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Disclaimer: I am no politico. I’m not a junkie when it comes to all of this stuff. But I am passionate about education and I have a problem with the way the educational system, students, and teachers are treated. So if you do care to comment on this entry, please be mindful that these are my opinions . I welcome respectful disagreement, but please keep it just that.---------------------------------------------------------------------
Arne Duncan is one of the most powerful men in our nation’s educational system. As the 9th United States Secretary of Education, Duncan is the head of the Department of Education, and 16th in line to the Presidency. Mr. Duncan has never taught a single day in his life. Interesting, isn't it... a man who has never been a teacher is the most powerful man in our nation's educational system. Just mind boggling.
(Bear with me while I set up some statistics here.)
According to the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences, there were 98,706 public schools in the United States for the 2008-2009 school year (most recent year’s stats).
The Center for Educational Reform’s website states the following statistics, which they have gathered from the IES:
Total Public Schools: 98,916
Total Charter Schools: 5,043
Total Private Schools: 33, 740
Total Catholic Schools: 7,510
A slight discrepancy in the totals, though they claim to be using the same data to compile their numbers. For my purposes, I'll round the total number of public schools to the middle- approximately 98,800 schools.
According to the same website, the following statistics are for dollars spent in those approx. 98,800 pubic schools, and apparently 5,000 charter schools. (I don't consider Charter Schools to be Public Schools).
Total Public School Expenditures: $562.3 billion dollars
Average District Public School Per Pupil Expenditure: $12,018
Average Public Charter School Per Pupil Expenditure: $8,001
Now, to bring it a little closer to home, good ole' New York City.
According to the NYC Dept of Education The NYC Public school system has approximately 1.1 million students, 1,700 schools, $80,000 teachers, and a $21 billion annual budget, and is the largest system of public schools in the country.
Are you seeing what I'm seeing? These figures presented are astronomical! They are huge! I mean, come on... $21,000,000,000??????? That's a lot of zeroes. Granted school budgets were slashed this year, so that number may not be ultimately correct- but still. A tremendous amount of money to spend on a tremendous amount of students who must be taught a tremendous amount of information by their teachers. Teachers who don't make a tremendous amount of money.
