Bernie Madoff, Herbalife, and K-12 public education all have one thing in common: they’ve sucked up millions of dollars from hard-working Americans only to produce next to no return on investment. But while Madoff and Herbalife were forced to face consequences for ripping people off, the public school system continues to receive an endless supply of taxpayer cash. It’s the most successful Ponzi scheme of all time — run and funded by the government.

This is not an exaggeration. Public schools across the country received more than $10 trillion in funding from 2010 to 2021. That number is likely close to $11 or $12 trillion now, thanks to the additional billions of dollars the system received during the pandemic — money that was either lost or wasted by most school districts, according to the Biden administration.

And what do public schools have to show for it? Reading and math scores that have been declining since 2012, alarmingly high truancy rates, and an increase in behavioral issues. But don’t worry — at least Chicago’s public schools, where just 31% of elementary students are able to read, is spending $20 million to electrify its school buses.

This collapse in performance is one of the primary reasons why so many families have left the public school system — and why many more would like to join them. 

Unsurprisingly, those at the very top of the pyramid — the teachers union lackeys who make lots and lots of money off of government education funding — are trying to prevent these families from leaving and taking their taxpayer dollars with them. They’ve fought against school choice legislation at every turn, despite the fact that a majority of Americans across the political spectrum support empowering families to choose the education option that best fits their needs.

The unions’ latest tactic is to fearmonger the public into believing that school choice will “defund” the public school system entirely. A girl can dream. But no, the public school system is still set to receive hundreds of billions of dollars every year in funding — even in states that have embraced school vouchers, which provides families with an allotted amount they can spend on the education option of their choice. 

For example, in Arizona, which has one of the most expansive school choice programs in the country, public schools received $800 million more in state and local taxpayer funding in 2023 than they did the year before. The state’s public schools also broke a spending record that year, hitting $15,000 per pupil.

So the next time you see American Federation of Teachers boss Randi Weingarten — who made more than $500k in 2020 while students were locked out of their classrooms — or one of the other teachers union sycophants complain that public schools are getting cleaned out, just keep in mind that they’re far more concerned about losing their own paychecks.