The Cost of Educating Katrina's Kids

On the heels of a $51 billion dollar request for disaster aid, I am guessing that there will be a bigger bill to come. The New York Times is reporting that storm victims are being welcomed into schools so that displaced children will not have their entire education displaces as well.

This fantastic act of charity does not come without costs. In the United States, it costs an average of $7,284 to educate a child. Louisiana, ranked 43rd in the nation in per pupil spending, spends significantly under the average at $5,934 per child. Alabama is ranked 45th, spending an average of $5,845 and Mississippi is ranked 49th, spending $5,179 per student. (Source: Education Intelligence Agency) With schools all over the country providing education to children, who is going to foot the bill for these extra students?

One could argue that Lousiana should foot the bill, but what about the shortfall. Lousiana is ranked 43 in the nation in per pupil spending. Texas, where a lot of the kids are now going to school, spend on average $6,460 per pupil. The $526 difference between Texas and Louisiana spending levels, when calculated over thousands of school children is not an insigifnicant number. When calculated against the national average, the disparity in funding is $1,350 per child in Louisiana, $1,439 for Alabama students and $2,105 for Mississipi students. These figures may or may not account for the increases in text book costs, supplies, transportation, gas, school lunches and breakfasts and the myriad costs associated with providing an education to a child since the data underlying per pupil expenditures vary great from state to state.

These costs are just the differences in costs for education. When you add the education costs to the other costs of services for these children (not their whole family, just the kids) you are probably talking several thousand dollars of services per child.

Most states cannot handle such an overflow of costs. The response of these states will be to either ask Louisiana for the funds, but such a hope would be quixotic at best. Even if Louisiana could fund to its statewide level, what about the additional funds to cover the disparity between the disaster state and the charity state?

The answer will, undoubtedly, be to ask the federal government. Figures ranging from $100 to $200 billion dollars are being bandied about as the pricetag for recovery and rebuilding in New Orleans alone. Do these cost figures include the bill that will be submitted by charitable states to the federal government.

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