03 June 2007

We'd Better Hold A Bake Sale

Just because it's always fun to bring up in conversation, I note that, in 2005, public school systems in the US spent $488.5 billion. The Pentagon spent $429.5 billion (pdf).

5 comments:

Mike Beversluis said...

A good chunk of my family teaches, so I'm happy to report that we have done our part to throw ourselves onto the gears and levers of the machine to make it stop.

Harry Eagar said...

You've seen the bumper stickers that read: It'll be a great day when the schools have enough money and the Air
Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.


Funniest, saddest bumper sticker ever.

monix said...

UK spends about 150 billion USD, sadly most of that goes to bureacratic institutions, not into schools.

joe shropshire said...

$8700 a head is more than enough for those functions that public schooling can do, that is, warehousing and a bit of socialization for the kids; jobs for the teachers and bureaucrats; slush money for the unions and politicians. For what it can't do -- teaching skills to kids who aren't motivated to learn them -- no amount of money's enough. Although it is good to see that NCLB is working pretty much as designed.

Unknown said...

When a platoon of 5th graders can take out a T-80 tank, then I'll consider it money well spent.