DePasquale to take on school spending

One lawmaker who seemingly did read our Edifice Complex report is Eugene DePasquale, who is going to propose legislation to "to rein in spending on school construction". DePasquale notes that school construction is "one of the leading causes of escalating public education costs."

As we noted in Edifice Complex, there was a 103% increase in construction spending by school districts over the past 10 years, compared with a 51% increase in instructional costs.

It is also worth pointing out that school district construction represents 23 times the entire budgets of all 11 cyber schools combined, despite those who are targeting cyber schools for funding cuts.

I will be interesting in seeing if, among his "other cost-containment measures", Rep. DePasquale supports expanding school choice - including lower-cost charter and cyber schools - as a way to save on the need for new construction, and to reduce property tax. (Hopefully he has also read The Dollars and Sense of School Choice.)