re: The US spends a lot of money per student for public education and we are worse for it.

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Utah spends less per student than almost any other state with better results.

California is one of the worst performing, despite spending a shite load of money.

You can't fix education when half your population doesn't value it.

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One of the best ways to reduce wasteful spending is to eliminate small municipal school districts. Those small municipal systems may only have 2 or 3 small schools. Some counties have a total of 3 or 4 school systems. So that means the taxpayers pay rent on 3 or 4 buildings for district offices, the salaries of 3 or 4 school superintendents, deputy superintendents, payroll personnel, etc, etc, etc. Just consolidate them all into the county system...it would save millions of dollars.

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The cost no one knows about is administration. You can walk around any districts 'central office' and find larger staffs than you expected with most employees taking breaks in their cafeteria area.

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Yes and no. There’s too many administrators. But if you distributed 50% of central office administrative salaries to the budget, it wouldn’t be a large impact.

A school with an overall budget of $20M might see an annual savings of $300k-$500k. That’s significant from a budgetary perspective. But reallocating that money to other things wouldn’t change much. (Still do it.)

I would guess that somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of building principals spend the vast majority of their time handling discipline for the feral children disguised as students.

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But if you distributed 50% of central office administrative salaries to the budget, it wouldn’t be a large impact.

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I can't speak for every central office. But I went to the Caddo office when I lived in Shreveport. The central office was larger than some schools. Their cafeteria could seat over 150 staffers easily.
The other thing you have to remember about cost is the concept of efficiency. These are govt employees. They can't be fired. They work as little as possible so that more people are hired. Those people are usually unqualified idiots who fit a racial quota or they are 'my cousin.'

EDIT: Well, hell, this video from Reason TV just came out.
You only need to see the first 2 minutes and he explains that school cost increases are not due to teacher salary. They are due to administration staff hires:

reason tv

They need to have rules in place that allow them to separate the good kids from the bad. The bad go into a military style education.

The Amish kids test among the top in the state of PA. Their elementary schools are taught by JHS and HS girls.

America is often compared to Europe's mono-cultures. Comparing American's of European ancestors to their European culture of origin doesn't produce significant differences. They have to mix in our large block of under-achievers to paint that picture.

America is still the world's leading force in innovation, so don't let Biden near that!

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You can't fix education when half your population doesn't value it.

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This is the intractable part of the problem that schools can't change. Charter schools take a bypass around it.

It takes real money for 5 levels of administration devoted to DEI.

Each city school system needs about 50-75 people just working on DEI.

you can track the decline in public education in the USA to a specific date:

October 17, 1979 - when the Department of Education was founded

other key dates:

April 20, 1971 - date Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education was issued (authorized forced bussing to integrate schools [up to that point, schools {and school boards} were only required to end segregation, not to actively integrate schools).

November 29, 1975 (when PL 94-142 became law LINK ("mainstreaming")

Make every school a charter school and enact 100% school choice everywhere.

So parents will be able to choose if little Johnny wants to go to a school where they teach the basics or do they want to send little Johnny to a school that teaches woke bullshite.

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Problem solved.

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There's no educating people who themselves don't want to be educated. A certain group of people in this country equate being educated with "selling out". And they've turned our public schools into war zones, specifically because we believe everyone should go to school. Let these soon-to-be inmates prepare for their futures elsewhere, so they don't prevent others from learning.