COST OF EDUCATION CHANGES WITH TIMES

The costs of educating children, like costs of everything else, have been on the rise since the early part of the century.

Hal B. Lehman, former business manager of Cape Girardeau public schools, said: "All the costs of supplies and books and everything keep going up, up, up. It's reflected in all phases of education."

But, he said: "It's no different than any other business. The problem has been that changes in education over the years have not been as rapid as in some other businesses. Also, education is tax supported; it's more noticeable as the prices go up because people's taxes go up."

According to information in "Rural Schools and Communities in Cape Girardeau County" by Christabel Lacy and Bob White, costs of operating rural school districts for 1930-31 ranged from a total of $7,041 in Oak Ridge to $692 for the Popular Grove district.

The Council Ridge district's average annual cost per pupil for the same year was $17. The school tax rate for Campster School was 35 cents.

Costs have climbed dramatically since those depression days.

The estimated average expenditure for pupils in Missouri for 1991-92 was $4,534 per student. Missouri ranks 41st among states in per-pupil expenditures.

Missouri pays over $1 billion a year toward funding the state's 538 public school districts.

Lehman retired as business manger for 25 years. He worked for the school district 40 years, retiring in 1980.

Prior to teaching in Cape Girardeau, Lehman was a high school teacher at Fredericktown. There, in 1938 and 1939, his monthly salary was $110. "That's $990 annually," he pointed out.

Lehman began teaching in Cape Girardeau for quite a pay raise $1,260 for nine months work.

Teachers got raises each year, he recalled, usually $5 a month or $45 a year. "Some years we might get $10 a month or $90 a year."

"By today's prices a person couldn't survive, but in 1940 you could buy a beautiful new Plymouth, Chevrolet or Ford automobile for $1,200."

The economy grew; taxes went up and so did salaries.

Today, teachers in Missouri are guaranteed a salary of at least $18,000. The average teacher in the state for 1991-92 was paid $28,948.

Salaries are far from the only increase in the cost of education. For example, Lehman said, the price of textbooks has skyrocketed.

"The books we used to buy for reading or geography or history would cost just a few dollars each. If we spent $3, $4, or $5 per book, that was high," he said.

Today textbooks cost 10 times as much or more.

"Now, I admit the books we buy today are better books. They are beautifully done with colors and printing we didn't have back then," Lehman said.

Lehman said books today don't last as long because the world is changing at such a rapid pace.

"Now it seems every day you wake up and some country is gone and three new ones have taken its place," he said.

Cape Girardeau's operating budget now runs about $19.5 million.

Lehman said he remembers annual budgets of $12 million. But that budget would include the cost of constructing a new building. "That was everything included, architects and everything," he said. "The regular operation of the school didn't run that high."

Lehman, like many educators, believes Missouri has not kept pace with the cost of educating students.

"Our state has not kept up its end of the bargain by allocating additional money to public education," he said. "They haven't come up with a formula that adequately rewards the educational system."