The Choice Channel

It is difficult to read a newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch TV news without hearing somebody tell us that our schools are badly under-funded. For the moment, the State will be satisfied with a $160 million tax increase, but indications are that they will soon pursue a $1.4 billion tax increase in order to “make schools adequate.” School systems around the state are also seeking local tax increases to bolster their budgets.

We are told that schools need the money because buildings are in disrepair, students don’t have textbooks, teachers are underpaid, and some schools have to request donations so that students will have toilet paper to use. Their focus is on educating kids, they claim, and that’s where most of the money is spent, but they need more to do a decent job.

Critics claim that much of the money is being mishandled. Reducing waste and streamlining the bureaucracy, they insist, will allow schools to spend more money on actually educating students, and hopefully enable them to do a better job of actually teaching children how to read and write. Maybe public schools can even pull the average ACT scores of graduating seniors above 19.1, they hope.

Let’s begin by crunching the numbers for the public schools, as provided by the State Board of Education. The Montgomery County school system spends an average of $5,398 per student each year, while the State education system spends an average of $5,657 per student. If we add the proposed $1.4 billion (or 30%) funding increase, that would increase county and state spending to $7,040 and $7,378 per pupil, respectively.

In order to compare public schools with private schools, I selected three private schools from the yellow pages and started asking questions. Specifically, I was curious as to how much it costs parents to put their kids in private schools, and how well those schools educate their students.

School Per Pupil
State Public Schools $5,657 ($7,378 after $1.4 billion increase)
Mgm County Schools $5,398 ($7,040 after $1.4 billion increase)
St. Bede $3,850
Mgm Academy $6,597
Trinity Presbyterian $5,299

As you can see from this chart, two of the three private schools spent less per pupil than did the public schools, and all spent less then what the per pupil spending would be after the proposed $1.4 billion tax increase. All of the private schools obtained better SAT scores than did the public schools, but tuition ranged from $1,500 less than that enjoyed by the taxpayer-funded schools to $1,200 more. Once the proposed $1.4 billion increase is added in, the private schools will cost between $3,190 and $443 less per pupil than will taxpayer funded public schools.

By examining this data, a few things become crystal clear.

1) If most private schools can get better results than public schools for less money per student, then the amount of funding for public education isn’t the problem.

2) A significant portion of the funding for public schools must be wasted or spent on items that do not help the schools achieve their overall goal: teaching children.

3) A dramatic increase in school funding will not help the students to learn more or to achieve higher scores. Only a fundamental change in how public schools are run and how public school teachers teach will accomplish that.

Over the past five years, per-pupil spending in Montgomery County schools has increased by 22%, while student performance has either dropped or remained the same. Parents of private school students have the option of removing their children to another school, and thus removing that money from the disappointing or overpriced school. Taxpaying citizens should have the same rights, to remove both student and funding from an education system that has failed them.

As education officials and politicians, led by Governor Seigelman, demand more tax dollars for public schools, taxpayers should be able to demand that the money is spent responsibly, on the actual process of educating students. By examining the performance of private schools, it is evident that children can be educated with less money than the public school system is currently spending, and we should demand that student performance rise with the funding level.

Don’t force us to pay more taxes for an education system that doesn’t educate our children. Until public schools start doing what their lesser-funded private brethren have shown themselves fully capable of doing, taxpayers should refuse even the barest suggestion of a tax increase.

Matthew A. Givens is the founder of Alabama Tax Watch. http://www.AlabamaTaxWatch.Homestead.com