Text 7702, 112 rader
Skriven 2006-09-05 21:15:00 av Robert E Starr JR (8199.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Orion CEV...Apollo St
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<kruegerb76@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1157503403.799225.24880@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> matthewstaab@gmail.com wrote:
>> I love how the answer to everything in Education is spend more money.
>> At least Bush is trying to fix things maybe he right and maybe its
>> wrong but the older i get the more I see a congressman/woman saying we
>> need more moneyon ... its simply a copout to avoid really handing a
>> problem.
>
> Are you certain that there aren't more students coming into schools now
> than there were before?
>
> More students means more money.  In more ways than one, actually.  New
> buildings may be needed to replace old ones.
>
> Being in a small town that hesitates to spend any money on education, I
> was not surprised when the only way we got the elementary school roof
> fixed was when it collapsed (thank randomness it was when no one was in
> the building).
>
> People try to talk about "education" when it's really a horribly
> complicated mish-mash of federal, state, and local funding.
>
>

Consider Kansas City.  Judge Russell Clark decided that the best way to 
create racial equity was to create a magnet school system that was very well 
funded in the city that would attract whites into the city.  The judge 
ordered property taxes more than doubled and additional money from the 
state.  I'm not sure where he got the authority to do this.  His idea was to 
make inner city schools the very best possible schools with the bst paid 
teachers, facilities, etc.

The schools had computers (one for every two students), radio and TV 
studios, movie editing rooms, a planetarioum, greenhouses, a moot court with 
a jury room, a model UN, Olympic sized swimming pools, etc.  There was even 
a model Greek village to "teach participatory democracy."

By 1995 the program was spending an additional $36,111 PER STUDENT for each 
of the 36,000 students.  Instructional costs went from $3,094 to $8000 
($3760 was the state average).

What was gained by all this additional spending?  The dropout rate climbed 
from 6.5 to 11.4%, the average daily attendance rate dropped 5%, and there 
was no change in test scores.  Other schools in neighboring districts had 
less than half the per student spending and did 70-80 points better on the 
Missouri standardized tests.

To assume that educational problems will be solved by throwing more money at 
them is just buying into a mentality that the government can cure all things 
if we spend enough.  That's just wrong.  The answer isn't just raising 
budgets or assuming that if you pay teachers more that they'll be better 
teachers.

The educational system has been failing for decades.  We make excuses, blame 
the tests and constantly say "If we just spent more it will be better, but 
at the same time private schools spend less, usually have larger class sizes 
and and do much better.  Home schooled students do significantly better too, 
with many colleges recognizing that.

What do we learn from the schools that are doing better?  We learn to 
demonize them.  We lie about them and say that private schools do better 
because they can cherry pick their students, when statistics indicate that 
seldom happens (less than 2%).  We have classes that slow down to suit the 
slower students and make the brighter students get bored out of their minds 
waiting for everyone to catch up.

We have a system in which the existing institution resists any change, any 
accountability, and demands more and more money without producing any 
results.


> I still think making property taxes pay for local schools is a horrible
> sham: clearly a large number of the rich want their dollars spent in
> their neighborhoods ONLY.  It's a horrifying idea to them that,
> perhaps, funds should be shared out a bit more equally.
>
> Ah, but that's another debate.  :)

I can appreciate the your thoughts here, but I think that you're being 
unfair in your characterization of the "rich" (by which I assume you mean 
suburbia in general as compared to inner city schools). I think your 
characterization is completely wrong; I think it's a matter of many people 
wanting the best education that they can get for their kids.

They don't feel that their kids should be deprived of the best education 
that they can afford.  The alternative to them is dropping their kids 
educational opportunities down to the lowest common denominator.

To be fair, money diverted from suburban schools to inner city schools may 
very well not diminish the education in the suburban schools (if more money 
doesn't improve them...) but in this case the city schools are fighting the 
perception that they themselves created.

Few parents are willing to sacrifice part of their kids education, 
particularly on a school system that has shown no ability to improve itself.

Carl
With my shield or on it.
                                                                               
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