I was driving home from campus today and wondered about other ways to use the $700,000,000,000 being proposed for the 2008 financial rescue plan. First, I must say that number is rather impressive when written in its entirety opposed to $700 billion. When written as $700 billion I think the magnitude is often diminished.
Second, the National Center for Education Statistics reports that there were 14,166 public school districts and 97,382 public schools during the 2005-06 school year.
- If the funding allocations were equitably redirected to K-12 public education, each public school district would receive $49,414,090
- If the funding allocations were equitably redirected to K-12 public education, each public school would receive $7,188,186
Imagine the infrastructure upgrades, staffing increases, curriculum resources, performance incentives, scholarship programs similar to The Kalamazoo Promise, technology infusion...
The following might be interesting:
Added September 27, 2008
I've been playing around a bit with Google's Finance section and was curious how the $700,000,000,000 relates to the market capitalization of major businesses. For $700 billion, the government could purchase (if agreed to the current market caps):
- Microsoft for $250 billion
- Walmart for $238 billion
- Google for $135 billion
- eBay for $29 billion
- Yahoo! for $26 billion
- and still have over $20 billion left to send each of the 305,271,554 United States residents a $65 check.
Or better yet, just divide that $700,000,000,000 between the 305,271,554 United States residents and send each of us a check for about $2,290.
