Stan Geiger

Eight Grand Per Kid Per Year

I flicked on the tube a little while ago and ran across a show on OETA that was examining home schooling versus public schooling. I didn't see it all; I got in right at the tail end. But I saw enough to catch a couple of interesting facts.

I graduated from Tulsa Public Schools 32 years ago. I have reared no children of my own. So I will readily admit I'm no expert on how we should go about the nuts and bolts of education. My main interest has to do with money.

The report seemed to be focused on whether or not home schooling was better than public schooling. A statistic cited was that the average ACT score for home-schooled students that take the test is 23, while the average for public school counterparts is 21. That stat works in favor of the home schoolers.

An OEA spokeswoman countered by saying the only reason home schooling appears to be better is that the home-schooled failures don't get mentioned. That argument cuts little ice with me. Nothing the teachers' union says cuts any ice with me.

The numbers kicked around these days say anywhere from a quarter to a third of an entering public high school class might not be around for graduation. While there may be some failures in the home school realm, I doubt the percentage is anywhere near that high.

At the bottom line, the most important cog in the education machine is the student. A student that wants to learn will; a student that refuses to learn won't. It's just that simple. And, in my view, nothing can be done to force a kid---whether in home school or public school---to learn.

Teachers had a saying when I was in school. They used to say, "I can't open up your head and pour knowledge into it." Indeed, that is so. You could put Albert Einstein in a middle school teaching basic algebra---and, by the way, pay him a million bucks a year---but if the kids weren't willing to put in the effort to learn, they would leave the class just as ignorant of algebra as they entered.

And therein lies a major rub. The report said Oklahomans spend $8,000 in tax money per student per year on common education. The OEA says, hey, home schoolers bomb out, too. Perhaps so, on occasion. But if a home-schooled kid winks out, at least society hasn't paid 8 grand per year for a number of years to produce a failed student.

The amount of public resources we throw at public education has gotten crazy. I'll toss out a couple of rough comparisons to illustrate my point.

The City of Tulsa spends roughly $1,500 in tax money per citizen annually. For an average family of four---with, say, two adults and two kids in public schools---the tab comes to $6,000. That's for streets, bridges, cops, firefighters, water, sewer, trash, parks and anything else that has slipped my mind.

For the two kids in public schools---half the family---$16,000 in tax money goes to provide a year's worth of rudimentary education that doesn't even run a full year. Meanwhile, about 37 percent of that amount is spent by the city providing a myriad of services to all four members of the clan.

The state government---excluding what it donates to education---spends about $1,000 per citizen annually. That's for highways and bridges, prisons, courts, the highway patrol, the national guard, welfare, heath care---and even pork barrel projects---combined. For our putative family of four, that's $4,000 per year. Providing a year of public schooling for the two kids eats 4 times that amount of tax money.

I rest my case---for the moment.

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