Chicago Schools

Federal Subsidies to Chicago Schools: $4 Billion in 4 Years; $10,540 Per Student

By Terence P. Jeffrey

September 11, 2012

    

(AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) - Taxpayers in places as divergent as Florida and Montana, Nevada and New Hampshire, Arizona and Maine--as well as their children who will eventually need to pay the interest on the federal government's growing debt--may not think they have a stake in the Chicago teachers strike, but in fact the budgets of the Chicago Public Schools show that American taxpayers everywhere have literally billions at stake in what goes on in this one city's public school system.

Over the past four years, the Chicago public schools have churned through total revenues of approximately $20.27 billion and about $4.26 billion of that revenue—or almost 21 percent of it—has come from the federal government.
That is $4.26 billion the federal government has either taken from Americans in federal taxes or has borrowed and added to the national debt.

In fiscal 2009, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Department of Education spent $53.389 billion. In 2010, that climbed to $92.858 billion, then in 2011, it dropped to $65.484 billion. This year, according to OMB, Department of Education spending will hit an historical high of $98.467 billion.