Tom Wolf holds up budget, social services hurting (Philadelphia, Washington: house, schools)

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by fisheye

Tom Wolf ran on a ticket of supporting education; but he meant supporting the spending and not really improving the education of any student. We have come a long ways from Little House on the Prairie and the one room school house with a teacher that really cared about her students.

On average PA spends about $15K per student both state and local funding. This puts us in the top ten states.

Note this graph does not adjust for inflation

400 million in 1986 = 870 million today, spending has increased by almost 3X. That's very significant amount.

They are using 1600 for the SAT's, I believe they use 2000 now? Must of adjusted for that.

Commonwealth Foundation - Education Spending & Academic Achievement

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

They are using 1600 for the SAT's, I believe they use 2000 now? Must of adjusted for that.

Don't quote me on it because I am not sure and I don't have the time to look it up right now. I think that they changed the questions on the SAT's; I don't think it is equivalent to the same test as was administered 30 or 40 years ago. However, if that is the case, then it is hard to compare apples and oranges. Perhaps somebody will chime in here with the facts?

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by fisheye

Don't quote me on it because I am not sure and I don't have the time to look it up right now. I think that they changed the questions on the SAT's; I don't think it is equivalent to the same test as was administered 30 or 40 years ago.

What I'm saying is they changed the top score, Wikipedia has the top score listed at 2400. When I took it the top score was 1600. They would have to adjust for the higher scores because a score of 1600 before is equivalent to 2400 now.

[Wells5]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

What I'm saying is they changed the top score, Wikipedia has the top score listed at 2400. When I took it the top score was 1600. They would have to adjust for the higher scores because a score of 1600 before is equivalent to 2400 now.

The highest combined average test score for let's call it the classical SAT was achieved in 1963: 997. From 1963 until 2005, test scores dropped every year. Then due to pressure by politicians and "educators," the test was changed. When I took the test way back when, we were expected to do math poblems by hand right in the test booklet, no "slide rules" allowed. That meant that we had to know how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, find decimal points and square roots, know fractions, geometry and basic trig functions and values. Today, they allow calculators in the test. Why? Because kids can't do basic math.

Reading passages were more difficult and questions about them trickier. There were difficult sections of analogies and antonyms in the verbal part as well. We had to know a lot of "25¢ words" as an old English teacher referred to them. I believe either one or both sections were eliminated because minorities didn't do too well on that part. In fact, key parts of each year's exam are first tested out on minority students. If it is found that one question, problem or section presents significant difficulty, it is eliminated due to what is termed "cultural bias."

Only 25 to 30% of students today are what was referred to as "college material" back then. But in the "new economy" where everyone is a professional, higher education is deemed an absolute necessity even though most students don't benefit by it. And just about every politician panders to both the educational establishment and to the parents who are worried that their child will be left behind.

[toobusytoday]

Originally Posted by petch751

Tom Wolf holds up budget, social services hurting
Pa. social service agencies dig deep to keep going during budget impasse - The York Daily Record

Of course what does he want? Higher taxes naturally.

Let's get back to the OP please.

If you'd like to talk about the SAT, please join us in the education forum: //www.city-data.com/forum/education/

[petch751]

Our family never took a penny of help and we all pay/paid taxes. My mother had a stroke. She was scheduled to go home from rehab then fell in occupational therapy, ended up having to get back surgery then ran out of medicare benefits so now she is on medicaid. When she passes the state will take the house (recovery).

The issue is although she is mentally with us (just like me or you) she is a high fall risk. It's impossible to bring her home safely. There is a pilot program for people like her who can go home as long as the family is willing to be primary care givers but need just a little more help. She is ready to come home, we are excited for her to come home. Then Tom Wolf veto's the entire budget causing her and many elderly parents like her to sit in a nursing homes wasting medicaid dollars waiting for the budget to pass.

Thanks Tom Wolf, as she wastes her remaining time waiting for you when you could have passed the budget, could of used a line item veto instead of vetoing the entire budget.

On a side note the nursing home costs $10,600 per month, they take her entire ss and small pension except $45 per month and medicaid pays the balance. As she sits there instead of paying her bills at home it goes to the nursing home. So much wasted government money when it would be a lot less expensive to bring her home. Multiply that times how many elderly people waiting to go home, times how many months past the budget deadline, times the additional time because of backlog, some people who can lose their homes or apartment waiting. Clocks ticking Governor Tom Wolf. These are people's lives you're playing with.

[petch751]

In an historic move, Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed the budget hours after it passed the full Pennsylvania General Assembly. How often do governors completely veto a budget?

Rarely. The last six governors both Republicans and Democrats have not completely vetoed a budget in the past 30-plus years. To find someone who had vetoed a budget, we have to go back to former Gov. Milton Shapp, a Democrat. Shapp vetoed a budget that was sent to him by the Legislature in 1976.

[petch751]

As we can see there is no correlation between spending and SAT Scores.

Pennsylvania's SAT scores are higher than New York who spends the most per student. The District of Columbia... spends 3rd most money per student, $17,953 yet has the lowest SAT Score: 1309. Why are people so easily convinced that higher taxes and throwing more money at it is always the solution? It's not.


SPENDING PER STUDENT
New York: Per-pupil amount of current spending: $19,818 - (SAT Score: 1468)

Alaska:
Per-pupil amount of current spending: $18,175 - (SAT Score: 1485)

District of Columbia:
Per-pupil amount of current spending: $17,953 - (SAT Score: 1309)

New Jersey:
Per-pupil amount of current spending: $17,572 - (SAT Score: 1526)

Connecticut:
Per-pupil amount of current spending: $16,631 - (SAT Score: 1525)

Vermont:
Per-pupil amount of current spending: $16,377 - (SAT Score: 1554)

Pennsylvania
Per-pupil amount of current spending: $13,864 - (SAT Score: 1481)

SAT SCORES
Highest Score: North Dakota (SAT Score: 1816)
Lowest Score: District of Columbia, (SAT Score: 1309)
Most Variation between Sections: Alaska (507 Reading, 503 Math, 475 Writing)

http://www.deseretnews.com/top/2663/...education.html
http://blog.prepscholar.com/average-...te-most-recent

Yet social services for the poor and the elderly are being held up. Wasting money, social services may have to waste money on interest payments if the budget isn't passed in an effort to raise taxes and take more money from the people.

[toobusytoday]

SAT scores are a poor measure of student ability and they can't effectively be measured across the US because it's not taken by the majority of the students. On the coasts, most students take the SAT while in the midwestern and southwest states, students take the ACT. In all states, it's the students that are going to college that are taking either test. You'll find high SAT scores in North Dakota because only 2% of the students take the SAT. Commonwealth Foundation - SAT Scores by State 2013 The SAT/ACT, standardized test stuff is a common topic on the education forum. PLEASE let's talk about that over there....

[Burger Fan]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

On average PA spends about $15K per student both state and local funding. This puts us in the top ten states.

Note this graph does not adjust for inflation

400 million in 1986 = 870 million today, spending has increased by almost 3X. That's very significant amount.

They are using 1600 for the SAT's, I believe they use 2000 now? Must of adjusted for that.

Commonwealth Foundation - Education Spending & Academic Achievement

Averages are a bad way to judge per student spending in pennsylvania.

We are one of the only states that does not use a funding formula to distribute funds equitably between districts, and because of this Pennsylvania has the largest gap in the country between the spending in its most affluent districts, and it's poorest. From the Washington Post:

Pa. schools are the nation

from the link, Bryn Athyn spends $26,675 per student, with Mt. Carmel spending $8,660. Philadelphia spends $13,000 per child (note that this is below the state average, despite the size of that district) while lower merion a few minutes away spends $23,000. The average spending per student is drastically skewed by wealthy districts spending incredible amounts of money.

The "hold harmless" provision attached to state funding dollars makes this discrepancy even worse. What is this?

Hold harmless guarantees each school district receives no fewer state education dollars than it received the previous year—regardless of changes in district enrollment. This may sound appealing in theory, but it is actually quite problematic in practice. While the policy ostensibly exists to prevent school districts from being harmed by reduced funding, it has, in fact, brought real harm and inequity to hundreds of districts across the commonwealth.
Consider that during the 2012-13 school year, state revenue per student in Pennsylvania's 20 fastest-growing districts was slightly more than $3,000. In contrast, state revenue per student among those districts with the largest decreases in enrollment was nearly $10,000. Put another way, school districts with declining enrollment received more than three times the state funding per student than growing districts.

Commonwealth Foundation - Harmed by "Hold Harmless"

So not only are there massive spending disparities between wealthy and non wealthy districts because local spending is tied to property taxes, but the hold harmless provision means that districts with enrollment DECREASES receive more state aid per student than the state's fastest growing districts- money is essentially going to where it's needed the least.