Bloated Bureaucracy

Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute has developed an Excel spreadsheet showing that the actual dollars spent per pupil by the District of Columbia Public Schools is more than $28,000. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/do-you-still-think-dc-spends-only-15000pupil/

In a post on the Cato Institute's website in February 2010, Mr. Coulson wrote:

If you’d like all the gory details, drawn from the official DC budget documents and the District’s own audited enrollment figures, then have a look at this Excel spreadsheet file. I’m happy to go over the calculation with any DC or DCPS official — or journalist — who would care to dispute it. (It’s only been challenged once before, and the official in question fell silent after seeing the spreadsheet.)

Interviewed by John Stossel, Coulson commented on the Byzantine nature of school funding:

School district budgets are so convoluted it’s almost as if they’re made to be confusing... DC has split up its education spending into seven different budgets, all of which go to k-12 public education, but only one of which is called “the DC Public School budget."

The next time you hear someone say our public schools are underfunded, keep that $28,000 figure in mind.