The next black swan

[steingar]

Rather, these examples emphasize the fact that as the United States enters an age of austerity, it must resist the temptation to “eat its seed corn” by slashing funding for education, research and development and other types of spending that pay long-term dividends.

editorial

 

[Bob Noel]

Probably time for that quote from the West Wing, Sam telling Mallory:

"Mallory, education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet."

(the quote is funnier and more meaningful in the context of the episode...)

 

[steingar]

The West Wing was so awesome when Sorkin was writing it.

 

[rpadula]

Clearly the black swan has jumped the shark.

 

[Jack Spectre]

We spend more on education than most of the rest of the world, yet our scores and graduation rates are far from the top. People always want to spend more money on education, and if you disagree with them, then you must hate the children.

Here in Minnesota, the total expenditure per child in the public school system is north of $10,000. The local parochial school spends half that per pupil and outputs students who outperform their public school counterparts in almost every subject.

Sure we need big changes in public education but it ain't the funding that's the problem.

EDIT: Just to be clear, even though I think we could spend less on education and still get good results, education spending isn't what's bankrupting us.

 

[John Baker]

While we keep pouring billions into our educational bureaucracies that int the end, just barely prevent complete illiteracy for most young people. We continue to ignore the one factor that built America in the first place, our trades, the small entrepreneur, individual ingenuity.

We are only interested in ridiculously expensive higher education, everything is geared to that end. We have fourteen million unemployed because we have, and continue to, ignore the basics.

While we desperately search for the elusive golden ring of extreme technology, we are being replaced on the world stage by the countries that took on the work we did not want on our soil. As a result we have fallen behind economically to the point that few can afford this so called higher education that we have put all our stock into.

Countries that we farmed our manufacturing to are now out pacing us in education and technology.

We threw away our golden ring in the name of education, and now we are losing out on both.

John

 

[Matthew]

The Dept of Education website says their 2011 budget is $69.9B, to serve 56 million students, and an additional 15 million post-secondary students. That seems like a bargain at about $940 per student.

My own state, KS, spends a little more than $12,000 per student.

If we really are going backwards against the rest of the world, I'm not sure that throwing more money at it will solve anything.

 

[John Baker]

The only thing more money will get us is more bureaucracy. The larger and more entrenched a bureaucracy becomes, the less effective it is of completing it's mission.

Teachers in the K-12 are nothing more than bureaucrats, locked more into following rules and regulations, zero tolerance policies, diversity, administering tests and dealing with hundreds of very bored children everyday, that actually educating them is a secondary responsibility they must pay lip service to. Even then, they must teach to the lowest denominator in the classroom to remain politically correct and avoid offending uninterested parents and school administrators.

John

 

[Ghery]

The Dept of Education website says their 2011 budget is $69.9B, to serve 56 million students, and an additional 15 million post-secondary students. That seems like a bargain at about $940 per student.

My own state, KS, spends a little more than $12,000 per student.

If we really are going backwards against the rest of the world, I'm not sure that throwing more money at it will solve anything.

The DoE hasn't educated a single kid yet. Eliminate it and save $69.9B.

The only thing more money will get us is more bureaucracy. The larger and more entrenched a bureaucracy becomes, the less effective it is of completing it's mission.

Teachers in the K-12 are nothing more than bureaucrats, locked more into following rules and regulations, zero tolerance policies, diversity, administering tests and dealing with hundreds of very bored children everyday, that actually educating them is a secondary responsibility they must pay lip service to. Even then, they must teach to the lowest denominator in the classroom to remain politically correct and avoid offending uninterested parents and school administrators.

John

I'm not sure how you get that idea. My wife is a teacher and "bureaucrat" is the last term I would apply to her. Her math classes are taught at different levels so that the higher achievers aren't held back by the lower achievers. And I suspect that this is not unusual.

 

[Matthew]

The DoE hasn't educated a single kid yet. Eliminate it and save $69.9B.

I'm with ya on that one. If all I get for $70B of taxes is $900 spent on each of my kids, I think I'd rather have the cash back and pay tuition with it.

I wonder - since charities are required to post how many cents of each dollar actually goes to the cause, just how much of that $70B is overhead? Closing the DoE could save some big bucks. And, if each kid of mine (if they were still in elementary/secondary school) already got > $12,000 of state spending, then the loss of about $900 of fed spending might not be noticed. Or, maybe my own State taxes go up - but at least I get a chance to vote on that since it's a State issue.

 

[dell30rb]

The DoE actually has a swat team. http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=310733

You can't blame the teachers. Alot of them are hard working people who actually care about education. There are some tenured pigs that are getting paid to do nothing, but that is the exception.


That said, i'm not a huge fan of the public education system. I went to a private middle and high school which I enjoyed and really learned alot. I went to a big, well respected public university and didn't learn diddly (business school)

The girl I am dating is a kindergarten teacher in a small town (not country, think trailer trash) outside of Raleigh. The biggest issue she has is that most of her students do not speak english, their parents do not care about them and do not feed / bathe them properly, and lastly all the state school laws / regulations.

north carolina has a program on the books called "no child left behind" that was enacted about 10 years ago. Basically it means you can't hold back kids (esp. hispanic) that are not performing up to grade level. There are all these rules about "ell" (english language learners) that basically says you can't hold them back, no matter how poorly they are performing. Which of course, screws everything up

 

[Henning]

We spend more on education than most of the rest of the world, yet our scores and graduation rates are far from the top. People always want to spend more money on education, and if you disagree with them, then you must hate the children.

Here in Minnesota, the total expenditure per child in the public school system is north of $10,000. The local parochial school spends half that per pupil and outputs students who outperform their public school counterparts in almost every subject.

Sure we need big changes in public education but it ain't the funding that's the problem.

EDIT: Just to be clear, even though I think we could spend less on education and still get good results, education spending isn't what's bankrupting us.

We don't spend money on education though, we spend money on administration.

 

[Gary]

We don't spend money on education though, we spend money on administration.

The budget of our local school district is attached. Administration, while significant isn't by far the biggest expense.

Gary

 

[Henning]

The budget of our local school district is attached. Administration, while significant isn't by far the biggest expense.

Gary

IIRC, PA is one of the best states while your neighbor to the east the worst. NJ has a real racket going.

 

[SCCutler]

The budget of our local school district is attached. Administration, while significant isn't by far the biggest expense.

Gary

I wonder what "Instructional Pgm" encompasses?

Love to have that drilled down more, see how much of that goes to teachers, vs. going to peripherally-related administration. I am skeptical.

---

My experience has been that, in most large school districts, the administration exists to hinder the process of education, as attempted by dedicated teachers.

 

[Gary]

I wonder what "Instructional Pgm" encompasses?

Love to have that drilled down more, see how much of that goes to teachers, vs. going to peripherally-related administration. I am skeptical.

---

My experience has been that, in most large school districts, the administration exists to hinder the process of education, as attempted by dedicated teachers.

Same budget, but by end use rather than function. I'd have to dig a bit deeper into the budget to find a breakdown by job class.

We are not a large school district and in a relatively affluent area, so that probably helps as far as keeping the budget in line. It is always easy to beat up on the "administrators", often with good justification, but in today's school systems the amount of paperwork is staggering. I'd rather have an "administrator" doing the routine stuff rather than the teachers.

Gary

Edit - Instructional Pgm, is by their definition - the direct cost of doing actual teaching, it's mostly salary.

 

[bbchien]

editorial

Whaddya mean? We already ate it when Ronald Reagan convinced the public we should let business determine the value of education.

That's why our kids don't understand a thing.
It is no longer possible to go down to a State Univ, take a minimum wage job, and work your way through college.
Why the man on the street comments, "i don't know whether to belive this "science stuff or not. I'll go with what most people believe" (it's the Dark Ages again....).
Those of us, Prof, and I count you and I in the same boat here (retired Professor) who got the last "real educations" have to retire sometime. Now we teach to the test.

Unbelievable. Time to learn Chinese.

 

[steingar]

To be honest, in posting this I was far more concerned about keeping up research expenditures to develop the next technological advance which will propel our economy. I fully admit that a great deal of public education is not what we want. There is a simple reason for this. A lot of parents are not what we want. Unfortunately, in our society this is a nearly insurmountable problem.

 

[Henning]

To be honest, in posting this I was far more concerned about keeping up research expenditures to develop the next technological advance which will propel our economy. I fully admit that a great deal of public education is not what we want. There is a simple reason for this. A lot of parents are not what we want. Unfortunately, in our society this is a nearly insurmountable problem.

It's because in America, we nurture failure. Our society is set up so you don't fail, it's always someone else who failed you. Can't leave Johnny in the third grade even though he can't spell or multiply single digit numbers. It'll hurt his ego. No, it's not your fault that you were careless handling that weapon, you shouldn't have been able to shoot yourself. From early childhood we teach them that they are not responsible, why should we wonder about the results?

 

[Matthew]

It's because in America, we nurture failure. Our society is set up so you don't fail, it's always someone else who failed you. Can't leave Johnny in the third grade even though he can't spell or multiply single digit numbers. It'll hurt his ego. No, it's not your fault that you were careless handling that weapon, you shouldn't have been able to shoot yourself. From early childhood we teach them that they are not responsible, why should we wonder about the results?

It's always somebody else's fault.

Here's a story from the KC paper today that's just an example of "Please, blame it on somebody!!!":

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/07/21/3028624/drowning-of-baby-in-tub-not-a.html

Basically, mom went somewhere and left a mentally disabled 16yr old to take care of the kids. A 19 month old drowned in the tub, maybe held underwater by a 5yr old.

The drowning was just ruled accidental.

The aunt said, "“This beautiful little boy is gone and no one is held responsible for him not being here today,”

uhh - maybe the "adults" are responsible?

Oh, yeah - And the aunt made sure to mention that if it had been ruled homicide, the family might have gotten money from a victim's fund.

​

 

[Chip Sylverne]

Can't leave Johnny in the third grade even though he can't spell or multiply single digit numbers. It'll hurt his ego.

This is the popular notion, but my guess would be there's a deeper economic reason for " social promotion". Once inner city schools began to fail, it required a lot more $ and effort to actually go back and fix the problem than it did to push the students on to be someone else's problem. after all, " those people" will never amount to anything anyway.'
For those of you who don't understand what the DoE does, it to use the carrot of funding to try and prevent local school systems from instituting those kinds of decisions, of screwing one community for the benefit of another.

It's always about the money.

 

[wabower]

D.K. Royal compiled a pretty fair record as head coach of U of TX. He was quoted as saying "Winning is a lot more about who you coach rather than how you coach."