Ben Wyatt

Is it just me, or are the best ideas some of the most radical?

The long version is here. The short version is here. The public school graduate version is. . . . Ooh look, a squirrel:

The average cost per student per school year in the New York Public School system is $14,119.
. . . .

So, as a thought experiment, I constructed a proposal for a revived one-room school. Since I had a cost per student for New York, I’d develop a plan for New York City — in fact, for midtown Manhattan, using midtown Manhattan rents. Could I pay a teacher enough to live on, with a one-room school, based on New York costs per student?
. . . .

The Adams County school has room for 24 students, so we assume 24 students in Manhattan, and a one-room school built in quality office space in midtown. I laid out a floor plan and discovered we could fit it nicely into 1,050 square feet; equip it with good quality desks and chairs and with one iMac computer for every two students, plus one for the teacher and a Mac Pro as a classroom server; and add Internet connections and $1,000 per student for books and supplies. How much remained to hire a teacher?

$230,000. Almost a quarter of a million dollars.

It's like homeschooling writ large, except don't they wish the made that much money. Even quartering that salary to account for administrative costs and general government inefficiency, you get better than what you got today. Also note that this ameliorates much of the cost issues associated with decentralized Midwestern school systems.

Too bad it would never happen.