My calculator won't go that high!
 

A front page story in today's OREGONIAN, which is a pulitzer prize winning liberally biased newspaper, reveals that there are 562,828 students enrolled in Oregon Government schools, K-12.
The state government schools superintendent is presenting a $6.3 BILLION budget.

How much is that expressed as cost per pupil?

6.3E9 / 562828 = $11193.47296

$11, 193.47 per kid per year? Sounds a mite high to me.

$11,193.47 per

Thanks! I knew you whiz kids wouldn't let me down. These figures are rarely published here. Any "official" cost per pupil figures released are far below that. I wonder how they cook those books? But these figures were hidden in an article proclaiming that the Hispanic student population number has made dramatic increases while the white enrollment is dropping. Me? I prefer to follow the money...;)

Sometimes the cost per pupil is related to actual expenses directed to teaching. The budget should break down the expenditures and then you can see where it all goes.

Based on local budget committee numbers, you can figure over 90% for payroll...including benefits. (edit) The state budget doesn't include new school construction, buildings, etc. That tab is picked up by local district property tax payers.

Thats not high - in 1980, my home town was 3rd in CT with $9,200 per student. Our town here is higher.

yes its kinda like this Porsche story
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/01/25/porsche-denies-optimistic-earnings-per-car-report/
as they didnt make all their profit just from the 96,000+ vehicales they sold

Fairfax County, Va., will spend $12,917 per pupil in 06-07. That's the cost of doing business. Big public districts will have overhead that private schools won't, but public schools don't have wealthy donors or endowments.

Who expects private schools to be less expensive, and what leads you to believe that?

Ummm. The fact that many are?

That's because Sister Mary makes $4K a year.

Wow, the last time I saw that statistic for students in Alabama it was around $6k/student. Y'all must be rich up there. :>)

Mike

Don't confuse the budget of a public school with the tuition of a private - big accounting differences. Plus, private schools do not have to have 'special' programs and transportation like public schools do.

That was my point. $11-13k seems high when compared to the (supposedly) superior education a child can get at a $5-8k private school. The two shouldn't be compared as apples-to-apples.

Another data point:

"According to recent data from the 2004 Madison County Families and Children Report Card, the annual expenditure per pupil for the Huntsville City, Madison City, and Madison County school systems was $6,994; $5,704; and $5,615, respectively. All three totals were well below the national average; public school systems in the U.S. spent an average of $8,745 per pupil on K-12 education in 2004. "

No that really doesn't sound all that high when you factor in salaries and operating costs (facilities, utilities, etc.)

That's about $1,000 a month - not all that much more than day care. Even cheaper in some cases.

You must be mistaken, Jeff. And several others. Some guys on this Board know that public schools are horribly inefficient. So....your data needs to be consistent with that.

Hehehe. . . The old "provide data to validate 'conclusions'" problem, eh?

:)

I don't doubt there's still room for improvement and that there's still a lot of misuse of funds that SHOULD go to students, programs, etc. that gets sucked up by fat cat bureaucrats, but in this particular case $12k a year per student really doesn't sound that much. Consider liability and it actually starts to sound rather attractive. . .