I wonder if John would be surprised to learn that 19 school districts in WA state have an expenditure "FTE" greater than $30,000 per child. 27 more school districts have an "FTE" greater than $20,000 per child ("FTE" is an acronym for "Full Time Equivalent").
But, a quick check of the "report cards" of these 46 school districts shows no difference, or, even contrary measures to his notion that dollar$ per student should be increased to something as silly as what Lakeside charges for tuition.
Indeed, a study of WA state schools using these two resources to test John's hypothesis can be done by reviewing two websites maintained by our state gov't, and by our state school superintendent, Chris Reykdal. They are:
http://fiscal.wa.gov/K12Districts.aspx  Scroll down for "Dollars per FTE Enrollment"
...and...
http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/
With the "Report Card" website one can even analyze how the FTE dollars per student has changed with massive increase in recent years.
See for yourself!