Article brought to you by: Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
Fed gave $4 Billion as teachers strike - Chicago spends $10,540 per student
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
September 13th, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
September 13th, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
As Chicago school teachers take to the picket lines, the outcome will have significant consequences for all American taxpayers, and their children - who will be expected to pay down the increasing debt. The budgets of the Chicago Public Schools show that American taxpayers everywhere have literally billions at stake.
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Over the past four years, the Chicago public schools have spent approximately $20.27 billion. About $4.26 billion of that revenue, approximately 21 percent has come from the federal government.Essentially, $4.26 billion the federal government has either taken from Americans in federal taxes or has borrowed and added to the national debt.
According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Department of Education spent $53.389 billion in 2009. The following year, that figure climbed to $92.858 billion. In 2011, it dropped to $65.484 billion. Department of Education spending will hit an historical high of $98.467 billion for 2012.
The last year that President Reagan was in office, 1989, the U.S. Education Department spent $21.468 billion. Even adjusted for inflation, that would only be $39.664 billion this year. In short, since 1989 the Department of Education spending has grown by almost 150 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars.
According to the budgets published by the Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago schools received $1.1228 billion in federal money in fiscal 2009, $1.1604 billion in fiscal 2010, $1.1449 billion in fiscal 2011, and $827.5 million in fiscal 2012.That equals $4.2556 billion over four years.
Seeing as the Chicago Public Schools had a total enrollment of 403,770 students in 2011, this means that over the past four yeas the federal government has provided the Chicago Public Schools with about $10,540 in subsidies for each of its students.
The Chicago Public Schools are budgeted to receive another $937.7 million in revenue from the federal government in 2013. At an enrollment of 403,770, that would equal another $2,322 per student in federal subsidies.
According to the Illinois District Report Card for the Chicago Public Schools published by the State of Illinois, the average salary for a school teacher in the Chicago Public Schools in 2011 was $71,236. In 2010, according to the Census Bureau, the median household income in the United States was $49,445 and for Illinois it was $50,761.
Does all this expenditure equal superior education? Apparently not. Based on National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered to students nationwide in 2011, the U.S. Department of Education determined that 79 percent of 8th graders in the Chicago Public Schools were not grade-level proficient in reading and 80 percent were not grade level proficient in math.
© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.