Is there even a positive correlation between throwing more money at education and having better-educated kids? It looks like at some point over the last thirty years, we got to the point that the administrative cost of distributing the next dollar for education exceeds one dollar, so the extra money gets soaked up by bureaucratic inefficiencies.
But whatever! It's only billions and billions of taxpayer dollars spent by a monopolist that buys its product from a cartel! Clearly, the important thing is to give more money to this completely deranged system, rather than fixing it.
I've never understood this mindset. Don't conservative types like you believe in market influences? How could spending more money NOT improve education levels?
Just a couple of examples off the top of my head:
1) Spending more means higher teacher salaries. Higher salaries attract better talent, which means better education.
2) Spending more means better facilities and supplies. Decent materials and supplies lead to a better classroom experience.
I went to a dirt-poor high school in south Georgia. My chem teacher was senile, our textbooks were 14 years old and falling apart, and the sinks leaked chemicals onto the floor. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but more money would have helped my school a TON.
This whole "bureaucratic inefficiency" argument it a catch-all that greedy rich people like to use as an excuse to not help out the less-fortunate.
"Don't conservative types like you believe in market influences? How could spending more money NOT improve education levels?"
It's insulated from the actual market. Government schools are a de facto monopoly, since they sell their product below cost, and you have to pay for it even if you don't use it. They also use a teacher's cartel to supply their teachers, and this cartel pays a lot of money to lobbyists who craft our education policy. Given these layers of monopolies, cartels, and corruption, your reference to 'market influences' makes little sense.
"1) Spending more means higher teacher salaries. Higher salaries attract better talent, which means better education"
"Decent materials and supplies lead to a better classroom experience."
Oh. Does this mean "I looked at what kind of school supplies people used fifty years ago, and concluded..." or "I imagine..."?
"This whole "bureaucratic inefficiency" argument it a catch-all that greedy rich people like to use as an excuse to not help out the less-fortunate."
Or this whole "spending other people's money on a system that has only gotten more pathologically ineffective as billions of dollars of other people's money has been spent on it" argument is just a way for people to feel good about themselves without facing reality. Or maybe it's pointless to attribute someone else's argument to their biases, especially when you can't disprove the argument!
I think we should accept that school is not for everyone. I think we should get people out of school when they can contribute more to society by working rather than disrupting classrooms. It's a travesty that so many otherwise useful 14-year-olds are earning their straight-D report cards for years (and spending my money to do it!) when they could be mopping floors, flipping burgers, etc. I would have been happier working full-time when I was thirteen, instead of going to school and only getting to work evenings and weekends. Surely I'm not the only one.
Rich towns with high tax revenue tend to have good schools. Poor towns with low tax revenue have worse schools. It's often obvious just in the building and materials.
There are a thousand ways that schools could be improved--giving up on students and sending them to flip burgers full time at 14 is not one of them. That only serves to perpetuate the self-feeding cycle of poverty, crime, and poor education. Breaking the cycle is going to be hard and expensive.
Interesting. Fortunately, there are experimental data available! School busing programs have sent poor kids to rich schools for years. Somehow, test scores are still declining, though.
giving up on students and sending them to flip burgers full time at 14 is not one of them.
At what point is joining the work force 'giving up'? And how recently did this become the case? Also, do you not think there are any jobs that don't require at least a high school education, or do you think that a high school education is important even if we know in advance that the person who gets it won't be using it?
You were complaining that "otherwise useful" students were doing poorly in school rather than working minimum wages jobs, specifically mopping floors or flipping burgers. The poster was complaining especially that they were "wasting your money."
At what point is joining the work force 'giving up'?
You are “giving up” at the point when you “give up” on doing better than a minimum wage job with no high school degree. It’s very hard for a person of average or below-average intelligence and ambition to move beyond this—and these average people are the people we have to consider.
And how recently did this become the case?
This is a flippant question, but here’s an answer anyway: Around 1870 public education became universal. Prior to that, we weren’t even trying, and hence, could not “give up.”
Also, do you not think there are any jobs that don't require at least a high school education, or do you think that a high school education is important even if we know in advance that the person who gets it won't be using it?
There are many jobs that do not require a high school degree. In fact, there are examples of people without a high school degree doing almost every kind of work there is, and getting paid all sorts of different salaries for it. But we’re not talking about exceptions here, we’re talking about average people. And a high school diploma is very valuable for most people. http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/site/c.kjJXJ5MPIwE/b...
I believe that a high school education is valuable in itself, beyond financials. If we’re going to have a democracy, it would be nice to have voters have some idea of what’s what. It’s also valuable in parenting. These concerns, however, are really not necessary to show the value of a high school diploma.
The previous poster made a claim about poor students in high-quality schools. I thought it was an interesting claim given that there have been experiments to that effect. Someone who says "If X, I bet Y!" should be happy to hear that "Someone tried X -- do you know if they got Y?"
You are “giving up” at the point when you “give up” on doing better than a minimum wage job with no high school degree.
You're not "giving up" on the workforce when you stay in school? Also, are you "giving up" on school if you don't pursue a BA? An MA? A JD? A PhD? A postdoctoral position? A professorship? Tenure? A Nobel? Fields Medal? When you say that they "give up" you imply that they don't do something because it's too hard -- I'd rather say that they do the right thing, which happens to be the easy thing. I've "given up" on being a novelist, or an athlete, or a mathematician, or a drug lord, because I don't have the skills for that job.
I like how well your link controls for the possibility that smart people pursue higher education. I eagerly await the Center for Public Education's (they're neutral, too!) report on how height income, because most people under five feet tall don't even bother to join the labor force.
I believe that a high school education is valuable in itself, beyond financials.
Okay. There are lots of things that I think are valuable, but that I don't insist you pay for. If you're spending huge amounts of other people's money, you probably owe them some assurance that it's not just because it sure would be nice to have what you're buying (regardless of cost?) but that they will get their money's worth.
If we’re going to have a democracy, it would be nice to have voters have some idea of what’s what.
And they're learn this from government schools? How many teachers will tell kids that their government is horribly inefficient, or that their country has veered far from the values that its founders fought and killed for? Your argument might be persuasive in general, but I'm opposed to democracy so it doesn't sway me in particular.
If you have data, please share it. The only bits of info I found were that busing students from one neighborhood to the next didn't have much effect either way.
The problem of selection bias is of course going to be very present as always. One of the toughest issues with public policy is that there's rarely data up to a scientific standard of proof. It's possible that the amount of money spent on an education has nil effect. One simple counterargument is this: you can't learn about computers if you don't have them.
1)"Giving up"
You're using a slippery slope argument. I think a minimum wage job with essentially no opportunity for advancement at 14, is too early to "give up." That's the example that I responded to.
This is a place where we have to set a number -- it's currently at 16. This is a fairly subjective call, as there are a thousand different concerns that could reasonably move it one way or the other.
2)Value of an education
A decently educated populace has great value, to me. I'm willing to pay for it. On the contrary, a bad education is not worth all that much. I believe the solution to bad education is to make it better, not to get rid of it forever.
3)Democracy
How about basics like what the supreme court is and how to locate Iraq on a map? If you want to tell people about the founders, it helps if they know who the founders were and what the constitution is. No one is going to vote for your viewpoint if they don't even know what it is you're talking about.
We seem to disagree about some basic matters, so trying to argue about a high-level issue like education funding and the drop-out age is probably fairly futile.
I don't see why that's relevant. I was responding to the argument that, contrary to the last few decades of high school spending for poorer performance, we might want to consider lowering spending. Unless there is some kind of treadmill of escalating dumbness, and we have to keep spending more and more on schools to break even.
Sports, Teachers, Food, Text Books, Staff, Administration, Trips, Gifted Programs, Counseling Services, Science Fairs, Music Programs, preschool, 1st, 2nd...12th, Collage, Grad School, PhD Programs, Anti Drug Programs, Anti Teen Pregnancy Pamphlets, etc.
I think it's safe to assume each of the above have related rates of diminishing returns. If you wanted to evaluate how effective changing each of the above programs where you might come up with an interesting idea but hacking education is more than just how much money should the US government in total spend.
Less (by making it easier to fire incompetent teachers).
Unknown.
Less (textbook companies are almost as bad as the teachers' cartel -- I learn more from old books, anyway).
Unknown (what do you mean by staff?)
Less (I have never walked into a school's administrative building and thought that these people seemed too busy and that what they did was important).
Unknown (some trips are great, some are a waste. Maybe trips geared towards different sets of interests would be better -- e.g. don't send dumb jocks to a play if they're just going to make things miserable for the drama kids).
Less (gifted programs tend to suck. Ideal gifted program: let them hang out in the library after hours, and maybe pester interested teachers).
Less (counseling is counterproductive. We were a safer, saner country when we didn't diagnose temporary moods as medical problems).
I don't understand how you spend money on science fairs. The ones I have been to involved students doing projects and displaying them at school. Who pays how much for what?
More (for kids who aren't interested in athletics, music programs are a good way to participate in a team. They also teach some math, which is nice).
Less (I've seen no evidence that preschool helps anyone).
Less (high school is too expensive because too many people feel obligated to attend. A 14-year-old American who paid a little attention in school has enough knowledge to function at an acceptable level, so someone who could work for four years instead of staying in school should do so. Unless high school is worth more than the $20K/year they could get doing blue-collar work and learning a trade).
Less (too many people go to college. Again, time value of money).
Less (useful stuff is subsidized by the private sector. PhDs in the semiotics of of Star Trek / Harry Potter crossover slash are paid for by truculent taxpayers like me).
Less. Above.
Less. I don't think we should impose an anti-drug culture. Let kids learn at home whether or not it's okay to spend their time getting high, and of course to learn which drugs have which effects.
Ok, do you have any research to back up those assumptions? It's easy to have an opinion about such things but on what basis are you making such assumptions. Across the US there is a huge range in how much we spend on each of these. Anyway, the Staff is everyone involved that is not teaching and not an administrator such as janitors, lunch ladies, school buss drivers etc. There is a wide range in cost for each of these across the US and at different points in the educational system. If you averaged each of these based on cost of living per area you would find many schools spend well under the existing average do you want to cut them to zero or bring them up to average and cut out the big spenders.
PS: I don't understand how you spend money on science fairs. Every activity from printing a single scrap of paper costs money. I have known schools which stopped doing science fairs because the cost to much (under 1000$) and I know schools that spend a that much or more per student to give them access to the tools they need to do high level experimentation. (AKA access to an electron microscope etc.)
No. I have done research, but I cannot point you to a specific source that rigorously defends the assertion that kids play sports even if you don't make them do it in P.E.
Fortunately, the burden of proof is on whoever wants to spend billions of dollars on a system that is less and less effective as it gets more and more expensive. Right?
* Every activity from printing a single scrap of paper costs money.*
Right. I would not expect the cost of paper to increase from a teacher saying "There will be a science fair this Friday."
schools that spend a that much or more per student to give them access to the tools they need to do high level experimentation. (AKA access to an electron microscope etc.)
That isn't a cost specific to a science fair. Perhaps it would be a learning experience for kids to do a science fair within a budget. It's certainly a learning experience for them to see adults cave in when asked to underwrite arbitrary profligacy.
Edit: I'm also unfamiliar with this use of "AKA". "... to give them access to the tools they need to do high level experimentation (also known as access to an electron microscope..." doesn't make sense to me.
But whatever! It's only billions and billions of taxpayer dollars spent by a monopolist that buys its product from a cartel! Clearly, the important thing is to give more money to this completely deranged system, rather than fixing it.