It shows the average cost to educate a kid from kindergarten through 12th grade in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars. In 1970 each child's education cost about $40,000. Today it's nearly $160,000 - nearly four times as much! And if you look at the test scores over that period, they haven't budged at all. So we're paying 4 times as much in constant dollars and getting jack shit for it. In even a poorly run company that would be enough to get people fired and auditors looking for criminal fraud.
And it's not like children's brains are fundamentally different now or there's a lot more material to learn - basic math is still basic math and reading is still reading. Which means that teaching might be the only profession in the world that has become less efficient over the last four decades.
And if you're wondering where all the money went, well this little tidbit will give you a clue: former Niles Township, IL school superintendent Neil Codell will receive $26 million dollars in retirement checks from the Illinois teacher pension plan which he will qualify for after just 34 years of work. Which means he'll be getting nearly a $1 million dollars a year in his pension. Now multiply that by every school district and you start to see why some states are facing bankruptcy.
- After losing $4.4 billion on investments in fiscal year 2009, and 5 percent on investments in fiscal 2008, the pension is now underfunded by $44.5 billion, or 60.9 percent, according to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability's March 2010 report.
They have 40 cents of every dollar they need. Tell me again how they get to do this? What their capital base is for it?
Oh yeah, it's you, the Illinois taxpayer, who will be required to make up the shortfalls when (not if) this blows up in their face.
Get the hell out of Ill-noise folks. Right now.
Oh, if you're an Illinois teacher?
Your pension is toast.
Mark my words.
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