“It is impossible to have a public debate about education policy if public schools can’t be straight forward about their spending.”

A new report from the Cato Institute shows that public school systems are deliberately fudging the numbers on the cost of public education. Typical school system tactics are to exclude healthcare or retirement costs of public school employees, or the capital costs of building school buildings or debt service payments on school bonds.

Watch this video. It will make your blood boil.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzvKyfV3JtE

The District of Columbia spends $28,000 per pupil, per year. That’s MORE than all but the most expensive DC private schools. This ought to be a major scandal.

You can read the full report, titled They Spend What? The Full Cost of Public School at the Cato Institute website.

At the current under-reported rate of $7,620 for the state of Tennessee, Mrs. RedHatRob and I have saved our local school system $1,005,840 by educating our 11 children at home. At that’s without charging them for Kindergarten, which would have been another $83,820.