John Stossel vs Public Schools

I don't watch John Stossel. I don't even know what channel he's on - I'm sure ABC is somewhere between 2 and 30 on my TV but I honestly don't know. My friends say I would love the guy - he's libertarian, he does hard research, blah blah blah.

I didn't see his special last week, but he's had quite a lot of mail about it. He has posted an article/column, Myth: Schools don't have enough money

Many such comments came in after the National Education Association (NEA) informed its members about the special and claimed that I have a "documented history of blatant antagonism toward public schools."

Disclosure - I am not in the NEA and I think they're full of crap.

The truth is, public schools are rolling in money. If you divide the U.S. Department of Education's figure for total spending on K-12 education by the department's count of K-12 students, it works out to about $10,000 per student.

I am curious... what do you suppose that figure goes to when special education is taken out? I am sure it is still too high, and special ed is its own separate issue, but I would like to know.

America spends more on schooling than the vast majority of countries that outscore us on the international tests. But the bureaucrats still blame school failure on lack of funds, and demand more money...
A study by two professors at the Hoover Institution a few years ago compared public and Catholic schools in three of New York City's five boroughs. Parochial education outperformed the nation's largest school system "in every instance," they found -- and it did it at less than half the cost per student.

This article doesn't really supply much in the way of an argument. He provides some figures to support what I already knew, but I guess the meat was aired last Friday on 20/20, whatever channel that is. I'll troll EducationWonks and Google for reaction, but I would also welcome the comments of any who watched the special.