OK, I found an old post. Look at this article. This is about a town that has a school system with 1456 students and a 29 million dollar budget. (And that was last year... it goes up by double digit percentages every year)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/669770/posts You have to read between the lines, it's a very liberal paper, but you can see the issue. The numbers I mention in my response come from my wife who is a CPA, and our analysis of the actual budget proposed by the board. The budget was subsequently voted down by the voters, and then the "contingency budget" was approved for roughly $26,000 (that's right, only 26 thousand) less.
We can't afford to tippy-toe around the Education issues anymore. First, there is no honest observation of the "Special Needs" students that does not reveal that mainstreaming the most care-intensive is a fraud and failure. Any kid, regardless of the cause, who can't keep up with the rest of his classmates on core academic programs HAS TO BE REMOVED from that class. If it's a kid with a respirator who has a RN at his side, if it's some kid who is not English proficient enough to handle the coursework, if it's a behavioral problem .... GET 'EM OUT. The 30 students are now suffering the handicaps and pathologies of the slowest single student. Eff it, we're not going to throw that kid away but we're damn sure not going to permit him/her to compromise or diminsish the learning experience, and graduation course TIMETABLE to coddle them.
Kids on respirators should NOT be in public school. Kids who can't speak English well enough to learn with his/her age peers should NOT be in that public school peer classroom. Kids who are criminals and emotionally disturbed need to be yanked.
Enough of the "Elanor Clift has two Female Escorts" and "Scott Ritter Has Burger King Coupons" socializing and indoctrinating. Math. Science. Reading. Writing. History. Geography. Social Science. Foreign Language. No Earth Day bullshit, no field trips to a Andrea Dworkin mass diharrea bombing, no trips to Mall of America or to ValleyFair or to the MADD seminar.
We're getting lousy service for our big bucks.