Myth: Schools Don't Have Enough Money

by John Stossel (archive) - January 18th, 2006 - TownHall.com

The hate mail is coming in to ABC over a TV special I did Friday (1/13). I suggested that public schools had plenty of money but were squandering it, because that's what government monopolies do.

Many such comments came in after the National Education Association (NEA) informed its members about the special and claimed that I have a "documented history of blatant antagonism toward public schools."

John Stossel is getting significant negative response to his efforts as he notes in the article quoted above. However it is coming from the expected groups, the educrats who are so determined that only more money in their hands will ever fix all the problems they have created.

We here in Bertie County's Community Schools SOS are also being attacked from the same groups. We have now learned that we are "liars" and "misinforming the public".

I will leave that up to each reader to decide for themselves.

Stossel's is a good article to read though as it talks about the key issue; Public schools waste money. When educrats start talking about money, they always confuse the issue, not clarify. Here in Bertie County, by the simple process of reducing the number of children at J.P. Law, they have run the per child money caluculation up so it appears higher than the other schools. They then claim that the greater success of J.P. Law students is due to the fact that they have spent more money on them.

No. The children were just as much ahead of the other schools back when there were 40 more students in the J.P. Law and the per student amount was the same as other schools in the county. You would think that people who are in the education business would be smarter than to believe their own premise when it is this obvious. Well . . . . they are. The problem is they think you are stupid enough to believe such non-sense.

The article continues with this important point.

A study by two professors at the Hoover Institution a few years ago compared public and Catholic schools in three of New York City's five boroughs. Parochial education outperformed the nation's largest school system "in every instance," they found -- and it did it at less than half the cost per student.

Read the article by Stossel and hear about the taxis used to bring students to class, the billions of dollars spent, the olympic gyms, and the utter failure of these efforts to improve education. We are building a magnificent new middle school here in Bertie County, the heart of the Inner Banks. Wait a couple of years and check the test scores of our students. That magnificent new edifice will not teach a single child anything. Bertie County scores will still be in the bottom 10% of the state. You can bet on it.