Close these Money-Pits

How long have we been pointing this out? Ten years? More?

• Proposed cuts, furloughs and a spending freeze are part of Chicago Public Schools' budget plan as the district works to balance its finances, but the proposal does not include school closures because of an ongoing moratorium.

  The issue has renewed debate over the cost of keeping severely under-enrolled schools open, including Frederick Douglass High School on the city's West Side.

  The school, which can hold about 900 students, now has around 30 students enrolled.

And we all know exactly who is to blame for all this waste:

• "It's costing CPS about $94-95,000 a year per student at this school," Ferguson said.

  According to Ferguson, the average cost per CPS student is typically about $18,000. He also noted that the Chicago Teachers Union contract requires certain staffing levels regardless of enrollment.

  "We're talking about 30 students. We're talking about 30 full-time employees for a student-teacher ratio of one-to-one," Ferguson said.

And of those 30 students, guess how many read, write and math at grade level? Go ahead, guess.

We don't have the answer, but someone probably does. And someone probably has that link we used to use with all of the under-enrolled schools that are wasting literally tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions or scarce taxpayer dollars for pretty much zero return on the "investment."