DMPS: $14,500 per pupil
I'd put Des Moines' school district budget at $385M, from the State of the Schools speech last fall. That's wildly outdated today. Board member Jon Narcisse said [on WHO Radio] on August 2 that the budget was $415M this year. Plus he said the district had tapped its $20M reserve. Assuming that's accurate, I'll adjust my figures and restate the cost per pupil is now $14,500 this year or $80 per day, assuming 30,000 kids still attend school in the district. $80 per day! With a student-to-staff ratio of 6:1, that's like paying each of the 5,000 district staff members an annual salary of $87,000 to teach your kids.
If you could entrust three competent people with 18 students and say, "go spend 180 days with these kids, secure the needed resources, and teach them what they need to know," would it cost $261,600? For that, you could build the classroom, feed and cloth the students, equip them each with notebook computers, fully loaded with world-class educational software.
If you think you're being fleeced, you probably are. But at some point, we have to stop blaming the leaders we choose and begin to take responsibility as members of the community -- citizens and media alike -- or ineptitude and greed continue to flourish.
If you could entrust three competent people with 18 students and say, "go spend 180 days with these kids, secure the needed resources, and teach them what they need to know," would it cost $261,600? For that, you could build the classroom, feed and cloth the students, equip them each with notebook computers, fully loaded with world-class educational software.
If you think you're being fleeced, you probably are. But at some point, we have to stop blaming the leaders we choose and begin to take responsibility as members of the community -- citizens and media alike -- or ineptitude and greed continue to flourish.
