Perhaps the biggest fallacy in the arguments in favor of Sandoval’s billion dollar tax hike is that we need more money for education. Sandoval claims it, and all too many institutional business groups have fallen into the “amen” corner.
Here, let me prove why this claim is total BS…
Taxpayers presently provide somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,000 per student, not including all the additional money for building construction, maintenance, etc. And thanks to grants and additional federal assistance for our worst-performing schools, that amount probably exceeds well over $10,000 per student in many schools.
Now let’s say there are 25 kids in a classroom. That means a minimum of $175,000 per year is already provided to teach those 25 kids. And in some classrooms, well over a quarter million.
Now, most teachers are seriously underpaid. I don’t know the exact starting salary, but let’s say it’s $36,000 per year. That means you could bump the pay of the teacher to $75,000 a year and STILL have another $100,000+ to spend in the classroom to teach Johnny to read, write and do arithmetic.
The problem isn’t that we’re underfunding education. The problem is that we’re overfunding the education bureaucracy.
Or funding items that have no direct bearing on, um, education.
For example, Sandoval has proposed spending an additional $2 million of taxpayer money for “free” school breakfasts.
Would somebody please explain to me when and how it became my responsibility to pay for some other kids’ breakfasts?
Indeed, if the kids’ parents’ income is so low as to qualify for a free breakfast, then the kids’ parents’ income is already low enough for the parents to quality for food stamps and other government assistance. So why can’t these people feed their own kids breakfast in the morning?
Inquiring minds wanna know.
And one more question…
Why are taxpayers paying for or subsidizing the college education of grown adults? If you want more money for K-12, cut the university budget and shift the money over.
