Thursday, January 21, 2010

Race to the Top

Family Research Council published a post recently about Pres. Obama's "Race to the Top" program. One of factoid that jumped out at me was the amount of money America spends per student per year: a whopping $9,266.

That made me start thinking. . . What would I do with $18,532 a year for education of my two kids? So here is my wish list with approximate costs.

1. Native Spanish speaker Spanish tutor, 72 sessions x $30= $2160
2. Master Gardener to dig a garden and supervise the kids and I as we produce organic vegetables and herbs, gardener+garden = $3000
3. A lab quality microscope with computer hookup, $1500
4. Private astronomy lessons by someone who could help us figure out our telescope, 36 sessions x $25= $900
5. Right Start Math curriculum level D, $150
6. Karate classes for my son, 12 months x $30= $360
7. Horse Riding lessons for my daughter,12 months x $40= $480
8. Fort Worth zoo membership= $170
9. Awesome thinking games like Qwirkle cubes and others= $200
10. As I still have about $9500 left, I guess I could pay myself as the teacher and use it to by a minivan.

So what would you spend your $9,266 on?

What do you think the public schools spent it on? That is about $203,000/classroom.

Are we really getting that much bang for our buck?

1 comment:

Scott said...

Wow, if I could get that much for each of my four children it would be more than I make in a year!

I say we get the schools to forward that money to us, and I wouldn't be worried about college tuition this next fall!