Thanks to the Northern Kentucky Tea Party (Hat Tip!), I just found out a national data organization called EducationData.org has information about the average tuition to attend a private school in the Bluegrass State.

Here are those numbers:

• $6,530 is the average tuition among all private schools in Kentucky.

• $5,770 is the average cost of tuition at private elementary schools.

• $7,290 is the average cost of tuition at secondary schools.

For some perspective, check this out:

• $15,324 was the average Per Pupil Expenditure for public schools in Kentucky in 2018-19.

Why does it cost the Kentucky taxpayer over twice as much to send a student to public school as it would on average to send that student to a private school? What is wrong with this picture?

Let’s tie this to my earlier blog, “More on real examples of how school choice really impacts public schools,” where I explored the relative efficiency of education dollars in Kentucky and Florida.

Between 1992 and 2019, Florida’s public schools actually improved efficiency of their education dollars. Meanwhile, Kentucky’s public education system moved strongly in the opposite direction.

The table below, fully explained in that earlier blog, shows that today Kentucky scores fewer Scale Score Points on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Grade 4 reading and math Assessments per $1,000 of per pupil revenue than it did back in 1992. Meanwhile, Florida improved its education bang for each education buck.

So, before we spend even more money on an inefficient system, let’s get more bang for each education buck we are already investing.

Also, let’s find out what Florida is doing.

An important part of that answer, as I explained in another blog, “If we’re talking about impacts of school choice, let’s look at real examples, not guesses,” is Florida has created competitive pressure for public schools to improve by increasing parents’ school choice options. Public schools in Florida know that if they don’t serve their customers, the students, those students can go elsewhere. And, despite what naysayers in Kentucky say will happen, that competitive motivation actually works to improve Florida’s public schools.