In early April, a Cato op-ed by Adam Schaeffer described the way in which congressional Democrats had buried a provision in the omnibus spending bill that will spell doom for the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, DC’s voucher system for poor children. They did this despite recent reports that found voucher students were equal in math to public school students and strongly outperformed them in reading. All at 25% of the cost: $6,620 vs. $26,555 per pupil per year.
I want to focus on just one aspect of this: $26,555 per pupil per year for the privilege of attending the DC school system, one of the most dangerous and decrepit school systems in the country! Think about this: With 30 students in a classroom, that’s just shy of $800,000 per year to educate one class of children. Keep that in mind the next time you’re told the problem is that we don’t spend enough money to educate our children. How can people continue to make that argument with a straight face?
