There are still too many [students] who don’t know how to read. There are still too many who don’t know how to add, subtract, divide, or multiply. And too many have no power to do anything about it. That’s because the education cabal puts other issues above what’s right for students. Mixed-up priorities are borne out in the numbers. Consider that American taxpayers spend—on average— about $13,000 per student, per year. With an average class size of 21 students, that adds up to $273,000 per classroom, per year. We know the average classroom teacher makes about $60,000 annually. So, where does the rest of the money go? More than $200,000 per classroom and teachers are still buying school supplies out of their pockets.
“Well, here’s the dirty little secret: it’s to highly paid administrators, coordinators, consultants, assistant principals, assistant superintendents… layers and layers of bureaucracy. The growth in non-instructional school staff has increased nine times faster than student enrollment growth.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos kicked off her national Back-to-School Tour at St. Marcus, a WCRIS school, in Milwaukee. You can watch the Secretary’s remarks here or a summary of her remarks here.
After DeVos visited schools around the country, she returned to Washington, DC to attend the U.S. Department of Education’s Private School Leadership Conference.
At the conference, WCRIS executive Director Sharon Schmeling met Secretary DeVos and Assistant Secretary James Blew and discussed the challenges of accessing ESSA title programs in our schools in Wisconsin.
During the conference, WCRIS was able to provide comments and concerns about private education and connect with other education leaders from across the country.
Wisconsin private school ombudsman Abigail Pavela met with ombudsman from around the country at the meeting.
This conference provides WCRIS valuable insight into what is happening at a federal level and how that it impacts its member schools.
