Public Education’s Broken Priorities: When Buildings Come Before Students

By Matthew Weinberg October 31, 2025

I’ve spent years in the education trenches and even built a school from scratch using an old commercial property. From this firsthand experience – detailed further in my forthcoming book Cheap Talk, Big Gains Part 2: Gloves Off – I’ve concluded that public education in the United States is fundamentally broken in one major way: we pour disproportionate funds into infrastructure and capital projects, up front, often before a single child gets a book or a teacher is hired. In this post, I’ll lay out why our priorities in education spending are so flawed, with data from Florida to the Northeast, and how rethinking those priorities could transform outcomes. The tone here is personal and opinionated because I’ve lived this reality. Consider this a wake-up call from an educator-turned-school-builder who has seen the folly of our current system up close.

The Infrastructure Monster: Devouring Education Budgets Early

Walk into almost any school district board meeting in growth areas and you’ll hear about multi-million-dollar construction plans. New schools must be built to accommodate population growth or replace aging facilities. But the price tags attached are jaw-dropping. Millions become hundreds of millions with shocking regularity, especially in large districts. By the time these gleaming campuses open their doors, enormous chunks of the education budget have been spent – or borrowed – before any teaching happens.

Let’s put some numbers on the table. Here are a few recent school construction projects that illustrate how capital costs are eating education funding:

• Manatee County, Florida: A new high school (High School “AAA”) in Lakewood Ranch is projected at $180 million, funded by 20-year bonds – and with interest, taxpayers will pay over $250 million for this single school (Lanning, 2025) . This campus will have 2,000 student seats and full sports/arts facilities at roughly $100,000 per student seat, reflecting just how costly “free public school” infrastructure can be (Bierl, 2025) .

• Bay District (Panama City), Florida: Even in a smaller district, costs are skyrocketing. Bay District Schools recently approved $7 million just in architectural and environmental fees to design a new K-8 school, anticipated to cost about $132 million total (Lynch, 2025) . For context, the most expensive school ever built in that district before was only $38 million – meaning this new project will be 3.5 times larger. Officials cite rising labor, materials, and security requirements (building on a military base) to explain the cost , but it’s still an enormous investment before a single teacher is hired for that school.

• Massachusetts (Greater Boston Area): In the Northeast, lavish school construction has become almost the norm. New public high schools now routinely exceed $300 million in cost (Boston Globe, 2025) . For example, Waltham just opened a high school for $374 million, and Lowell is renovating a large high school campus for $381 million (Boston Globe, 2025) . Nearby Revere approved a new high school at an eye-popping $493 million on a former racetrack site (Boston Globe, 2025) . And it doesn’t stop there – Lexington, MA is planning a $662 million high school rebuild, and early estimates in Brockton and Boston peg upcoming high school projects at over $700 million each (Boston Globe, 2025) . These numbers were unheard of in prior decades; now they’re becoming commonplace in the Northeastern U.S.

Think about that: a single high school in Massachusetts can cost half a billion dollars or more. In Florida, $150–250 million projects are proceeding even in medium-sized counties. This is capital outlay on a massive scale. Land acquisition in expensive areas, complex architectural designs, strict fire and safety codes, union labor requirements, and a labyrinth of regulatory compliance (zoning, environmental impact, accessibility standards, etc.) all drive these costs sky-high. Each new school often involves years of planning and millions in “soft costs” (architects, engineers, lawyers) before ground is even broken. By the time the ribbon is cut on a new campus, districts may have spent the lion’s share of their available funds (often via bonds that will saddle taxpayers with debt for decades) on bricks and mortar – all before hiring teachers, buying curriculum, or lowering class sizes.

As an educator, it’s mind-boggling to see such front-loaded spending. I recall attending a budget meeting where a board member essentially said, “We have to tighten our belts on teacher salaries this year because we’re opening a new school.” The priorities are upside down. We insist on building dream campuses – architecturally beautiful, fully equipped, compliant with every code known to man – but at what cost to actual education? The opportunity cost is tremendous: money spent on facilities is money not spent on instruction. And delays are endemic; construction projects commonly run over time and over budget due to unforeseen regulatory hurdles or material costs. Meanwhile, students sit in overcrowded classrooms or in aging schools that can’t get basic repairs, all because the district is hoarding funds to pour a new concrete foundation somewhere else.

Flawed Priorities: Only Half of Education Funding Reaches Classrooms

One revealing statistic encapsulates the imbalance: on average, only about 54% of K-12 education funding actually reaches the classroom in the form of instructional spending (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017) . In other words, nearly half of every education dollar is spent outside the direct teaching of students – diverted to bureaucracy, facilities, overhead, and other non-instructional purposes. A U.S. Census analysis of school finances found that in 2015, of the roughly $639 billion spent on public schools nationwide, only 53.8% went to “instructional” expenses like teacher salaries, instructional materials, and classroom support (Florida TaxWatch, 2023) . The rest went to things like administration, capital projects, transportation, food service, and support services. This means almost half of our education spending never touches the inside of a classroom.

What about the other half of the money? A significant chunk is tied up in those capital expenditures and the long-term costs associated with them. When a district builds a $200 million school on a 20-year bond, that debt service (principal and interest) becomes a fixed cost that siphons money away from operational budgets each year. For example, that Manatee County high school’s $180 million bond will accrue about $80 million in interest, meaning taxpayers pay $260 million by the end (Lanning, 2025) – and those payments come due annually out of the budget. That’s money not going to teacher pay, curriculum improvements, or student services. It’s literally the cost of brick and mortar, paid slowly over decades, while in those decades we struggle to fund educator salaries.

It would be easier to accept these huge capital costs if our educators and students were thriving – but they aren’t. Education budgets have risen steadily, yet teachers largely haven’t benefited. Inflation-adjusted spending per pupil has grown, but teacher salaries have remained flat or even declined in real terms (Aldeman, 2025) . Nationwide, between 2002 and 2020, total education funding per student increased 25% (after inflation), while the average teacher salary actually fell by 0.6% in real dollars (Smith, 2024) . To put it plainly, we’re spending more on education than ever, but that money isn’t making its way into paychecks for the people in the classrooms. In fact, no state in the U.S. saw teacher salaries keep pace with the growth in per-pupil funding during that period – every single state diverted new funds elsewhere or absorbed them in costs outside of base teacher pay (Smith, 2024) .

Where is the money going? A large portion is being absorbed by administrative and non-teaching staff growth, as well as rising benefits costs and of course facilities. Over the last two decades, public school staffing has ballooned far beyond student enrollment growth. From 2002 to 2020, U.S. student enrollment in public schools grew only about 6.6%, yet the number of total school staff (all employees) grew 13.2% – double the rate of student growth (Smith, 2024) . Notably, much of this hiring was outside the classroom: non-teaching staff (administrators, coordinators, support roles) grew around 20% on average across states . This suggests that a lot of new funding was used to hire additional bureaucracy or support roles, rather than to hire more teachers or raise teacher pay. It’s not inherently bad to have support staff, but when budgets increase and none of it results in smaller class sizes or better-paid teachers, something’s off-kilter. We have districts with more assistant superintendents than new teachers, and multi-million-dollar departments for data analysis or communications, even as teachers buy their own classroom supplies.

Meanwhile, teacher pay remains dismally low relative to other professions requiring similar education. The national average teacher salary hovers around $65–70k, and has been roughly stagnant (in real terms) for decades (Aldeman, 2025) . In many states (especially in the South), starting salaries in the $40k range mean teachers qualify for government assistance programs. Is it any wonder we have a hard time retaining educators? The effects are stark: one recent survey found that in 2024, roughly 22% of U.S. teachers said they intended to leave their jobs within a year – an alarming figure that only slightly improved to 16% in 2025 after some states boosted pay marginally (Chambers, 2025) . Teacher burnout and turnover are through the roof. Research shows that attrition (teachers quitting) accounts for about 90% of the demand for new teacher hires each year, far outpacing retirement rates (Learning Policy Institute, 2025) . In fact, less than one-fifth of teachers who leave the profession are retirees – most are mid-career or early-career educators who quit because of low pay, stress, or dissatisfaction with the system (Learning Policy Institute, 2025) . Every time a teacher leaves, districts incur costs to recruit and train a replacement, not to mention the loss of experience. High turnover also hurts student achievement, especially in high-need schools. It’s a destructive cycle exacerbated by the fact that we aren’t investing enough in the people who actually deliver education.

This all comes back to misaligned priorities. We boast about shiny new facilities and cutting-edge technology in the auditorium, but we pay the professionals using those classrooms poorly and overload them with huge classes. We celebrate passing multi-million-dollar bond measures to build schools, yet balk at allocating a fraction of that amount to raise teacher salaries or hire reading specialists. I’ve seen veteran teachers with 25 years experience essentially beg the school board for a 2% cost-of-living raise (maybe $1,000 a year), while in the same meeting, the board approves a $100 million capital project without batting an eye. The message is clear: Buildings, bonds, and bureaucrats somehow come first; teachers and students come second.

When Bureaucracy and Codes Trump Common Sense

Why are school construction costs so outrageous, and why do we seem to accept it as normal? From my perspective, having navigated the process myself, a big part of the answer lies in bureaucracy and overregulation. Public schools (traditional district schools) are held to a plethora of regulations and codes that drive up building costs. Many of these rules were written with good intentions – safety, accessibility, durability – but in aggregate they have created a system where building a public school is far more expensive than it needs to be.

Consider this: charter schools and private schools often operate in repurposed commercial buildings, former big-box stores, church halls, you name it. They generally aren’t subject to the exact same construction standards as district schools. In Florida, for example, state law mandates that traditional public schools meet stricter building codes (often the same standards as hurricane shelters) and specific educational facility codes that don’t apply to charter schools. This means thicker concrete, reinforced roofs, specialized fire suppression systems, more expansive (and expensive) ventilation and sprinkler setups, and so on. Charter schools can use more flexible building codes, closer to standard commercial building codes, which still meet safety requirements but are not gold-plated beyond reason. One Florida school board member recently proposed changing state law so districts could opt to build schools under the same codes that charter schools use – precisely to reduce costs (Lanning, 2025) . As he noted, the charter code and fire safety standards are perfectly adequate and would “give us some flexibility on the cost” for public school construction .

I experienced this contrast firsthand. When I set out to open a new school a few years ago, I deliberately avoided the traditional public school route. Instead, I purchased and renovated an existing commercial building – an empty warehouse/office type property – to house a K-8 school. The total project cost? $3.4 million. That’s it. For a few million, I got a fully functional school building that met all standard building codes and safety requirements for occupancy, because it was essentially an office building brought up to code for educational use. There was no gigantic bureaucracy overseeing the process – no state “Edifice Commission” mandating that I use a specific architectural design or over-engineer the structure. I hired a small team of contractors, got the necessary permits (a relatively straightforward process since we weren’t building new construction from the ground up), and in under a year the school was ready. Compare that to the typical district project: multi-year timelines just for approval and design, layers of oversight, political infighting over locations and designs, and costs in the hundreds of millions.

I’m not claiming every school can or should be in a strip mall or an old office park. But my experience proved how quickly and affordably we can launch a school when we strip away the unnecessary add-ons. For $3.4M – an amount that wouldn’t even pay for the architectural drawings of a new public high school – we opened a school that serves real students every day. We funneled the limited dollars directly into functional classrooms, not marble lobbies or NFL-grade sports facilities or redundant HVAC systems. And guess what? The kids are learning just as well (if not better) in our no-frills building as they would in a $50M designer schoolhouse. The difference is, we can afford to pay our teachers more and keep class sizes small because we didn’t blow our budget on construction.

In the public system, unfortunately, even if a superintendent wants to try a leaner approach – say, leasing an unused department store and converting it into a school – they often can’t due to state regulations or political pushback. There’s a mindset that a “proper” school must be built new to exact standards, no matter the cost. This mindset is reinforced by various vested interests: construction firms and contractors who win big contracts, architects whose reputations rest on showcase schools, and sometimes even community pride (everyone loves cutting the ribbon on a brand-new campus; few celebrate a repurposed grocery store, even if it serves the same kids just as well). In my book Cheap Talk, Big Gains Part 2: Gloves Off, I discuss how political showmanship often drives these decisions – officials love to boast about funding new buildings, because it’s a visible legacy, whereas paying teachers more or investing in curriculum isn’t as flashy.

Beyond the codes and politics, consider regulatory compliance costs. Public entities must navigate extensive environmental reviews (even for sites that were previously developed), adhere to labor rules like prevailing wage laws, meet strict fire codes that might require extra infrastructure (like huge access roads for fire trucks, additional hydrants, etc.), and incorporate features for ADA compliance and stormhardening. Individually, none of these requirements is bad – we want schools to be safe, accessible, and durable. But the aggregate effect is a price tag that can be 2x or 3x what a private developer might spend to construct a similar-size functional building. We rarely step back to ask: do all these regulations truly add value commensurate with their cost? Could we achieve 95% of the safety/quality with 50% of the cost? From my experience, the answer is yes. We could relax certain overly stringent rules (without endangering kids) and save tens of millions per project. Or, more radically, we could stop insisting on new construction altogether when suitable buildings stand idle in our communities.

Across the U.S., commercial real estate vacancies are at record highs – malls, big-box retail, offices vacated post-pandemic. Many of these structures could be retrofitted into schools in a fraction of the time and cost it takes to build new. There are examples: in some states, charter schools have opened in former shopping centers or corporate campuses, taking advantage of ample parking, large floorplates, and existing infrastructure. The cost might be a few million for renovations, versus $50+ million to build from scratch. These alternatives are faster too – a retrofit might take 6-12 months, whereas a new school is often a 3-5 year project from planning to opening. Speed matters when we have students today in overcrowded schools or portables waiting for relief.

Reallocating Resources: Investing in Teachers, Not Trophy Buildings

What if we flipped the script on our education spending priorities? Imagine a world where, instead of bragging about building the most expensive high school in state history, a district bragged about having the highest-paid teachers in the state or the smallest class sizes or the best reading and math intervention programs. What would it look like to truly prioritize instruction and learning over construction?

For one, we could dramatically improve teacher pay and retention. Take that $493 million that Revere, MA, is spending on a single new high school. That kind of money could fund several thousand teacher salaries. Even just the interest on large bonds – Manatee’s $80 million interest, for example – could give meaningful raises to hundreds of teachers for years. By reallocating funds from capital budgets (or slowing the capital spending binge) into operating budgets, districts could offer salaries that attract and keep great teachers. Higher pay, along with better working conditions, would reduce attrition. Fewer teachers quitting means more stability for students and less money wasted on constant recruitment and training of replacements. It also means we can be more selective in hiring, raising the bar for the profession over time.

Next, class sizes and instructional support could be improved. Instead of spending $200 million to build one giant 2,000-student high school, a district could conceivably open 4 smaller schools of 500 students each in existing commercial spaces – and still have money left to hire additional teachers, counselors, and support staff. With smaller school communities, you often get better student engagement and outcomes. This kind of reimagining requires breaking out of the one-school-fits-all mindset. Perhaps we don’t need a full competition gym, performing arts center, and football stadium for every single high school – especially if those facilities are duplicative and underutilized. Some creative districts have started sharing specialized facilities between schools, or renting them as needed, rather than building new at every campus. Such approaches free up resources to spend on core academics.

Importantly, student outcomes could rise if more of the budget made it into the classroom. Research hasn’t found a simple linear relationship between money and test scores – likely because so much money gets lost in the non-classroom realm. But when funds are targeted at clear needs like effective teachers, high-quality curriculum, tutoring, and extended learning time, the impact on achievement can be significant. If only ~54% of funds reach classrooms now , what if we increased that to 70% or 80%? It could be transformational. To get there, we must rein in the impulse to channel every new dollar into a new initiative, a new admin role, or a new building. We might impose something like a “65% solution” – a policy once floated (and briefly enacted in some places) requiring at least 65% of education operating funds to go to instruction. (Georgia tried this in 2006, though it was later repealed when direct links to outcomes proved hard to measure . Florida even considered a constitutional amendment to require 65% in the classroom , though it didn’t ultimately pass.) Whether by mandate or by local commitment, refocusing spending on instruction sends a message: we care most about what happens between teachers and students.

In my view, an even bolder approach is to separate capital funding from instructional funding in a more disciplined way. Many states, Florida included, already do this to an extent – they have special capital improvement levies or bonds that legally can’t be used for salaries. This was meant to protect taxpayers by ensuring borrowed money funds long-term assets, not ongoing expenses. However, this well-intentioned separation has had the side effect of creating silos: one pot of money that can only build buildings (so it will get spent on buildings, come hell or high water), and another pot for everything else, which always feels scarce. Perhaps it’s time to allow more flexibility: if a district finds a way to meet facility needs cheaply (say by leasing or reusing buildings), it should be able to redirect leftover capital funds into educational purposes – maybe paying off debt (saving interest), or investing in technology, or even as a one-time infusion into teacher development. Current rules often forbid this kind of cross-use. Loosening those rules could incentivize school leaders to seek cost-saving facilities solutions, knowing they could then use savings to benefit students directly.

Of course, none of this is to dismiss the need for safe, adequate school facilities. Students deserve schools that aren’t literally crumbling, that have modern science labs and are wired for the 21st century. But there’s a difference between adequate and excessive. We have to ask tough questions: Do we need to build a brand-new $500 million campus, or can we renovate 3 existing schools for half the cost? Do we need marble floors and an Olympic pool, or would a basic competition gym and a decent auditorium suffice if it means we can afford a reading coach in every elementary classroom? Every dollar has an opportunity cost in education. And for too long, the opportunity cost of our building spree has been paid in under-resourced classrooms and underpaid educators.

Conclusion: Gloves Off – It’s Time to Fix What’s Truly Broken

The hard truth is that our public education system’s spending priorities are broken. We’ve created a monster where infrastructure gobbles up budgets upfront, leaving scraps for the core mission of education. As someone who helped build a school for $3.4 million and saw it thrive, I know it doesn’t have to be this way. We can have safe, functional schools without $200 million price tags. We can open schools quickly, in existing spaces, without a decade of red tape. And we can then channel the freed resources where they belong: into paying the best teachers, attracting new talent to the profession, keeping class sizes reasonable, and equipping classrooms with the materials and curriculum that actually drive learning.

In Cheap Talk, Big Gains Part 2: Gloves Off, I argue that we must take the gloves off and confront the entrenched interests and outdated regulations that maintain the status quo. It’s not an easy battle – there are political, economic, and even cultural challenges to overcome. Communities often equate new school buildings with progress, even if instructional quality remains mediocre inside those buildings. Changing that mindset requires leaders to refocus the conversation on educational outcomes: are our kids reading on grade level? Are they prepared for college or careers? How does spending x or y million improve those metrics? If the honest answer is “it won’t, but it’ll give us a nice building,” then it’s the wrong priority.

My call to action for policymakers and citizens is to demand transparency and balance in education spending. Let’s require districts to report what percentage of their budgets goes to instruction vs. capital and administration – and hold them accountable for improving that ratio. Let’s celebrate superintendents who find innovative ways to save money on facilities and redirect funds to students, rather than those who cut the ribbon on the priciest new school. And critically, let’s listen to teachers – the people on the front lines – about what they need. I have yet to hear a teacher say, “If only we had a fancier building, I could really teach these kids.” But I’ve heard countless teachers plead for smaller classes, for a teaching assistant, for updated textbooks, for a salary that lets them stay in the profession they love. Those are the everyday essentials that get deprioritized when budgets are chewed up by capital projects and bureaucratic growth.

It’s time to rebuild our thinking. If we shift even a fraction of the billions currently tied up in concrete and compliance into human capital and classroom support, we could see huge gains. Students don’t learn from the bricks in the wall; they learn from the teachers in front of them and the resources at their fingertips. Let’s fund accordingly. The next time a school district boasts about a $100 million construction bond, ask them how that investment will directly benefit student learning and whether a cheaper alternative exists. The next time state lawmakers debate education funding, urge them to ensure that money truly reaches classrooms – perhaps by cutting the strings that force it into construction or by incentivizing efficiency. We cannot afford to continue front-loading our education system with costs that have so little to do with education itself.

In summary, public education’s house is on fire – and ironically, we’re too busy building new houses to rescue the people inside. It’s a fundamental misallocation of resources. By rebalancing priorities, reining in runaway construction costs, and empowering more nimble approaches like retrofitting existing space, we can open schools faster, cheaper, and direct our precious education dollars where they yield the biggest return: great teaching and engaged learning. Our children deserve no less than for us to spend every possible dollar on them, not on our adult monuments. It’s time to get our priorities straight and put the “public” – the students and teachers – back at the center of public education funding. The gloves are off; let’s fight for a smarter way forward.

References (APA):

• Aldeman, C. (2025). Interactive: School Spending Is Up. Teacher Pay Isn’t. The 74. (Analysis showing stagnant teacher salaries despite rising per-pupil spending) 

• Boston Globe. (2025, Feb 26). Multiple Mass. schools that surpass half a billion? They’re on the horizon as the cost of construction projects sharply rise. (Report on Massachusetts school building costs, e.g., $374M Waltham HS; plans up to $700M in Boston/Brockton) 

• Bierl, M. (2025, Aug 18). New high school will be built in Lakewood Ranch. Your Observer (East County). (Local report on Manatee County FL high school “AAA” project costing ~$200M for 2,000 students) 

• Chambers, C. (2025, July 24). What a New Survey Says About Teachers’ Plans to Leave Their Jobs. NEA Today. (Summary of RAND survey: 22% of teachers intended to leave in 2024, improved to 16% in 2025 amid burnout and low pay concerns) 

• Florida TaxWatch. (2023, Jan 11). Instructional Expenses: PreK-12 Education Spending. Florida TaxWatch Research Blog. (Citing U.S. Census data that ~53.8% of school spending goes to instruction, highlighting the 65% solution debate) 

• Learning Policy Institute. (2025, July 16). An Overview of Teacher Shortages: 2025 (Fact Sheet). (Reports that teacher attrition is ~90% of demand; <20% of leavers are retirees, most leave for other reasons like low salary) 

• Lanning, J. (2025, Oct 7). Manatee school board member proposes cheaper alternative to building public schools. Bay News 9. (Notes new Manatee high school costs $180M – over $250M with interest – and proposal to allow traditional schools to use charter school building codes to cut costs) 

• Lynch, J.T. (2025, Mar 26). BDS takes steps to build most expensive school in district history. WJHG News. (Bay District Schools (FL) approves $7M for architects on a $132M new school project; prior record school was $38M) 

• Smith, A. G. (2024, Feb 29). Five key trends in education spending, teacher salaries, staffing and test scores. Reason Foundation Commentary. (Finding that 2002–2020, per-pupil funding +25% while avg teacher salary –0.6%; staffing growth (especially non-teachers +20%) outpaced enrollment growth +6.6%)