The County of Fairfax in which I now live is facing large budget deficits. I've just started to go through the Proposed FY2010 Budget, but I was struck by this image of proposed expenditures.
Spending on schools is a huge portion of the budget: $1.79 billion, or 54% of 3.31 billion, and that figure may exclude some relevant costs.
The projected enrollment for the current 2008-2009 school year is 168,384. If enrollment doesn't change that much, that works out to almost $11,000 per student per year.
Some have touted vouchers and education tax credits as the silver bullet to education quality problems, but they seem to be overlooked in budget discussions. We usually assume that spending less gets you less--and shortchanging our children's futures is obviously unacceptable--but isn't it possible that at least some of the spending isn't adding much to their education?
Andrew Coulson over at Cato crunched the numbers to see what would happen if Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, and New York adopted an education tax credit, and he finds massive cost savings.
If savings in Fairfax County are anything comparable, something like this could take care of the budget crunch, improve choice, and enhance educational quality all at once. At least it's worth a look.
More budget analysis to come...
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