Back to School: Some Surprising Education Numbers
By Lindsey Burke
As children head back to the classrooms, let’s look an important figure to consider this school year: $11,400. $11,400: Average per-pupil, per year spending in public schools.
Students headed back to school this fall will have historically high levels of dollars spent on them in the public school system. Nationally, average per-pupil spending exceeds $11,400 this year, meaning a child entering kindergarten today can expect to have no less than $148,000 spent on his or her education by the time the child graduates high school. In all, more than $570 billion will be spent on public K-12 education this year.
Sadly, continual increases in the money spent per child and in overall spending haven’t led to increases in academic achievement. That’s due in large part to the fact that most parents still do not have control over where or how that money is spent. We continue to fund institutions—sending that money to schools—instead of actually funding children.
Imagine if a child could put those dollars in a funding “backpack” and take that $11,400 to any school—public, private, or virtual. As in every other sector of American life, we would likely see outcomes improve as a result of competitive pressure placed on the government school system.
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| What To
Watch |  | Texas Senate Committee Considers School Choice
Texas’ proposed program would allow families to receive a portion of their education dollars to send children to private schools of their choice.
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| The Rise of Customized Education
By Lindsey Burke
Customized learning has led the education news cycle over the past few weeks as back to school season gets in full swing. And for good reason. Every day there is growing evidence that a seismic shift in the delivery of instruction is underway, bringing with it a tidal wave of educational options for families. Recent coverage in Education Week, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal has highlighted the success of hybrid and customized learning in the K-12 arena.
Higher education is also becoming increasingly customized. Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera, an online learning platform that offers free courses to anyone in the world from some of the U.S.’s top universities, explains the massive potential customization that online learning holds. Koller describes how one of her Stanford colleagues had over 100,000 students enrolled in a machine course online. “So to put that number into perspective, for [the professor] to reach that same size audience by teaching a Stanford class, he would have to do that for 250 years."
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 | About The Heritage Foundation
Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute -- a think tank -- whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. | |
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