Why should it cost $18,000/yr to educate a child K-12?

In Utah, that is a lot closer to $5k and they do a lot better than most other states.

Edit: For the edification of those posting nonsense below.

http://edmoney.newamerica.net/node/36914

You'll see spending per pupil ranges from about $6k per year per in Utah to around $18k a year in NJ (and this has actually increased in the year and a half since this was published).

It shouldn't cost that much. Teachers' unions prefer to measure educational success by inputs - namely, how much money the government puts into education (salaries, books, classrooms, technology, what have you). Everyone else wants to measure success by outputs - are students learning more? are they going to college more? are test scores improving? As long as we continue to judge our education system by how much we put in instead of how much we get out, costs will skyrocket and outcomes likely won't change.

I believe the cost is about $6,000 a year.

One of the hugest cost is massive sports programs and cheerleading, which do nothing to education children, and for some strange reason are conservatives obsession.

Because public employee unions want more money for less work.

greedy public employees.

It doesn't.

Does it hurt when you pull numbers out of your butt?

teachers unions are greedy.