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Yep, poverty is a huge issue, same reason why the Minneapolis schools score so much lower than the suburban schools. There is a point to which you do need to fund schools, you can't just keep cutting and cutting and cutting and expect results. Have you tried to buy a textbook lately-how about buying 500-800 textbooks at $200/each...for one class. How about a desk, bought a desk lately. What exactly do you suggest we cut???
Quote:
Originally Posted by southernsmoke
Get real. Minnesota is plain vanilla compared to Mississippi and Alabama. You guys like to say you are progressive and say Southerners are racists and so on. The reality is that they are totally different worlds. To sit there and say that schools in those states can't educate people is ignorant. There are a lot more issues in those states. It's not low taxes. It's demographics. Why don't we compare the top students in all these states... I guarantee you (i.e., it is literally impossible) that you cannot find a single Minnesotan with higher test scores than I had, and I grew up in the South. I get really sick of listening to this crap. Minnesota doesn't even spend top money on their schools (compared to other states), so you can't attribute higher average test scores to more money spent on students.
If there is one thing that irks me to no end, it is Minnesotans bragging about how much better their schools are than everywhere else. It's called an inferiority complex.
Chicken/egg thing-perhaps if people in these areas took education seriously they wouldn't HAVE the poverty issues they experience generation after generation. It isn't a different world, they are still part of the United States of America and have access to the same liberties that we have--difference being, in MN and other well educated states-we CARE about getting a good education and we don't sit around waiting for handouts...
Wow, so I am a Marxist because I think the government should serve the poor and the rich should pay their fair share?... I just disagree with you by thinking our government should serve us by providing more services for the poor and middle class.
Since you've rephrased your position from the original, "I'm sorry, but I think the government should have the right to take from the rich in the form of taxation... and use that money for the good of society. That's what government is for" to something less radical like the "fair share" concept above, no you don't sound like Marx. You sound more like Robin Hood.
Chicken/egg thing-perhaps if people in these areas took education seriously they wouldn't HAVE the poverty issues they experience generation after generation. It isn't a different world, they are still part of the United States of America and have access to the same liberties that we have--difference being, in MN and other well educated states-we CARE about getting a good education and we don't sit around waiting for handouts...
Higher test scores for WHAT????
Not sure what you're asking about higher test scores...
I understand the chicken-egg thought, but I just think that is kind of naive in this situation to think that throwing money at the problem just magically makes things better. There are a lot of other factors at play.
Not sure what you're asking about higher test scores...
I understand the chicken-egg thought, but I just think that is kind of naive in this situation to think that throwing money at the problem just magically makes things better. There are a lot of other factors at play.
I have NEVER said that throwing money at the problem will help but it DOES take money to run schools. The issue here is that the money the state is deferring from the schools is money already OWED TO THEM. Our district, for example, had to take out a line of credit to cover the missing funds from the state-money collected in our school district from our property taxes for the express purpose to fund our school district-as in line item on our property tax bill. THAT money is NOT being sent to the schools.
As for the test scores--you said you had the highest test scores ever-I was just questioning what test scores.
I have NEVER said that throwing money at the problem will help but it DOES take money to run schools. The issue here is that the money the state is deferring from the schools is money already OWED TO THEM. Our district, for example, had to take out a line of credit to cover the missing funds from the state-money collected in our school district from our property taxes for the express purpose to fund our school district-as in line item on our property tax bill. THAT money is NOT being sent to the schools.
Yeah, I wasn't speaking to the wisdom of deferring school payments or anything. I don't think that is a great idea, but Minnesota refuses to meaningfully cut any spending so you end up trying to put a band-aid on the structural problem. What I was responding to is just that you and others seemed to be suggesting that Minnesota's schools are so much better than other states' schools because Minnesota provides more school funding. The reality is that funding and school performance (however you even measure that--test scores being a common metric) are not so correlated.
Yeah, I wasn't speaking to the wisdom of deferring school payments or anything. I don't think that is a great idea, but Minnesota refuses to meaningfully cut any spending so you end up trying to put a band-aid on the structural problem. What I was responding to is just that you and others seemed to be suggesting that Minnesota's schools are so much better than other states' schools because Minnesota provides more school funding. The reality is that funding and school performance (however you even measure that--test scores being a common metric) are not so correlated.
No one said that at all-MN ranks in the middle of the nation for per pupil spending-we aren't even close to the top. What makes the schools here better is that we CARE about having good schools. Again, having lived in a low tax state, I GLADLY pay my taxes each and every year because I have lived in low tax areas and they just don't measure up.
No one said that at all-MN ranks in the middle of the nation for per pupil spending-we aren't even close to the top.
Well, I never said that anybody "said" that--I said that people implied it. JmanAA and northstar22 came darn close to saying that.
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Originally Posted by golfgal
What makes the schools here better is that we CARE about having good schools.
I agree with that in principle. I think what makes anybody successful at school (or anything, for that matter) is caring about it and/or having parents who care about it. I think demographics matter in comparing schools, but a lot of that is even driven by apathy among certain demographic groups. I will say that Minnesotans make the biggest deal about high schools of anybody I know--to the point of being obnoxious about how awesome their schools are a lot of times, honestly. But I think that swagger probably does make schools "better" in some way.
But then we get back to how this whole conversation started, which was about how money was supposedly the necessary thing that made Minnesota schools work...
Last edited by southernsmoke; 07-16-2011 at 11:10 AM..
Yep, poverty is a huge issue, same reason why the Minneapolis schools score so much lower than the suburban schools. There is a point to which you do need to fund schools, you can't just keep cutting and cutting and cutting and expect results. Have you tried to buy a textbook lately-how about buying 500-800 textbooks at $200/each...for one class. How about a desk, bought a desk lately. What exactly do you suggest we cut???
Well, why do we need so many new textbooks? In my limited experience, textbook rigor has been on a steady downward trend, especially in mathematics. Further, most of the material taught with texts doesn't change a great deal from year to year. And corruption in the textbook market is hardly something new; Richard Feynman commented on it many years ago.
The question you should be asking is: why does it cost so much to produce and sell these books? My suspicion is that publishers are simply pricing at the highest price the market will bear. We are paying so much simply because we are willing to pay so much.
Finally, most books and desks in need of replacement after a relatively short service are damaged because of vandalism or neglect. Surely dealing with these underlying issues is more important than just replacing the texts; after all, can we really expect students to learn in an environment of criminal mischief even if they do have new books?
Quote:
Originally Posted by golfgal
No one said that at all-MN ranks in the middle of the nation for per pupil spending-we aren't even close to the top. What makes the schools here better is that we CARE about having good schools. Again, having lived in a low tax state, I GLADLY pay my taxes each and every year because I have lived in low tax areas and they just don't measure up.
I couldn't agree with the bolded text more. But it completely unwinds the rest of your argument. I assert that MN schools are good because a) there is overall less poverty and home/community problems than in some states and b) the cultural norms promote education. Neither of these qualities are remotely reliant on the amount spent. Just look at the Dakotas, Washington State, and Kansas for examples of states that spend somewhat less than MN while maintaining good results. Heck, Idaho has the same performance as Connecticut despite having more poverty and spending only a little over half as much.
Well, why do we need so many new textbooks? In my limited experience, textbook rigor has been on a steady downward trend, especially in mathematics. Further, most of the material taught with texts doesn't change a great deal from year to year. And corruption in the textbook market is hardly something new; Richard Feynman commented on it many years ago.
The question you should be asking is: why does it cost so much to produce and sell these books? My suspicion is that publishers are simply pricing at the highest price the market will bear. We are paying so much simply because we are willing to pay so much.
Finally, most books and desks in need of replacement after a relatively short service are damaged because of vandalism or neglect. Surely dealing with these underlying issues is more important than just replacing the texts; after all, can we really expect students to learn in an environment of criminal mischief even if they do have new books?
I don't know if you think public schools buy new textbooks for each class every year, but even in my "over-funded" school in northern Minnesota, our textbooks were only replaced when they got to be fairly old.
As for tackling replacements due to vandalism - our textbooks were inspected at the end of the year and you could expect a decent fine if you had caused damage (expect for the spine separating from the pages, which teachers and students alike promoted a glue-and-pressure-to-fix-it trick.
I think our pretty decent funding in Minnesota has brought quality. That doesn't mean you can't do quality for cheaper. But I remember a teacher talking to our class in ninth grade, saying that a degree in Minnesota was held in high esteem and people from across the country sought said people. I don't know the veracity of the statement, but she wasn't originally from Minnesota (she had previously worked in inner-city Chicago schools, I believe), so it wasn't her home-state pride or anything. I think it probably has some word-of-mouth truth: the decent funding meant that teachers wages were higher than many states, which meant that more teachers wanted to come to Minnesota. Combined with our relatively homogenous, middle-class population, scores remained high, further bringing the word-of-mouth. Why would a good teacher want to work in North Dakota (which tends to have good schools too) when they could work in higher-wage Minnesota?
I don't know if you think public schools buy new textbooks for each class every year, but even in my "over-funded" school in northern Minnesota, our textbooks were only replaced when they got to be fairly old.
As for tackling replacements due to vandalism - our textbooks were inspected at the end of the year and you could expect a decent fine if you had caused damage (expect for the spine separating from the pages, which teachers and students alike promoted a glue-and-pressure-to-fix-it trick.
How old is "fairly old"? What was the reason for replacement?
Quote:
Originally Posted by xandrex
I think our pretty decent funding in Minnesota has brought quality. That doesn't mean you can't do quality for cheaper. But I remember a teacher talking to our class in ninth grade, saying that a degree in Minnesota was held in high esteem and people from across the country sought said people. I don't know the veracity of the statement, but she wasn't originally from Minnesota (she had previously worked in inner-city Chicago schools, I believe), so it wasn't her home-state pride or anything. I think it probably has some word-of-mouth truth: the decent funding meant that teachers wages were higher than many states, which meant that more teachers wanted to come to Minnesota. Combined with our relatively homogenous, middle-class population, scores remained high, further bringing the word-of-mouth. Why would a good teacher want to work in North Dakota (which tends to have good schools too) when they could work in higher-wage Minnesota?
This is an argument for lowering school spending, not keeping it high. If MN provides higher wages than ND but the latter still has good schools, why are higher wages needed? By your logic, ND schools should suck because there's no incentive for teachers to go there instead of working in MN. But that's not the case.
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