What would the schools do with more money?

Sac Bee ^ | 10/30/03 | Daniel Weintraub

[NormsRevenge]

The most frustrating thing about public spending on education is that so many people -- including most voters -- agree we need more of it, but almost no one can tell us what we would get in exchange for the extra dollars.

[CSM]

Answer: More NEA members to vote Democratic!

[TontoKowalski]

LOL! The whole money debate is insane. We homeschool, and I guarantee my third grader can beat the academic socks off 95% or more of publicly educated third-graders, and we spend significantly less than $1K on curriculum and materials for a year.

OK, I'll grant that most kids of similar age can probably put a rubber on a banana and my kid can't, but I can live with that.

[ScreenName1]

The university system in the U.S. is a combination of public and private schools. It is arguably the best in the world. While some of the best are private institutions, e.g. Stanford, Harvard, etc., there are some formidable public ones also. This system is a result of competition between the public and private sector.

If this worked so well for higher education what makes anyone think it would not also work for K to 12?

The answer is not more money. The answer is competition.

[CSM]

You also need to add in the opportunity cost. What would you make in the work world (net not gross) minus daycare or other costs. If you figure that in, then you could probably consider the individual attention you can give your child equates to a cost of 2X what we spend per public school student. That also means that we could have a teacher student ration of 1:4 and cut the costs in half!

[ErnBatavia]

All bureacracies seem to work the same way. I read just yesterday how thrilled little Temecula is to be on the receiving end of something like $8.3 million in state grant money to build a munipal library.

I'm not a contractor, but IMO given $8.3 million, I could subcontract out a hell of a Taj Mahal reading room for a whole lot less, and live like a king with the leftover grant money.

[mvpel]

There's a number of bond measures for construction and maintenance here in San Jose that are being used on construction and maintenance of buildings they can't afford to staff.

[Molesworth]

>>The most frustrating thing about public spending on education is that so many people -- including most voters -- agree we need more of it, but almost no one can tell us what we would get in exchange for the extra dollars.<<

When you spend $67,000 per student, scores rocket off the charts. It's the darnedest thing you ever did see.

[azhenfud]

"There are two natural (and conflicting) conclusions to be drawn from this: either that extra money makes no difference or that we're not spending enough extra money on those schools to make a difference."

There are plenty of examples proving why "extra money makes no difference", beginning with academic excellence levels of those students from private and homeschool environments and their modest budgets compared with public endoctrination joints and the failure rates of kids from there.

Making the cost of failure more expensive makes little sense.

[randog]

I think the NEA has figured out that you really don't have to teach kids; the smart ones and/or those from good families will rise to the top and get an education regardless while the dull kids and/or those from bad families will sink. The teacher is just a prop. Some will make an effort because they care, but a lot are just there to soak up some gub'mint money. The education system in America is more of a jobs program than anything else.

[Guillermo]

Politicians don't care about schools, they care about stupid, non-sensical slogans like "100,00 more teachers" and "No Child Left Behind" and the stupid masses eat it up and demand more spending.

[Amerigomag]

Why does everone refuse to look at the children. They are as much of the problem as mismanagement, in fact greater.

California has too may children. 38% too many children.

These too many children are the result of illegal immigration.

[ReagansShinyHair]

Mahogany desks in the district offices of LAUSD...