5y ago
    American private insurance still leaves a huge amount of money to be paid by the patient, far more than my European friends and coworkers expected. Repeat for things like retirement, elder care, etc. and you end up needing to personally save more to handle things which are paid out of general taxes in other rich countries. What you really need is a comparison which is adjusted for both cost of living and alternative careers for comparable education. I described this as an underpaid profession because the combination of high demand, rigid schedule, and low respect is the primary reason I’ve known people to leave it. The underfunding plays into two of those problems because teachers are asked to handler more, larger classes which ensures that everything is always close to the breaking point. The “slack” which that forces to be cut are things like personalized attention and more involved lessons.
smileysteve 5y ago
> Per-student spending has more than tripled since the 1960s In the meantime, college tuition and medical costs have tripled in only 20 years.

throwawaygh 5y ago

We're not spending $15K on every student. That's just the total spend divided by the number of students. In reality, we're spending substantially less than that on most students and substantially more than that on a small number of students with exceptional needs. > since the 1960s Right. The 60s. The 60s are ALWAYS used as the reference point in these conversations. Every. Single. Time. The ESEA, a cornerstone of the War on Poverty, was passed in 1965. Most other federal/state mandates that brought nearly everyone into the public education fold were passed after 1960. What it meant to educate the populace changed dramatically between 1960 and 1980. Huge swathes of people previously excluded were brought into the fold. Of course costs went up -- those people were excluded precisely because they're not the low-hanging cheap-to-educate fruit. > fewer than 50% of employees were actually teachers. Teachers are not the only class of employees who spend most/all of their time in direct contact with students. See above. I'm not interested in the percent of employees who are teachers. I'm interested in the percent of employees who are not either in direct contact with students or providing essential services (janitorial, transportation, food services, etc.)

mannerheim 5y ago
In terms of education spending, the US spends more than ever other OECD country other than Luxembourg. The US spends an unusually large share on private education, but even public education expenditures are greater than that of the UK, France, Korea, and Japan, about the same as the Netherlands, and not that far behind Germany https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/5e4ecc25-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/5e4ecc25-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/5e4ecc25-en/index.html?i...
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  You eventually get there: the US blows a ton of cash on private education, but our public education expenditures -- which this thread has been about up to now -- are unexceptional compared to peer nations. Smack-dab in the middle of the usually pack, really. (And we're also a far less dense country than many of the countries we technically out-spend, which is notable because rural schooling is horrendously expensive on a per student basis.) If you rolled back to 60s level spending, even inflation adjusted, we'd be down the bottom of that distribution.
  - mannerheim 5y ago
    Either way, claiming that education is underfunded is unfounded unless most of the other OECD countries are similarly underfunding education.
- r00fus 5y ago
  Why would we even count private education in this discussion? There are no policy controls on private school spend - of course, it's skyrocketing as the rich get richer.
  - mannerheim 5y ago
    This is moot; as I said, spending on public schools alone in the US is greater than many other OECD countries.
    - 5y ago

acdha 5y ago

> Per-student spending has more than tripled since the 1960s and stands at over $15k/yr on average[1]. New York spends more than $38k/yr (!) per student, which boggles the mind. Note that I specified teachers. A lot of that money goes to things like administrative overhead (often required by lawmakers) and support services for students — a single aide for a special needs kid costs far more than $15k. We run a lot of social programs through schools here which would be separate services in other countries which complicates these comparisons. I mention that because I know a number of teachers here in DC. The public school pay here is high compared to the national average but not when you look at the cost of living, and most jobs which require multiple degrees but have inflexible schedules and long hours pay considerably more.

mannerheim 5y ago
Teacher incomes in the US are greater than Denmark, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Japan, and Sweden. And while those countries may have universal healthcare, I don't think I've ever heard of a school district not providing health insurance to teachers. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/heres-how-much-teachers-around-the-world-are-paid.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/heres-how-much-teachers-arou...
- acdha 5y ago
  American private insurance still leaves a huge amount of money to be paid by the patient, far more than my European friends and coworkers expected. Repeat for things like retirement, elder care, etc. and you end up needing to personally save more to handle things which are paid out of general taxes in other rich countries. What you really need is a comparison which is adjusted for both cost of living and alternative careers for comparable education. I described this as an underpaid profession because the combination of high demand, rigid schedule, and low respect is the primary reason I’ve known people to leave it. The underfunding plays into two of those problems because teachers are asked to handler more, larger classes which ensures that everything is always close to the breaking point. The “slack” which that forces to be cut are things like personalized attention and more involved lessons.

smileysteve 5y ago

> Per-student spending has more than tripled since the 1960s In the meantime, college tuition and medical costs have tripled in only 20 years.