Fed gave $4 Billion as teachers strike - Chicago spends $10,540 per student

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
9/13/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Taxpayers have literally billions at stake in determination of Chicago school system

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.

Does all this expenditure equal superior education? Apparently not. Read the final paragraph.

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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.

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Chicago, expenditures, salaries, grade-proficient

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1 - 7 of 7 Comments

robert matzinger
8 months ago
Not to fear: these billions given to the Chicago school system in an effort to prop up teachers wages will simply be added to the national debt!
Tom McGuire
8 months ago
This article is good in theory but in practice? What do you do for the children whose parents are not educated? What about the children who come to school but are physically and mentally unable to learn? What about those children who lack the necessities of life, but are still expected to engage in a competitive educational process? Many other questions are left unanswered in the theory of the article. A public school system remains a necessity for our communities. With a large system unions are also needed to represent the teachers. Catholic social doctrine supports unions. Yes, unions like any other system, need reform, but dismantling what is needed, which is what many really want to happen, is not progress.

Catholic Schools
I taught in a Catholic elementary school in a poor community of African Americans. The school provided a good quality education for most of the students. Some of my students came back and told me how they were able to help teachers teach Algebra in high school. I met others who were succeeding in College. But we were not able to help all the students; we did not have the resources to support students with special needs. Hence, a system is needed that can provide those services. It does cost more to educate a student in that poor community than it does in a upper middle class white community. So when looking at allocation of resources the question is not just about classroom education, but also support systems that work.

I believe that if the Catholic Church had a mission to educate children in poor communities we would not have closed our school while building a larger school for upper white middle class Catholics in suburbia. If we have a mission and are committed to it, we find the resources to make it happen. The working class Catholics who built the buildings at the parish, where I taught, put a large portion of their resources into the mission of the Church. If we were committed to the educational mission of the Church we would ask people to give from what they do not need, many of us Catholics have more than we need, to provide education for those who cannot afford a quality Catholic education. The voucher thing is an excuse to avoid doing what we can do. Committed and engaged Catholics is what it means to be Church in mission.
Missy
8 months ago
The government must stop giving money to those who have no appreciation & cannot use it wisely. Biting the hand that feeds you should make you automatically cut-off from our welfare. Look at the situation in the middle east and how many billions of $$ we've given them & they just use our money to retailate. It's no different within our borders. If all this money was used to just give the people their tax money back, our economy wouldn't be in the dump.
Bill
8 months ago
Let the teachers speak . The average joe knows nothing except he may be making less.
Larry
8 months ago
I agree with Vance and Kasoy. Unions once served a good purpose - we need to reexamine their usefulness in the government sector. Franlin D Roosevelt warned us against having them in the government sector - its a system that feeds on itself whether any particular teacher likes it, or supports it or not. Teachers unions (and other government unions) support and help elect politicians who pass legislation and actions that protect union actions who gain more power for themselves at the expense of the public good since it is the taxpayers (us) that pay the bill. Federal government does not run out of money so the demands can be as much as they want, though at times they do make consessions usually only after they may great demands (originally Chicago's teacher unions asked for 36% increase, they backed it down to 25% and the government is offering 16% over several years - the sticking point now is teacher evaluation which the unions and teachers do not want - they don't want to be judged for their work and results).
Obviously not all unions act the same but this is public money, not private money as in private businesses. The salaries, compensations during the year (what they can be asked to do and not asked to do, vacation days, days off, sick days, health insurance, etc.) and retirement compensation are a very rich package compared to what the average Joe get in the private sector - and he is paying the union bills. Once upon a time the better compensations were to make up for the low pay public sector union memebers got but now many public sector union memebers get better salaries than private sector workers get AND they get too many benefits on top of that - and then there is the work and results they produce (DMV, Teachers, Post Office workers as a few examples).
vance
8 months ago
We are witnessing a great example of why we need to get rid of public unions. When the tail starts wagging the dog, it's time for change like what happened in Wisconsin.
Kasoy
8 months ago
The Fed is spending $10,540/student when some parents pay lower tuition to send their kids to Catholic schools. Isn't it time to wean the Fed out of public school funding? Either it could give vouchers or tax credit to parents who opt to place their kids in private school or home schooling. Our grandkids can get better education and moral values in Catholic schools.

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