One of the classic privatizer claims is that private sector charter schools must be more efficient than messy old public sector schools. Stephen Dyer shows how untrue that is.
I feel like I’m banging my head against a wall here, but for the millionth time, the private sector is not inherently more efficient than the public one.
He decries how expensive public education is, reflexively blaming teachers unions, adults, whatever while pumping up charter and private schools as the free market answer.
However, the data (as they have for more than a decade now), just prove over and over again that it is the private sector that is worse at driving resources into classrooms.
Let’s just look at the basic numbers, according to the Ohio Department of Education (I’m not using the department’s new name)1.
First of all, even though Ohio Charter Schools spend about $1,000 more per pupil overall, they spend more than $1 in every $4 on non-instructional, administrative costs. Ohio’s public school districts? They spend $1 out of about every $8 on those costs.
This is why Ohio’s public school districts are able spend about $125 more per pupil in the classroom than Ohio’s charter schools do, even though Ohio’s charter schools spend more than $1,000 more overall.
In other words, Ohio’s public school districts (who spend less even though they collect local property and income taxes, unlike Ohio’s charter schools) literally do more for kids with less money than what Ohio’s charter schools do.
Their efficiency is simply better.