School construction by the numbers

Clark County school officials plan to put a $9.5 billion school bond on the ballot next year. The money would be used to build 73 new schools over the next 10 years to accommodate what they claim will be an increase of 164,000 new students by the year 2018.

My first question would normally be to ask how many of those 164,000 new students will be illegal aliens. But I know that’s not politically correct, so just pretend I never brought it up, OK? OK.

Now, I went to government schools myself for a few years, so you better check my math on this. But if it’s going to cost $9.5 billion to build 73 schools, doesn’t that mean those schools are going to cost more than $130 million each? What the heck are they building them out of, gold?

And while we’re on the subject, I wonder how much less each school would cost if it was built with non-union labor? I’m just asking.

Or consider this: If approved, we’d be spending $9.5 billion just to build schools for 164,000 new kids. That comes to $58,000 per child over 10 years. And that’s just for the construction cost of the new schools. Once you add in operating expenses and staffing … well, we’re looking at well over $10,000 per child, per year. And that jacks up the total cost to educate these new kids in new Taj Mahal government schools to more than $16.5 billion over 10 years.

Hey, here’s an idea: Why not offer 164,000 students a voucher — you can call it a “scholarship” if it makes you feel better — of, say, $4,000 each if they’ll just go to a non-public school … or even home-school?

Let’s see, 164,000 kids times $4,000 per kid times 10 years, carry the five, subtract the two … hmm, by my calculations that would come to about $6.5 billion — a savings of more than $9.5 billion which, coincidentally, is the same amount of money the Clark County School District is asking for to build those 73 new gold-plated schools. Go figure.

And for all you teachers union nay-sayers who will say, “But there aren’t enough private schools out there to accommodate 164,000 new students,” rest assured that if there were suddenly $6.5 billion worth of school vouchers … er, sorry … scholarships floating around in parents’ hands, the private sector would find a way to build enough schools fast. Using their own money. And for a lot cheaper than $130 million per school.

Oh, and as an added bonus, those 164,000 kids who will no longer be locked into a mediocre-at-best government school will likely get a better education to boot. What’s not to like? Unless you’re the teachers union or an education bureaucrat, of course.

Now let’s all sit back and hold our breath waiting for a school district official to seriously propose discussing this as an alternative to that $9.5 billion bond.

Chuck Muth

CARSON CITY

THE WRITER, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CLARK COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY, IS PRESIDENT OF CITIZEN OUTREACH, A PUBLIC POLICY GROUP DEDICATED TO LIMITING OR REDUCING THE POWERS OF GOVERNMENTS.