hippiewannabe wrote:Amskeptic wrote:
The 50 year decline towards mediocrity includes a severe de-funding of higher education that has been a hallmark of republican goals, not to mention attacks against teachers unions, local property taxes that fund local schools, and the fomenting of hostility towards intellectual thought starting with Adlai Sevenson in the 50's all the way up to sneering at Obama's education at Harvard.
Another favorite leftist canard that simply isn't true.
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.
Leftist Canard . . .
Center On Budget and Policy Priorities
After adjusting for inflation:
States are spending $2,353 or 28 percent less per student on higher education, nationwide, in the current 2013 fiscal year than they did in 2008, when the recession hit.
Every state except for North Dakota and Wyoming is spending less per student on higher education than they did prior to the recession.[1]
In many states the cuts over the last five years have been remarkably deep. Eleven states have cut funding by more than one-third per student, and two states — Arizona and New Hampshire — have cut their higher education spending per student in half.
Statistics . . . why they even trip me up.
Total amount of spending is higher, but it must be put in context. Just like "the rich pay more in taxes than everyone else!" but if you look at the time people have to spend working to pay their taxes, most of us are working from January through the middle of May, Mitt Romney has his paid before the end of January, "but he paid more!"
So, for education spending and the priority we put on it, I like to look at education spending as a percentage of GDP. We spent 1.2% on higher education under Jimmy Carter, we spent .6% under George W Bush, and Obama has managed to see us up to .8%.
hippiewannabe wrote:
Success is not correlated with spending. More is spent per pupil in Detroit than other Michigan communities, with far worse results. Family issues and union resistance to change overwhelm all, regardless how much money is thrown at it.
True that. Family issues and resistance to change, I can buy.
"Union" resistance to change not so much. Teachers have watched their salaries stagnate while their hours are now greater than any other developed country. So we are not attracting the true professionals, we are suffering terrible turn-over . . . if your business was losing half its new hires after five years, what would you do? yell at their union representatives?? and who is listening to the unions in today's corporatocracy?
hippiewannabe wrote:
You cannot improve something unless you can measure it. The only way to measure what students have learned is to test them. "Teaching to the test" sounds bad, but if the test is accurately measuring the things kids need to know, there shouldn't be a conflict. The experiment of reduced testing is actually fairly new, and has proven to be a failure, which is why other countries never went there.
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Our tests are a dismal snapshot. How do you catch the possibly poorly spelled brilliant essay? What teacher is left to plough through the essays from classrooms that have ballooned to unwieldy numbers?
The problem with education is that the dollars are not going to the teachers so much, they are going to sports programs and extremely bloated administrators and inequitably distributed equipment in the nicer suburban schools. The dollars are not being used to reduce class sizes and fund the critically necessary art and music programs. Go talk with some dedicated and experienced teachers, know any? That will be your opportunity to leave the test measures behind for a moment and see the intangible destruction occurring all around you. Our Nation's future is at stake, our preeminence is being hollowed out by the corporate cookie-cutter money game, the next generation is being cheated of critical thinking skills.
Colin
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