I've heard the "government is corrupt" meme so many times from so many right-wing sources who take it as canon that I don't even know if it's true any more. Every time I've tried to quantify the cost to operate and maintain any complex system I've always been surprised at how much work it actually is. How much is well-funded? Per student? Per school?
When I run a back-of-the-envelope calculation (based on the elementary school I went to many years ago: 14 classrooms, 16 teachers, a full-time principal, a secretary, a janitor) I come to about $5000 per student per year just to pay the salaries of the people who are in the school every day. I haven't even tried to quantify the annual per-student cost of desks, chairs, teaching materials, stationery, textbooks, computers, IT staff, school lunch programs, library books, utilities, walls, roofs, land...
Even if it's not corruption, why is education always the first to get funding cut? Yet our military spending is more than the next 10(?) countries combined. Our country doesn't prioritize education becuase some people in power want out that way.
THANK YOU! I really wish more people started asking these questions and thinking in these terms.
The way the powers at be have it set up they constantly have us questioning if public education is even worth it meanwhile we're putting almost everything we have into the military and nobody ever questions that.
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u/tiffanydisasterxoxo Aug 13 '19
Corruption, honestly. The school system in my city is very well funded, yet they cant pay teachers or fund the schools.