49 things that defenders of government run schools don’t want you to know

1) The United States is tied for first place with Switzerland when it comes to annual spending per student on its public schools. However, this has never stopped liberals from making the false claim that U.S. public schools are “underfunded.”

2) Education majors have the lowest SAT scores of any college major.

3) Public schools teach math and science much better when the teachers don’t have a degree in education.

4) When Barack Obama lived in Chicago, he refused to allow his children to attend Chicago’s public schools.

5) In 2012, Chicago’s striking public school teachers were already earning $74,839 per year before they went on strike.

6) The U.S. Department of Education reported that 79% of Chicago eighth graders are not grade-level proficient in reading, and 80% are not grade-level proficient in math.

7) During the 2006–2007 school year, a private school in Chicago founded by Marva Collins to teach low income, minority students charged $5,500 for tuition, and parents said that the school did a much better job than the Chicago public school system. Meanwhile, during the 2007–2008 year, Chicago public school officials claimed that their budget of $11,300 per student was not enough.

8) In Chicago, 39% of public school teachers send their own children to private school.



9) In Philadelphia, 44% of public school teachers send their own children to private school.

10) In Washington D.C., 28% of public school teachers send their own children to private school.

11) In the San Francisco-Oakland area, 34% of public school teachers send their own children to private school.

12) In Baltimore, 35% of public school teachers send their own children to private school.

13) In Rochester, 38% of public school teachers send their own children to private school.

14) In Cincinnati, 41% of public school teachers send their own children to private schools.

15) In Milwaukee, 29% of public school teachers send their own children to private schools.

16) In New Orleans, 29% of public school teachers send their own children to private schools.

17) In New York City, 33% of public school teachers send their own children to private schools.

18) A Berkeley public high school considered canceling its Advanced Placement classes because too many white students were succeeding.

19) A public school for low-income blacks and Latinos went from horrible to excellent by firing bad teachers.

20) Los Angeles teachers’ unions tried to shut down a South Central charter school that had been very successful at teaching low-income black and Hispanic students.

21) A study showed that in Arizona, public schools spend 50% more per student than Arizona’s private schools. While teachers constitute 72% of the employees at private schools, they make up less than half of the staff at public schools. According to the study, if Arizona’s public schools wanted to be like private schools, they would have to hire approximately 25,000 more teachers, and eliminate 21,210 administration employees.

22) In 1985 in Kansas City, Missouri, a judge ordered the school district to raise taxes and spend more money on public education. Spending was increased so much, that the school district was spending more money per student than any of the country’s other 280 largest school districts. Although this very high level of spending continued for more than a decade, there was no improvement in the school district’s academic performance.

23) Between 1960 and 1995, U.S. public school spending per student, adjusted for inflation, increased by 212%, but the schools did not get any better.

24) In 2007, the Washington D.C. public school district spent $12,979 per student per year. This was the third highest level of funding per student out of the 100 biggest school districts in the U.S. Despite this high level of funding, in reading and math, the district’s students score the lowest among 11 major school districts – even when poor children are compared with other poor children. 33% of poor fourth graders in the U.S. lack basic skills in math, but in Washington D.C., it’s 62%.

25) The Pittsburgh public schools have an enrollment of 26,649 students , and an annual budget of $529.8 million. That works out to $19,880 per student per year. By comparison, the Catholic schools in Pittsburgh charge approximately $7,500 tuition per student per year. The low-income minority children who get scholarships to Catholic schools in Pittsburgh through the privately funded Extra Mile Education Foundation have much better attendance rates, graduation rates, and academic performance, than the students at the Pittsburgh public schools.

26) On the ACT, Chicago’s public school teachers did worse than Illinois’ high school students.

27) A Chicago public school suspended a teacher because he taught students how to use wrenches, pliers, and screwdrivers.

28) A Texas school expelled a 13-year-old because he stood up to a bully.

29) A Philadelphia high school punished a student for eating Mike and Ike candy in his own home.

30) A Chicago public school handcuffed a first grader for talking in class.

31) A Florida elementary school called police because a girl kissed a boy.

32) A Forest Hills school had a 12 year old girl arrested for doodling on a desk.

33) A North Carolina school had a student arrested for bringing a small paring knife to school with her lunch.

34) A Mississippi school called police because a five year old violated the dress code.

35) A Pennsylvania school suspended a five year old and labeled her as a “terrorist threat” because she said she would shoot another girl with her pink toy gun that blows soap bubbles.

36) A Maryland school suspended two students who pointed their fingers like a gun while playing cops and robbers during recess.

37) A New Jersey school suspended a student for drawing a picture of a stick figure with a gun.

38) A Florida high school suspended a student after he disarmed another student who had threatened to shoot someone.

39) A Philadelphia school searched a student who had a piece of paper that looked like a gun.

40) A Maryland school suspended a student for biting his pastry into the shape of a gun.

41) Arizona’s Poston Butte High School school suspended a student for having a picture of a gun on his computer screen.

42) Arizona’s Payne Junior High suspended a student for drawing a picture of a gun.

43) A Massachusetts school threatened to suspend a student who made a gun out of Legos.

44) A Virginia school suspended two students who pointed pencils at each other and made gun noises.

45) A Washington state school suspended a student who pointed his finger like a gun and pretended to shoot other students.

46) A Maryland school suspended a student for saying the word “gun.”

47) A Michigan school reprimanded a student who brought green plastic army men to school.

48) A Massachusetts school gave detention to a student who brought a toy plastic gun the size of a quarter to school.

49) A Colorado school suspended a student for tossing an imaginary grenade.