August 24, 2007 2:20PM # School Money for Nothing By [Neal McCluskey](https://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey) --- SHARE If you want a very concrete example of what plagues the public schools in Washington, D.C., [this story is for you](http://www.examiner.com/a-897654~Rank_privileges__D_C__schools_to_pay_68_idle_teachers__staff__5_4_million.html). Bottom line: D.C. Public Schools are going to shell out $5.4 million this year for 68 employees who are currently slated to do … nothing. It turns out these folks have no role in changes being made to the District’s school system, but they are too senior to let go. And this is a relatively small personnel hiccup for D.C. In 2003, the District “[discovered](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3267)” 640 employees who ended up costing $31 million. [It’s these sorts of things](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3267) that make one think that perhaps funding really isn’t the primary problem in D.C. schools (that, and the [nearly $20,000 per student](https://www.cato.org/2007/08/21/a-textbook-example-of-government-failure/) D.C. has available), and that maybe — just maybe — it’s the bloated, lumbering system itself that’s the real educational enemy. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).