Why must we spend MORE on education??? (Madison: home, job market)

[2018]

WingInstitute > NAEP Scores vs. Funding by State

I'm sure I've posted this before. It is still interesting.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by xandrex

Of course, someone could argue that more spending--at least at the state level--would return us to previous funding levels. A lot of the cuts in state spending have pretty much just forced local districts to borrow money in addition to cuts. An increase in funding could decrease the local borrowing level.

Just a thought.

State and local governments can borrow for capital expenditures and, in certain cases, in anticipation of receipts, but they are not allowed to borrow to cover ongoing deficits like the Federal government. I think this is one reason that state and local governments have done a better job of dealing with budget shortfalls: they have to.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by 2018

WingInstitute > NAEP Scores vs. Funding by State

I'm sure I've posted this before. It is still interesting.

There is a modest correlation between spending and results, but no evidence that spending leads to higher outcomes. Another equally valid theory is that the factors that allow a state to spend more, specifically lower poverty levels, also lead to higher educational outcomes. If low spending led to low results, homeschoolers wouldn't be among the most successful students, and if high spending led to high results, the District of Columbia wouldn't be where it is at the bottom of the pile.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by Glenfield

There is a modest correlation between spending and results, but no evidence that spending leads to higher outcomes. Another equally valid theory is that the factors that allow a state to spend more, specifically lower poverty levels, also lead to higher educational outcomes. If low spending led to low results, homeschoolers wouldn't be among the most successful students, and if high spending led to high results, the District of Columbia wouldn't be where it is at the bottom of the pile.

When you hire babysitters like child psychologists, extra counselors, 5 assistant principals etc you will see the cost of education balloon out of control. Therefore the problem districts have more overhead without "educating"; that overhead goes to glorified babysitters. Hence, those statistical outliers p_ss away money and they skew the results which (in your mind and others) "proves" that more money spent == no results. Home schooling is also a statistical outlier.


I personally like when there is some budget pressures on the school. They were forced to to trim fat.

That being said, I am very sure that quality opportunities cost money (nicer labs, better quality teachers, new technology to teach etc). In summary, I would not raise my Kid's in Arizona ($3800 per pupil). Nor would I want to raise them in DC ($19K per student). I think there is a happy medium.

[Vic_Vega]

Your stat claims a 100% literacy rate in Finland? That's frigging laughable. Now i'm not going to claim the literacy rate is higher in the US than Finland, nor am i gonna claim the stats on the money are way off wrong, even though the funding structures for education from country to country are way different from one another. Still, 100%, are you kidding me?

Is this some kind of propaganda used for public union busting, to show how "overpaid" teachers are in Minnysoda?

[Clifford63]

Originally Posted by Vic_Vega

Your stat claims a 100% literacy rate in Finland? That's frigging laughable. Now i'm not going to claim the literacy rate is higher in the US than Finland, nor am i gonna claim the stats on the money are way off wrong, even though the funding structures for education from country to country are way different from one another. Still, 100%, are you kidding me?

Is this some kind of propaganda used for public union busting, to show how "overpaid" teachers are in Minnysoda?

Nice tie in to the union agenda. Not so relevant to spending though.

[southernsmoke]

Originally Posted by Vic_Vega

Your stat claims a 100% literacy rate in Finland? That's frigging laughable. Now i'm not going to claim the literacy rate is higher in the US than Finland, nor am i gonna claim the stats on the money are way off wrong, even though the funding structures for education from country to country are way different from one another. Still, 100%, are you kidding me?

Is this some kind of propaganda used for public union busting, to show how "overpaid" teachers are in Minnysoda?

Not relevant. Perhaps you could score a meaningless rhetorical point if you can cite a source that shows Finland having a worse literacy rate than the United States, but even then, the point was just that the US spends 35%+ more money per student per year than Finland and doesn't have anything (at least not anything significant) to show for it.

Sorry to interrupt your teacher's union pep rally. Carry on.

[sholomar]

overhead and excessive paperwork are the biggest cost consumers in the US in general, from the government to the medical and insurance industries. I'm sure we could find a way to cut the phat from some districts, but not all.

Also lots of money is spent on sports and other activities that are arguably not essential, but very memorable for a student and perhaps worth the money. This is usually funded by local property taxes like all public schools. Where I used to live they'd have the same school spending bills up for vote and they'd fail 2, 3 times in a row.. finally they'd muster up enough people where it would pass the 4th time, to me that's kind of crooked. It should have to pass 4 times first.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by MN-Born-n-Raised

When you hire babysitters like child psychologists, extra counselors, 5 assistant principals etc you will see the cost of education balloon out of control. Therefore the problem districts have more overhead without "educating"; that overhead goes to glorified babysitters. Hence, those statistical outliers p_ss away money and they skew the results which (in your mind and others) "proves" that more money spent == no results. Home schooling is also a statistical outlier.

That's a pretty gross distortion of what I said, which was that the modest correlation between spending and better outcomes did not demonstrate a cause and effect relationship, but also could be explained in other ways. I can tell you this: if the only way someone can make a point is to misrepresent your position, their argument must be pretty weak.

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by MN-Born-n-Raised

When you hire babysitters like child psychologists, extra counselors, 5 assistant principals etc you will see the cost of education balloon out of control. Therefore the problem districts have more overhead without "educating"; that overhead goes to glorified babysitters. Hence, those statistical outliers p_ss away money and they skew the results which (in your mind and others) "proves" that more money spent == no results. Home schooling is also a statistical outlier.


I personally like when there is some budget pressures on the school. They were forced to to trim fat.

That being said, I am very sure that quality opportunities cost money (nicer labs, better quality teachers, new technology to teach etc). In summary, I would not raise my Kid's in Arizona ($3800 per pupil). Nor would I want to raise them in DC ($19K per student). I think there is a happy medium.

There are so, so many other factors at work, though -- not least, the pressure to make sure that EVERYONE is educated, not just the easiest and cheapest to educate. The problem when you start trimming budgets too much is that it's the kids who are doing fine who get hurt the most. That's not true in every school or district, of course, (especially in schools where the parents have enormous political power and know how to wield it, and who can also step in and cover funding gaps through donations), but since the average middle-class kid with available parents is going to do okay in almost any school, it's easier to ignore their needs and focus on the kid who can't read. I also think it's a major stretch to suggest that counselors or administrators are "glorified babysitters", although I do think it's also probably likely that districts could cut down on some of those positions if more kids were getting what they need OUTSIDE of school. There's also the matter of high-stakes testing, which require an enormous amount of staff time and administrative costs. Blame that on the politicians, though, not on teachers or school districts.