I agree, and I think a policy shifts should include:
* NOT subsidizing private schools
* NOT determining school funding based on child count
Like so many things, schools are a public commons / good / investment in functioning society that a given goal should be determined, books kept, waste prosecuted (criminally), and services provided according to a defined standard. Then whatever that costs rolls into the next budget as the base tax rate for that year.
Which is entirely not how things are run right now. Government inefficiency frequently relates to 'yearly budgets' and places that look to continue to spend a given year's budget because otherwise it'll go somewhere else. Rather than just doing what's necessary when it's necessary irrespective of how much or little doing the most effective and efficient thing costs.
There's also the elephant in the room on how IEP (btw for the acronym haters: "Individualized educational program". Those of older gens may know it as "Special Education") needs more funding but absolutely no one wants to give that funding to the specialized care-takers/educators who train specifically for such situations. Definitely some not so PR-friendly reasons for this. It's a mess all around.
My daughter has a genetic condition and needed an IEP. The middle school she attended would not give her an evaluation until we indicated we knew they were legally required to evaluate her and they should consider this an official request.
All my previous requests were rebuffed as they tried to steer her towards a 504 plan (504 is not legally binding).
I had to pay to have her evaluated by a Pediatric Neuropsychologist (about $500, despite my excellent American Insurance). He diagnosed ADHD and referred to a Neurologist who found nothing, but referred to an MRI, which found stroke damage, then we were referred to a geneticist who identified her mitochondrial disease and put us into a Pediatric Developmental office.
Finally we got some resources that helped us navigate the school issues to get her IEP.
It was so much time, money, and effort.
One district in my area has lost like 40% of their school psychologists since the pandemic resulting in widespread use of 5/4ths contracts, expanding case loads, uncovered schools, and offers to do extra cases at piece rates. It's (IMO) trending towards some kind of collapse.
As a taxpayer I hate waste. As a long-serving business owner I accept that some level of waste is a cost of doing business.
There are several problems with the concept of "waste".
firstly it's most obvious in hindsight. It's much less obvious in foresight. We spend money with an objective in mind, and in some number of times we fail to meet that objective.
Take marketing as an example. It costs money to attend an event. Will we get a return? sometimes no.
Of course the easiest way to avoid waste is simply not to take risks, not to spend anything. If we prioritize "avoid waste" we create an environment where "nothing is attempted".
Your suggestion to criminalize this with personal accountability makes things worse. What you'll get is no money spent at all, because the risk of spending -any- money could see you in jail.
Secondly, in order to criminalize waste you need to detect it, measure it, prosecute it, defend it, and so on. None of that comes cheap. So you spend money to save money?
Of course we already do this to some extent. We keep books. We have audits. If we detect waste we might examine it, consider alternatives, learn lessons to avoid it. But that's a long long way from the costs of criminal prosecution.
Thirdly you create perverse incentives for bad actors. Don't like a teacher? Accuse them of waste. You can probably find some cause. Your competitor got a contract at a local school? Be sure to loudly proclaim that as waste because you "would have done it cheaper". Sure you would do a crap job that may have failed in 2 years instead of 20, but who's to say?
Send a few teachers to jail - does that increase or decrease the likelihood of people growing up wanting to be teachers?
So yeah, I dislike waste. But preventing waste comes with a price, not just in money. Be careful in what you choose to optimize.
Which is entirely not how things are run right now. Government inefficiency frequently relates to 'yearly budgets' and places that look to continue to spend a given year's budget because otherwise it'll go somewhere else. Rather than just doing what's necessary when it's necessary irrespective of how much or little doing the most effective and efficient thing costs.