The District, says NCES, spent $5,982 per student on actual "instruction" (defined as "activities directly associated with the interaction between teachers and students," including the cost of textbooks and teachers' salaries and benefits). But it spent another $5,726 per student -- or 48 percent of its school budget -- on "support services." These include "operation and maintenance of buildings, school administration, student support services (e.g. nurses, therapists and guidance counselors), student transportation, instructional staff support (e.g. librarians, instructional specialists), school district administration, business services, research and data processing."
This $5,726 per student for "support services" is more than the $5,200 in total that, according to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., local Catholic elementary schools will spend per student this year.
Even some of Washington's most elite Catholic prep schools charge less than the District spends per student. Gonzaga, an all-male Jesuit prep school just a few blocks from the Capitol, charged $10,150 last year. St. John's, a Christian Brothers academy where many students join a military-style Corp of Cadets, charged $9,000.
If the District closed its own schools and sent every one of its students to a clone of St. John's, it could save more than $3,000 per student. Does anyone honestly believe students given that opportunity would achieve less academically?
Yet, in the school choice proposal for the District that President Bush is now pushing through Congress, he is not asking that every student be sent to a cloned school. That, after all, approximates what they do now. He is asking that for a five-year trial period, students from District families whose income is 185 percent of the poverty level or less be offered $7,500 scholarships to opt out of public schools. The scholarships would be funded by Congress, but administered by public and private foundations.
They would come with no strings. Religious schools would not sell their souls to take students in need. And because Congress has explicit constitutional authority over the District, the program does not violate the right of states to run their own schools.
In warning that D.C. choice will inspire school choice nationwide, Delegate Norton revealed her true fear: It is not that District children will fail in less costly private schools, it is that they will succeed.