Corporate & Securities Law

Save the bureaucrats!

The House convenes today to pass a $26 billion gift to teachers. Who can be against paying teachers? Me. I believe passionately in education, not just for my kids but for everyone. I’m a teacher, after all, and I gave up far more lucrative endeavors to do this thing I believe in. I would be willing to pay a lot more in taxes if I thought the money being spent on education was being spent wisely. It isn’t. Of my nearly $15,000 in property taxes each year, most goes to pay for schools in Chicago, few of which educate children. The drop out rates and performance of students is abysmal. I’m ashamed of our schools.

One big problem is that much money spent on “education” is actually spent on the machinery of education, which has little to nothing to do with teaching. Take for instance the Los Angeles Unified School District. It has over 100,000 employees, less than half of which are teachers. The bureaucracy has grown rapidly while the student population and number of teachers fell. Here is a typical news report: “LAUSD’s bureaucracy ballooned by nearly 20 percent from 2001 to 2007. Over the same period, 500 teaching positions were cut and enrollment dropped by 6 percent.” I challenge anyone to show me a private enterprise whose administrative expenses have grown 20 percent while revenues, customers, and profits have fallen. This is not a sustainable model in the private sector, but it is de rigueur in the public sector. The stakes are also lower in the private sector. If a company wants to waste shareholder money, shareholders will flee and invest elsewhere, and, in any event, overall costs to society will be low. Waste in education, however, steals futures from children.

I think many Americans would be in favor of paying a little bit more of their income to help the less fortunate, educate our children, clean the environment, and police our streets. Count me among those who think that much of the money spent to do these things, including the $26 billion the House votes on today, is diverted to serve the interests of the few who control the machinery instead of the many it is intended to serve.

Full post as published by Truth on the Market on August 10, 2010 (boomark / email).