Making the Public School System Fiscally Responsible

rstinson10
Jun 2
9 min read

Updated: Jun 15

As homeschoolers, we may not have children in the public school system; however, public education reform is a bipartisan issue that everyone should be concerned with.

The problems in the public school system affect us all, not only in terms of immediate costs that are inflicted upon society but also in terms of the long-term costs of producing an educationally and socially damaged generation of future adults. The current model of public education is not working, and regardless of whether you homeschool or not, or if you send your children to a private school, it needs to be overhauled from the bottom up and top-down.

According to Census Bureau, the average cost per pupil per year is $15,633. Moreover, this amount only includes the annual operating expenses: when the costs of capital investment are included, the cost per pupil skyrockets to between $42k to $64k per year (amortized), depending upon the state. And in many states, such as California, these costs balloon even higher when taking into considering the large public pensions costs that the general public pays for school teachers. In California the annual expenditures for public education exceeds 12.8 billion dollars.

And even as we pour vast amounts of money into the public school system, they are always over budget! Teachers are regularly complaining about low salaries and having to purchase their own supplies for their classrooms. The problems in the public school system are not a funding problem, they are a management problem: mismanagement, occurring at every level, results in enormous waste and efficiencies that would never be tolerated in the private sector, and which can only continue when government is controlling the purse strings.

The public schools are already more than adequately funded.

Where is the money going?

Many Americans are aware of financial problems happening in schools. The news-cycle, youtube, and social media are full of complaints leveled during school board meetings, most of which go answered.

Continuing to pour money into this system is not sustainable. It seems that every election cycle has a ballot initiative to include more funding to schools and increase their budgets via property taxes or some other form of taxes,

And what is the impact that everyone feels, in your bank account? The high cost of public school budgets increases the cost of living for everyone, causing many Americans to struggle to make ends meet. When you get your property bill or you pay your rent, you know (or maybe you don't realize) that you are paying a substantial amount of your money into the blackhole of the public school system, with very little benefit.

What we've done in this article is to compile a list of ways we can be bring fiscal responsibility back to the public school system. These major architectural reforms are ones that we can all agree upon, based upon the real, documented problems that are occurring regularly.

The Benefits of Financial Responsibility

Let's assume, hypothetically, that the public school system became financially responsible. What kind of benefits would result?

Due to the reduced costs and resulting lower taxes, Americans would have more financial freedom to pay their collage loans back. They would be able to save for retirement or for a "rainy day" easier, or the additional money would spur economic growth.
Funding, when allocated appropriately towards actual education costs instead of administrative costs, would go to where it needs to go and wasteful spending would stop.
Cancelled courses that teach real life skills, such as shop class, auto repair, and Home-EC would be available.
Americans would have more financial resources to give to charities like church organizations, private school scholarship funds and online fundraising campaigns.
Schools would be able to pay for the school supplies needed by students instead of having to rely upon the charitable giving or support drives. Budgets would include actual allocations for such supplies.
Families could pay for private school or homeschooling easier, or dual-income households could be supported by a single income. We're currently caught in a sort of "circular reasoning": both parents have to work to support a system of government spending that requires a system of taxation that makes it so both parents have to work.

I got this meme from a teacher FB page. I don't know how true the numbers are, however, I think we can all agree that there are funding inconsistencies in Public school. I also agree that teachers should not be responsible for paying to care for these students in this way.

Here is a teacher discussing the items she has purchased with her own money for her classroom. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CD5UghACC/

Cutting Excess Spending

Spending in public schools is excessive and bloated. Public school should be reduced to focus only offering the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as some basic level of history, (focusing on the US history, the Constitution, civics, and government). Their budgets should reflect that public schools are educating students with the basics that they need to succeed as an adult and leading to secondary education that trains students in real life skills, but without incurring the high administrative overheads.

Voting to decrease school funding will necessitate that the public schools focus on only the basics and to do those well, eliminating all the nonsense programs (DEI, common core, etc.), reducing administrative staff, and teachers that provide little or no educational values, and vastly reducing both the operating expenses and long term capital investment costs.

ENOUGH!

Here are a few things that can be changed to make the public school system less of a financial burden on taxpayers and to reform it:

Parents should be responsible for providing both lunch and breakfast for their children. We can be compassionate to those facing poverty, but also compassionate to the taxpayers who are footing the bill to pay for two meals per day for the entire public school population. It is excessive. We already have government programs in place and individual charities that can provide help with meals to those who need it.
Taxpayers should only be providing tax dollars for education, not babysitting. Before school and after-school care creates an excessive financial burden on tax payers. Parents should be responsible for arranging childcare for their own children.
Parents are responsible for providing their child the school supplies they need. There are already charities and governmetment programs in place for families who need help with this.
Focus on the basics, which will allow administrative positions can be cut. Currently, for every 1 teacher there are 2 administrators, due to the extensive number of programs that are provided. This formula should be flipped.
Cut school busing programs: These are another financial burden on taxpayers. They also make news often for accidents, bullying, and violence that occurs on board. In the August, 2024 publication by the US Department of Transportation, "From 2013 to 2022 there were 976 fatal school-transportation-related traffic crashes, and 1082 people of all ages were killed in those crashes.
Cut school libraries. Schools have been terrible stewards of their libraries, and we live in the modern age of computers, where nearly all the content contained in books is accessible electronically. We should cut library funding completely or replace the library with a bank of computers in a classroom.

Change School to be 3 hours a Day

Schools should focus on providing the basic core classes and students should meet their education standards.

Ways this model would benefit schools

Only the core subjects would be covered and because they would be the only subjects available, students and teachers would have better success at meeting basic literacy standards in math and english. Pass/fail grading could be instituted, instead of a soft (letter-graded) system: either a student meets the requirements or not.
There would be less idle time. The school day is excessively long and a lot of the time in school is idle-time or spent doing busy work, school photos, class parties, lining up, moving to the next class or just waiting for the next thing just because the students are legally required to be there. When children are finished with an assignment, they still must stay there and do something, anything, regardless of whether it is a productive use of their time or not.

It would change into a merit-based business model, with fewer personnel. Schools really only need the best teachers, a manager (principal) and an administrative assistant to answer phones and do administrative tasks. All other positions are wasteful spending.
Due to the cutting of unnecessary or excessive waste including making the day shorter, education safety reforms that are mentioned in this article would be properly funded; cameras in classrooms, a co-teacher for each classroom, time out rooms, pest control for school and other truly necessary funds would be allocated.

A 3 hour school day model would benefit all Americans

Small businesses world would thrive. Art, music, PE and other extracurricululars that are currently part of the public school package would be supported by outside organizations. Currently, because these are done in the public school system, they operate as a free monopoly that crowds out private businesses. Families would have more of a say as to what activities their childen participate in and the teachers who are in their care. For example, it is easier to fire or discontinue lessons from a private art teacher than a public school art teacher who must follow a mandated curriculum. And since families are not paying for it already in their taxes, they would have more financial resources to pay for programs that are right for their family. Small business that are offer children's enrichment classes will grow and benefit from this fruitful economy.
Americans would be given the gift of time. The current status quo is to rush about busy work: we live in the "rat race". Long school days also mean busy weekends full of chores, hobbies, visiting with friends and family and birthday parties and other things families cannot accomplish when children are in school.
It would lesson the Faux DINK lifestyle. (link) Children would be in the care of their parents more than government employees during the day, allowing for discipline, care, affection and a routine that only parents can provide.
Children would have a better mental health since they would have time in their day to sleep-in, play and pursue hobbies.
Cutting down to a 3 hour school day would greatly improve Americans standard of living since we would be paying far less taxes for public education. You would not need a dual income household. There would not be a "side hustle culture". There would be significant decrease of a tax burden for paying for public education.

Safety measures to purchase and implement

Put security Cameras in classrooms

"Teacher body cams" are not a new idea. Everywhere you go, there are cameras. In a retail store, restaurants, street corners, police body cams etc. If you go on a ride at a theme park and there are seemingly no staff memebers around, there are definitely "eyes in the sky" watching for bad behaviors of guests and staff. This is a layer of security our society needs to keep students and school staff accountable for their behaviors. Everyone should act appropriate everywhere, but especially in a school environment where parents cannot be there to protect students. Obviously cameras can't be everywhere in a school (bathrooms, lockers, etc.); however, it would benefit our schools greatly to have this.

Require two adults in each classroom.

Each classrooms should have two teachers, or at least a teacher and a teacher's aid, especially if a class has more than 10 ten students. It is stupid that one teacher should be responsible for 40 students in the first place. A lot of the problems in school will be fixed with increased supervision. This is not only for the safety of students, but the safety for teachers as well. There needs to be another adult to help enforce rules, handle any bullying, distractions, help with grading, and discipline.

The building must be in a working, habitable condition

Building should always be free of mold and water leaks. By reducing the costs of the public school system, necessary expenses, such as pest control, can be allocated. Pests will be out of sight and there should be no evidence of their presence where children may be present. AC and heaters must be in working order.

Schools should provide staff to provide security, supervision and to enforce rules.

They will provide the adult presence and supervision necessary. They will be armed with a walkie talkie to be able to call the SRO if the need arises. Their job will be to monitor the bathrooms, patrol the hallways and provide an extra staff help where necessary before things escalate.

Support education reform instead of supporting public schools

Many of the reforms that Americans want will not be made because we continue to support the status quo, either directly or indirectly. The level of unwavering support some people continue to provide to a failing and abusive public school system, even in the face of above structural and management problems, can be considered as a type of worship. If you want things to change in the public school system, you must change the way that it is supported. The public school system operates in the same as an addict operates: if you give an addict money, they will just spend in their addiction. We need to stop wishing of what "should" be done, and instead, do what is necessary to make real effective changes today.

And what do we do when we don't make changes to the public schools?

What do we do if most states continue to allow boys to play on girls sports teams? Or if school violence continues (largely due to lax discipline policies)? Or when activist teachers continue to proselytize and indoctrinate in their classrooms, behind closed doors? Or when another 11 year old takes their life due to bullying? Or how about when a significant percentage of students do not meet literacy standards? We can't boycott these schools because they are a government agency.

We must be proactive about changing the school system and bringing financial responsibility back in schools.

Here are some true ways to support education reform.

Click for ways to support education reform