What if we ration school funds the way we will ration healthcare funds?

Government-funded anything creates economic inequities

1. Government-run healthcare creates economic inequities.

Taxpayer-funded healthcare creates a limited pool of money to spend. Under a government-run system, it doesn't make sense to divert a disproportionate amount of money to any one segment of the population. The elderly, especially in the last year of life, consume a disproportionate share of the government-provided healthcare dollars. Some people say this is justifies rationing.

Aged-Based Health Care Rationing:  "The projected demands from a growing elderly population on a health care system that is already taxed to the breaking point, together with continual advances and availability of expensive life-extending technology, have led to troubling questions about society's ability to meet future health care demands, and to the increased tolerance of proposals for rationing. . . .  In short, the costs that are incurred to prolong the life of one elderly person might be more productively directed toward the treatment of a far greater number of younger persons whose health can be ensured by less costly measures. . . . Furthermore, the advocates of rationing argue, society benefits from the increase in economic productivity that results when medical resources are diverted from an elderly, retired population to those younger members of society who are more likely to be working."

2. Government-run education creates economic inequities.

There is plenty of evidence of systemic economic inequities in the public education system.

High school sports spending grows as budgets get tighter in New Jersey, by DIANE D’AMICO, Education Writer (October 26, 2009): ". . . sports are an emotional issue for parents, who are very vocal if they believe their children's programs are threatened. But there is a larger public policy issue to address about what constitutes publicly-funded education. . . The annual athletic budgets do not include stadiums or other facilities, which are funded as capital projects."

Millions of dollars pour into high school football, by Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY (10/6/2004): [USA Today cited examples of high school districts pouring millions of dollars into new stadiums, sports facilities, and sports programs] ". . . two Texas high school districts [spent] . . . more than $20 million — apiece. . .
"Georgia power Valdosta High School just finished a $7.5 million face lift of its 10,300-seat stadium . . .
"Lafayette Jefferson High drew up a privately financed, $8 million building project that already has delivered a 6,000-seat football stadium, complete with a high-end video scoreboard . . . A 22,000-square-foot athletic complex will house locker, weight and training rooms . . ."

We cannot measure the inequity in terms of dollars, because school district budgets are not that transparent.

PRESS RELEASE: Slaughter Bill Will Force High Schools to Disclose Spending on Girls Sports: Promote Equal Athletic Opportunities for Girls [Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, Chairwoman, House Committee on Rules, Representing New York’s 28th District, Tuesday, June 16, 2009]: "The High School Athletics Accountability Act of 2009 will require that high schools report basic data on the number of female and male students in their athletic programs as well as the expenditures made for their sports teams. . . . Recent studies have shown that there is still great disparity in high school athletics programs between the opportunities given to boys and that given to girls.'"

Why not carry Rep. Slaughter's proposal to the next level?

Why not require reporting on exactly how much is spent per year on an average first grade girl, and compare that number with how much is spent per year on the high school football quarterback? On the high school basketball star? It just seems to make sense that [to paraphrase] society would benefit from the increase in economic productivity that results when education resources are diverted from an elite, athletic population to the larger population of non-athletic students who are more likely to one day be working.

State education budgets are being cut back. Few people seem to question where all that money is being spent in the first place. If we had a clear accounting, would the pragmatists who advocate age-based healthcare rationing apply the same logic to the way we divert public school funding?