Growing Our Party

Cato Institute - REAL K-12 Spending

We want to thank one of our anonymous commenters for pointing us to this important study just released last week.

The following conclusions come the report by Adam B. Schaeffer who is a policy analyst with Cato's Center for Educational Freedom.

In Phoenix, the average real per-pupil spending figure of $11,800 is 27 percent higher than the average $9,300 the Phoenix districts claim to spend. In addition, real public school spending is more than 75 percent higher than the estimated median private school spending of just $6,770.

Paradise Valley ($12,231) and Cave Creek ($13,929) real spending per pupil are 82% and 106% higher than the average real spending for private schools in our area. There are real unethical - if not illegal - discrepancies from the annual report figures provided to the Department of Education and their own internal reports.

This blatant under-reporting by the school districts to the Department of Education should be looked at by the Auditor General, the legislature and, possibly, the County Attorney. In the meantime, it is important that you refer your friends, neighbors, family and co-workers to this report.

Lets look at PVUSD, for example.

Published pre-K–12 per-pupil spending is 2009 All Funds Expenditure per Pupil, from “Summary of School District Annual Financial Report,” provided by e-mail from Vanessa Shapiro, Paradise Valley Unified School District, November 13, 2009, http://cmweb.pvschools.net/siteweb/pdfs/BudgetSummary0910.pdf.
$9,883 Per Pupil Spending

Real FY2009 budgeted pre-K–12 expenditures calculated as the sum of all accounting funds from “Summary of School District Proposed Expenditure Budget,” p. 2, http://cmweb.pvschools.net/siteweb/pdfs/BudgetSummary0910.pdf.
$12,312 Per Pupil Spending

Vote NO on the 18% sales tax increase.
The governor says 75% of this tax increase will go to public schools already over-funded and under-reporting how much the taxpayers are being gouged.

Vote NO on Prop 100.