Why must we spend MORE on education??? (low income, appliances)

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by Clifford63

The number of years of required education would not affect the cost per year at the student level. The total cost per student would be less if the average number of years of education is lower, but the chart presented was not focused on total cost.

If you look at any school budget you will see that the costs to educate kids in the elementary years are close to half that of a high school aged student. It does make a huge difference what age the kids are that you are educating. An elementary math workbook costs about $30, a high school Algebra text book costs about $150, just one example. Add in the extra costs for PE classes, science classes, foreign languages, auto shop, etc. and it's expensive to educated kids over the age of 16.

[Clifford63]

Originally Posted by golfgal

If you look at any school budget you will see that the costs to educate kids in the elementary years are close to half that of a high school aged student. It does make a huge difference what age the kids are that you are educating. An elementary math workbook costs about $30, a high school Algebra text book costs about $150, just one example. Add in the extra costs for PE classes, science classes, foreign languages, auto shop, etc. and it's expensive to educated kids over the age of 16.

That would explain some of the difference. 75% of our budget going to special ed sounds way higher than it should be. I would expect that to be a much larger factor.

[phlinak]

Let's look at this discussion from a different perspective. The argument seems to be that as a nation we're not getting our money's worth in per capita spending on public education, which may or may not be true.

However, look at Minnesota.

Minnesota is not stingy when it comes to per capita on public education and it pays dividends. MN students are consistently among the top five states in terms of SAT, ACT, and any other academic tests conducted nationwide. If we only included our top 10 or 20 states, we would probably rank among the best in the world.

So the question is not why don't our public schools do a better job teaching our children.

Rather, the question should be what is Minnesota, Maryland, and the other top scoring states doing that makes them so successful and why aren't the other states duplicating their examples.

Personally, I believe that politics, or should I say, political demagoguery and grandstanding by local, county, state (and to a lesser extent, federal) politicians pushing their personal/political agendas are the real causes and culprits.

Just one person's opinion.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by golfgal

Go spend some time in the smaller villages in most of these countries. Again, these countries STOP educating 80% of their kids by age 16 and some before that. Their special education funds do NOT come out of their public school funds. Compare apples to apples and you get an entirely different picture.

What utter nonsense. I have been to some smaller towns in several of these countries, and they compare rather favorably to some places here. Or are you saying that small town Canada is so very different than small town MN? If so, pray tell how. As to places that stop educating at an early age, have you ever visited an Indian reservation?

[Cruz Azul Guy]

It's laughable how far golfgal will go to defend US education and in particular, Minnesota education...apparently according to golfgal they can do no wrong and have zero room for improvement.

[uptown_urbanist]

You can't look at schools without looking at the broader social context -- kids in Finland are far less likely to go to school hungry, lack access to health care, have a parent in jail, worry about where they'll be sleeping that night, or otherwise be dealing with the many, many other issues that make it tough for Minnesotan (or American in general) to concentrate on learning. It's no surprise that school performance in this country tends to correlate with socioeconomic status of the student body.

As for the assertion that Australia, Canada, Finland, etc. stop educating the "majority" of their kids at age 16, that is just flat-out wrong. The formal end of mandated education does not mean that the schools only provide an education to that age. I believe currently that Minnesota only requires school until age 16, yet that does not mean that our schools stop educating the majority of our students at age 16.

I do agree, however, that unless special education funds are accounted for in the total numbers, they are rather meaningless for comparative purposes.

[imokay]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

You can't look at schools without looking at the broader social context -- kids in Finland are far less likely to go to school hungry, lack access to health care, have a parent in jail, worry about where they'll be sleeping that night, or otherwise be dealing with the many, many other issues that make it tough for Minnesotan (or American in general) to concentrate on learning. It's no surprise that school performance in this country tends to correlate with socioeconomic status of the student body.

This. The real problem is the high poverty rate, wealth inequality, and all the other negatives of having a government that spends too little on what really matters.

[xandrex]

While I know this thread is gonna go nowhere, I thought I'd throw my thoughts in.

Obviously it's not just a matter of how much money we throw at schools. Like Uptown said, the broader context comes into play. Many of the best countries have fairly homogenous populations and/or a much smaller wealth gap. Finland also has one of the best education systems in the world thanks to a major overhaul that makes being a teacher a vigorous process (and pays them, I believe, something like the equivalent of $100,000 or something crazy like that...it's essentially a career that is just a revered as a doctor) and changed the curriculum around and such.

I do think that the American system of educating all children the same way is another factor. We teach a lot of students all in the same setting. But in Germany, for instance, they get separated into three tracks. One you're done by about the equivalent of 8th grade and starting on a skill. Another you don't go much further and do apprenticeships and other such things. And then there are the university-bound schools. When I visited there during high school, I saw several of these schools. A lot of the money goes to the university-bound schools while the others are largely ignored (and seemed much more like American schools in how they felt and operated) and looked down upon.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

You can't look at schools without looking at the broader social context -- kids in Finland are far less likely to go to school hungry, lack access to health care, have a parent in jail, worry about where they'll be sleeping that night, or otherwise be dealing with the many, many other issues that make it tough for Minnesotan (or American in general) to concentrate on learning. It's no surprise that school performance in this country tends to correlate with socioeconomic status of the student body.

As for the assertion that Australia, Canada, Finland, etc. stop educating the "majority" of their kids at age 16, that is just flat-out wrong. The formal end of mandated education does not mean that the schools only provide an education to that age. I believe currently that Minnesota only requires school until age 16, yet that does not mean that our schools stop educating the majority of our students at age 16.

I do agree, however, that unless special education funds are accounted for in the total numbers, they are rather meaningless for comparative purposes.

Did you look at the map I posted. Compulsory education ends at age 16 in Canada--that is when the "public schools" stop educating the kids. They then move into college or university and then the funding comes from different sources. Like I said, you have to compare apples to apples, take out the special education budget and funding for kids over 16 and you will have a totally different picture of what the US spends per pupil. MN requires kids to age 18 or high school graduation.

[southernsmoke]

Originally Posted by golfgal

Did you look at the map I posted. Compulsory education ends at age 16 in Canada--that is when the "public schools" stop educating the kids. They then move into college or university and then the funding comes from different sources. Like I said, you have to compare apples to apples, take out the special education budget and funding for kids over 16 and you will have a totally different picture of what the US spends per pupil. MN requires kids to age 18 or high school graduation.

Aside from the fact (as has been pointed out) that how many years a child is in school does not directly bear upon the amount spent per student per year, you are missing the point about compulsory education. Schools don't stop educating students once they are old enough that they don't have to go to school. Furthermore, in some Canadian provinces (e.g., Ontario), compulsory education does not end until age 18, and in most U.S. states (e.g., Minnesota), compulsory education ends at 16.