Liberals claim public schools need more money. They are lying.

several sources ^ | several dates | several authors

[grundle]

Liberals are always saying that we need to spend more money to fix the public schools. The next time a liberal tells you that the public schools need more money, all you have to do is show them this information. I have showed this information to many liberals, and their typical response is silence. They simlpy cannot deal with the facts of reality.

[evolved_rage]

Oh yeah!! Public School students have higher rates of teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, and felony convictions than non-public school students. Who cares about grades, Public School students can fill out complicated welfare forms!

[07055]

According to liberals, all you have to do to increase student achievement is pay the teachers more money, without increasing standards.

And all you have to do to increase airport security is to Federalize the screeners and pay them double their previous wage, without increasing job standards.

[SoDak]

In one of his few moments of clarity, Jessie Ventura got it absolutely right when he said public education is a black hole. There will never be enough money to fill it to where the NEA (DNC) would be satisfied. Teachers in SD complain constantly that we under-fund education. Schools are forced here to watch every single penny. We are something like 48th in per student spending. Yet we consistently finish in the top 10 for test scores and grad rate. And, we have the lowest state and local taxes in the union.

[Bogey78O]

bump

[SCalGal]

They have absolutely no concept of budgeting. Or, rather, no concept of how to stay within the budget they draw up.

We need to stop throwing money at them, and hold them accountable for what they're wasting now.

[KAUAIBOUND]

The funding "problem" is the result of the union mantra of "less work, more pay" which translates to smaller class sizes, fewer actual days teaching and more teachers. Note that the average pupil/teacher ratio has dropped from 26 to 17. Class size is not a factor in quality of education. My 6th grade class (1965) had 45 kids, yet we were far better educated than the average child today.

[RadicalRik]

Funny how home-schoolers can teach twice as much in half the time at a fraction of the cost and produce a far superior product.

Funny how vouchers and tax credits to grant "a parent's fundamental right to choose" their children's school, they pick a parochial or private school and they produce superior students every time at a lower cost.

I think the liberal public schools need more money like Congressmen, pro athletes and corporations need farm subsidies. More money keeps them voting to keep in power those who in turn keep them in power. That is, "the power to indoctrinate, not educate", after all they have new up and coming liberals to produce by way of brainwashing thir students of all redeeming intellectual and moral value.

[NetValue]

The more we spend the worse they get.

Cut the payment for failures. Increase the payment for successes.

Start cutting the money that goes from the teachers' unions to the democrat party by illegal contributions from the National Education Association.

FROM: a former high school teacher

[MadameAxe]

fyi

[alloysteel]

Public schools have way too much money that they are spending wrongly now, we should give them even more? They have forgotten their mission, which is to fill young skulls full of mush, and have substituted widespread social experimentation. Well, the experimentation has gone on for some forty years now, with no visible benefit. Most of our sharpest youngsters have been educated either by home schooling or in private academies, where the basics are drilled in first, and on this foundation, additional learning is built up in logical sequence. Does anybody remember "the new math" of a few years back? The whole concept had to be unlearned before the pupil could comprehend what simple addition or subtraction involved, let alone higher mathematical principles. Or the "sight-reading" methods, which practically guaranteed dyslexia. "Squirrel" and "Special" look almost identical to a sight-reader. Just a few examples, I don't even go into the misinformation being spewed forth in the sciences and history and literature.

[toenail]

If they don't need more money, then why is "conservative" Bush giving it to them?

[Politically Correct]

Of course they are wasting money. And it's easy to show them up as the wastrels they are.
I used the following on a Superintendant of Schools on a talk radio program.

The state of Missouri spends more than $6,000/student/year.
Therefore: for a typical class of twenty students that is $120,000.
You pay on average $35,000/teacher.
What happened to the other $85,000?

He was speechless and mumbled something about getting back to me on that.

[MissMoneyPenny]

ping

[Constitutional_Republican]

That is a profound problem. Instead of increasing the federal education money it should be reduced. In fact, I think the Department of Education should be gone and give the responsibility back to the states and local districts.

[Teacher317]

You've hit upon the source for the ruined budgets. Budget increases are inevitably met by more regulation, NEA intervention, and lobbyist hand-outs. My former school had an increase of 400+ students over my 4 years there, and yet had two fewer teachers when I left... the 9 newly added positions were nearly all state- and federally-mandated 'specialists', virtually all psychology and behavioral 'experts'. The classroom staff was reduced to make room. (My average class size went from 21 originally to 32 in the last year, although that year's class was unusually large.)

As many have pointed out here, spending increases are virtually useless and would do little to improve classrooms in any region. (Heck, parts of the third world keeps pace with many American classrooms without electricity, equipment, or textbooks.) While I'd love to have a pay increase or nicer equipment, it would do little to improve my students' performance or comprehension. If you want real improvements in public education, try removing the 'compulsory' nature of the beast (10th plank of the Communist Manifesto), de-fanging the NEA dragon and introducing competition into the pay scale, and reversing the media/urban trend towards popular disrespect for academic accomplishment, re-introducing strong parental support for teachers' discipline of students, closing the federal Dept of Education, and eliminating social promotion... for starters. (Man, we have strayed far, far away from a viable system!)

[cincinnati_Steve]

I had some very good teachers in high school, but the several I have known since have collectively been as smart as a sack of hammers. I know 3 young 'uns at the moment going to school to become teachers, and while they are pleasant socially, they don't strike me as people who would be able to impart any knowledge...although they'd be capable of spewing the NEA party line. My landlord is a teacher at a Montessori school, and is about to quit after 17 years.

I've collected pottery and mission-style stuff for years, and know that 60-70 years ago, schools actually taught children skills they could use to make a living. The NEA would sincerely love everyone to believe that a college education is necessary in today's world. I beg to differ. Thirty years ago, a college education meant something. Now, the education establishment has 'created' programs in all kinds of crap that used to be considered hobbies. They want to take $30,000 and hand out degrees in areas of 'expertise' that won't get a person a job for $10 an hour.

Different kids have different assets...if we had more choices as far as choosing a vocation in high school, that would be a good use of education dollars.

[Teacher317]

Oh, and to answer your question, he could have said that you need to add in salaries for bus drivers, maintenance staff, administration, nursing staff, cafeteria staff, janitorial staff, mandated psychologists, special ed. consultants, security staff (for some larger schools), computer consultants (a full-time position in almost every medium-sized school in the country)... then there's repairs, copier paper and maintenance contracts, classroom supplies, office supplies, medical supplies, maintenance supplies, 50 newspaper subscriptions for 2 current events classrooms, sports equipment and uniforms, food and replacing eating utensils (lost, stolen, bent, etc), computer connection costs, electricity, telephone lines, bus maintenence (and purchases), lost revenue due to destroyed property and families failing/refusing to pay fees (which easily exceeded $75,000 for my school last year)... and finally there's every new expense added every time some pol decides that they want to look like they 'care' about education and impose some new mandate, rule, program, or diversity/fisting/activism workshop (costing many thousands of dollars for a one-hour symposium).

(But you can add lunch money, book-and-paper fees, fund-raisers, and community grants as some extra sources of income.)

(I looked into possibly starting a small community school, and quickly learned that the credits don't pile up nearly as quickly as the debits... but it was a nice thought.)