Posted on 04/22/2013 1:26:54 PM PDT by MichCapCon
While MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry has created a controversy over her comments about children not belonging to their parents, there is another comment Harris-Perry made that deserves a closer look.
In a promotion for the cable news channel, Harris-Perry said:
We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we've always had a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven't had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.
While the whole statement is being criticized by many, her statement on education investment is the easiest to look at empirically. If by investing Harris-Perry means dollars, she'd have a hard time convincing people that what she said is credible.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the U.S. spent more per student than any other country on public education in 2009, the last year for which information was available. For all levels of public education, the U.S. spent $15,812 per student in 2009. That’s the highest in the world. Switzerland was second at $14,716. Mexico spent $2,895 per student.
State and local governments in the U.S. spent $859.9 billion on public education in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s a 30.1 percent increase from $660.5 billion (adjusted for inflation) that the U.S. spent in 2000.
"There's no question we've had very big increases in federal spending in public education," said Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Cato Institute's Center for Education Freedom. "There is no rational way to say we are not spending a lot on public schooling. We are not under spending."
In Michigan, spending from 2000 to 2010 has increased when adjusted for inflation.
In 2000, state and local governments spent $28.4 billion on all levels of public education, adjusted for inflation. In 2010, state and local governments spent $29 billion on public education.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, from 1970-2009, funding per pupil for K-12 has increased 300 percent in real dollars.
Range Rovers cost more than virtually every other SUV.
They are the worst in terms of reliability.
Public schools cost more than virtually every other form of education.
They are the worst in terms of quality.
Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Perhaps performance might not be a function of cost.
If people only knew how much of their property tax levy goes to fund teachers’ salaries, their pensions, and by extension their unions, the education funding debate would be much different.
Then the funding level will be "inadequate," but not "terribly inadequate."
If this person believes that education is underfunded, she can get ahead of the problem and send ALL of her apparently undeserved salary directly to the Department of Education.
Here in Taxifornia over 50% of the budget goes to education and from what I see we get a pi** poor return for our money, and this hyphenated media whore thinks we should spend more? I think if we stopped spending our money to educate Mexico’s children we would have more than enough to educate our own! I think all these people with hyphenated names need to pick one or shut up!
Mexico spent $2,895 per student. I think this number is kind of high.
That’s racist! Count me in.
Not being racist, though I’m sure that there are those who will see it that way, just speaking truth. If were kids from Canada I would be talking about them. I just call it as I see it and know it to be factually.
I wonder what she would consider “adequate?”
$10K per student?
$15?
$25K?
HOW MUCH?
It is not the money. Teachers teaching multiple grades in one-room schoolhouses managed it on a shoestring.
It is the system that doesn’t work. We need to shut down the entire thing, throw it out, and start over.
In Pennsylvania the percentage of school budgets is around 70 percent for pay, pensions and other bennies like medical coverage, free tuition.
Out west in California in some cases the amount is up to 90 percent of budgets.
Maybe a person with a brain like yourself should educate them....and I’m not being mean or sarcastic! The public DOES have no idea!
...or contact a talk show host to do it.
That's $189,744 PER STUDENT for 12 years NOT counting Kindergarten! And when finished they can't even wipe themselves properly! Start cutting the funding 10% per year and don't stop until they start turning out disciplined students prepared to join the workforce (or starve to death). Track how students from each school do at the next level and put the $$ in those schools that excel in preparing the kiddies for the next level. And, if you don't graduate from an accredited high school you are PERMANENTLY ineligible for benefits/"entitlements" - PERMANENTLY.
it is really hard for the libs to know reality when their heads are up their a$$ho)@$ dontchaknow!
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