> The school’s $2 million budget is funded by the district, roughly the same amount per pupil that it spends in other schools. But Mr. James’s foundation has provided about $600,000 in financial support for additional teaching staff to help reduce class sizes, and an additional hour of after-school programming and tutors.
That seems like a pretty good result for 30% in additional funding.
According to wikipedia, the federal gov't only provides 8% (or maybe 10%, I saw some different numbers) of the total budget for primary education at the moment...
Total spending (federal+state+local) is apparently around $620B so an additional ~30% kick from the federal government would add $180B for a total of around $800B. Is that worth it?
The military budget is about $600B just by itself so a 30% cut there would pay for it.
Seeing how much work goes into fund raising vs actual teaching at local schools this really seems like a mis-allocation of teacher priorities that could be fixed with some slightly different spending priorities.
These are all pretty big numbers of course but not out of the realm of possibility.
Funding varies wildy based on location as it comes from local property taxes. Not all schools would need such increases. Thanks to that local funding scheme, the US tends to spend the most on the kids that need it the least.
Right, implicit but unsaid was the thought that the federal gov't could cover that funding gap so that all schools got the same budget regardless of the local conditions. Of course given the political forces that created the current local conditions in the first place, that's probably unlikely too.
If you make the federal government cover all equalization you'll find rich areas lowering their property taxes.
Other nations handle education at state or federal level from the start. If you want a federal equalization you will want it to come with a admin union as well.
> The school’s $2 million budget is funded by the district, roughly the same amount per pupil that it spends in other schools. But Mr. James’s foundation has provided about $600,000 in financial support for additional teaching staff to help reduce class sizes, and an additional hour of after-school programming and tutors.