Last year the teacher/admin guy who heads up athletics gave me a tour of an addition to his school. New weight room. New dressing rooms for swimmers. New greenhouse. New this, new that. Sizeable addition. Wow!

How are your student numbers these days, I asked him. “Oh, they’re falling. Just like all the schools in the area. They’ve been falling for years. And studies tell us they will fall further.”

His school adds more floor space. More space to heat and maintain. While students in the school grow fewer each year.  Does he see the disconnect? And if he does, does he care? Nah. His job is secure. His school is part of a government monopoly. It does not have to compete with anything. So there is no incentive to keep costs (the price of education) down.

New York State schools have 2.7 million students.  In 1997 they had 2.8 million. They have 21,000 more teachers today than then. Yes, 21,000 more teachers to teach fewer kids than the schools had in 1997. The schools also have 11,000 more administrators now than then.

Think about that.  And if your thinking leads you to believe the results are better these days, you might want to change that thinking.

In 1970, across the country, we spent $55,000 to teach a kid from kindergarten to 12th grade. In today’s dollars, that is. Today we spend nearly $155,000 per pupil. You cannot blame inflation. These figures are adjusted for inflation.