You can argue with me all you want but as I said I got my numbers directly from the people in the system who are dealing with the actual numbers in the annual budgets and have been for years. The programs and requirements the government and special interest groups have mandated in the last ~20 years for special needs kids in public schools is what sucks a huge amount of money out of your kids education.

Hey, no argument here -- I don't have a problem with the new programs or requirements themselves so much as them not being paired with any new money to get the job done. Unfunded mandates are good times.

 

I'm going to be polite here and just skip over the whole charter school thing, because I have a sinking feeling that any more said by me on the subject is going to start a huge, ugly fight. If I want that I'll go post somewhere like NFL.com.

Probably a wise idea -- I will do the same.

As for the money issue, you're right that the national average is ~$11k-$12k per student, but that average masks huge inequalities in spending. Half or more of any school district's funding is tied to property taxes, which means some places are only able to spend about $6k-$7k per student while schools in wealthier areas can spend $30k+ per pupil (and artificially raise the national average in the process). You want better results? Find a way to even that money out across the board.

Interestingly, about a decade ago I looked at the per-pupil funding in Colorado on a district by district basis looking specifically for how much the wealthier/better performing school districts outspent the poorer quality school districts and was surprised to find a quite strong anti-correlation -- namely that the schools in the richer areas and/or that had the better reputations (these are not always one and the same) spent noticeably less (typically 10% to 20% less) per student while the districts that had the worst reputations were also the districts that spent the most per student. I can only speculate that factors other than money sent to the schools play a major role and that one of the big ones is the home environment and the value the family places on education.

I saw this first-hand when I was growing up in several pretty stark examples, but of course those are anecdotal. My case was actually one of them. When I was in kindergarten we moved specifically to put me in a school district (and more specifically a school) that rejected the Open Concept mantra of the day. That was not easy for my family, but fortunately the higher-priced areas were also the areas that were more likely to be on the Open Concept bandwagon. My high school valedictorian was not so fortunate and one night I was talking to her father about this subject and he pointed out that as she was growing up that he and his wife made the effort each night to teach her the things she should have learned in school that day -- she was effectively homeschooled (something that was almost unheard of back then) and public schooled at the same time.

Another observation that I wouldn't have expected occurred when we were looking for a house about three years ago when it looked like we would be moving to the Denver metro area. Several of the houses we were looking at were nearby (in one case literally across the street) from communities where the home prices where three to five times the values we were looking at and I had expected that to bode well for the quality of the neighborhood schools. But when I looked at the school ratings I discovered that this was almost universally NOT the case even though those schools did indeed have significantly higher per-pupil funding than the area average. I was at a loss to explain it but when I mentioned it to the real estate agent we were working with she immediately said that people in those communities pay the taxes but generally send their kids to private schools (usually at a price less than the per-pupil funding level of the nearby public schools). So the schools got the money but didn't get quite a few (not all, by any means) of the students from families that really cared about education. Since school quality was a big factor for us I did a lot of looking and, sure enough, it seemed like the best rated schools were in areas that had roughly median house prices and that had no nearby high-cost housing developments. Nearby low-cost housing areas didn't seem to have much of an effect one way or the other and it actually wasn't too hard to find fairly low cost houses that had good neighborhood schools, though they tended to be pretty scattered.

 

The flip side is the elder folks who develop dementia or Alzheimer's disease. They take an enormous toll on caregivers, families, and social services. It's fine to rail against such things until it hits close to home and it is your child or your father that consume the resources for their care.

 

Wouldn't the money for schools include new construction? With a growing population, and with shifting demographics, new school construction must eat up a huge portion of the money. So in essence, a portion of the money is being spent on the education of kids in the future, and not in the present.

Something else to consider, public schools pay for many extra curricular activities that involve students in opportunities not available in all forms of schooling. In my high school, there was an organization or class for just about anything a student could possibly be interested in. There was vocational education, arts, athletics, dance, hell you name it. It was the same for my kids and grandkids. And contrary to other experiences being shared, all generations of Brownouts have done very well academically and in real life. Public funded education has worked out for my family exceedingly well. And none of the generations lived in opulent communities.

 

Wouldn't the money for schools include new construction? With a growing population, and with shifting demographics, new school construction must eat up a huge portion of the money. So in essence, a portion of the money is being spent on the education of kids in the future, and not in the present.

I imagine that varies from state to state, but I believe that in most places capital construction and per-pupil funding are two very different pools of money. In most places capital construction is done via bonded-indebtedness using general-obligation bonds and the repayment is done from the general fund and not from educational funds.

 

That does not address how the number being reported are constructed however. When I look at the numbers, all forms of funding appear to be combined.

 

That does not address how the number being reported are constructed however. When I look at the numbers, all forms of funding appear to be combined.

I don't know what numbers you are looking at and, as I said, I'm sure it varies widely from state to state. When I look at stuff, mostly for Colorado, the two are kept separate. The capital construction and related debt service are handled by different bills in the state legislature and are separate from the per-pupil allocation of education funds. I just ran across a bill from a recent session in which they made exactly that point and were proposing to provide an increase in capital construction funds because schools were having to use about $500/pupil of their allocated educational funds to pay for debt service and so the sponsors of the bill wanted to cover that since that money wasn't going to the classroom. So even though that's less than 5% of their allocation, the legislature felt it important to provide additional non-education money in order to cover the shortfall.

 

Interestingly, about a decade ago I looked at the per-pupil funding in Colorado on a district by district basis looking specifically for how much the wealthier/better performing school districts outspent the poorer quality school districts and was surprised to find a quite strong anti-correlation -- namely that the schools in the richer areas and/or that had the better reputations (these are not always one and the same) spent noticeably less (typically 10% to 20% less) per student while the districts that had the worst reputations were also the districts that spent the most per student. I can only speculate that factors other than money sent to the schools play a major role and that one of the big ones is the home environment and the value the family places on education.

I saw this first-hand when I was growing up in several pretty stark examples, but of course those are anecdotal. My case was actually one of them. When I was in kindergarten we moved specifically to put me in a school district (and more specifically a school) that rejected the Open Concept mantra of the day. That was not easy for my family, but fortunately the higher-priced areas were also the areas that were more likely to be on the Open Concept bandwagon. My high school valedictorian was not so fortunate and one night I was talking to her father about this subject and he pointed out that as she was growing up that he and his wife made the effort each night to teach her the things she should have learned in school that day -- she was effectively homeschooled (something that was almost unheard of back then) and public schooled at the same time.

Another observation that I wouldn't have expected occurred when we were looking for a house about three years ago when it looked like we would be moving to the Denver metro area. Several of the houses we were looking at were nearby (in one case literally across the street) from communities where the home prices where three to five times the values we were looking at and I had expected that to bode well for the quality of the neighborhood schools. But when I looked at the school ratings I discovered that this was almost universally NOT the case even though those schools did indeed have significantly higher per-pupil funding than the area average. I was at a loss to explain it but when I mentioned it to the real estate agent we were working with she immediately said that people in those communities pay the taxes but generally send their kids to private schools (usually at a price less than the per-pupil funding level of the nearby public schools). So the schools got the money but didn't get quite a few (not all, by any means) of the students from families that really cared about education. Since school quality was a big factor for us I did a lot of looking and, sure enough, it seemed like the best rated schools were in areas that had roughly median house prices and that had no nearby high-cost housing developments. Nearby low-cost housing areas didn't seem to have much of an effect one way or the other and it actually wasn't too hard to find fairly low cost houses that had good neighborhood schools, though they tended to be pretty scattered.

Money is important, but you're right, it's not the only factor. Education is susceptible to trends just like anything else, and I've heard plenty of horror stories about the bad old open concept days, so you have my sympathies there. The one that was popular when I was a kid was whole language curriculum, the main idea being that if you have kids read and write a bunch instead of giving them formal instruction in writing they'll just somehow intuitively learn proper grammar and sentence structure and so forth. Luckily for me, that approach works fine for kids who are naturally linguistically inclined -- for everyone else, not so much.

And yeah, if the overachievers in the rich districts all go to private schools it makes sense that the middle-to-low end kids who still attend the public schools wouldn't show up as well as a group on the state benchmarks regardless of how many tax dollars were funneled their way. Also, sometimes when a new school is built the principal who ends up running the place will fill their teaching staff almost exclusively with teachers who sucked up to him nice and hard at his previous administrative postings. The end result is a shiny new school filled with teachers who are better at being sycophants than they are instructing students.

 

In many states, a student that goes to a charter school only gets a fraction of their support (typically about 80%) with their assigned public school getting the rest. So the public school gets HIGHER effective per-student funding as a result while the charter school manages to, generally, produce far better results on less money.

So, Charter Schools are the answer all educational quality

• Charter school students score better on college entrance exams

Charter schools are apparently a cure for poverty as well..

• Charter school students are more likely to have a parent who is a manager or business owner with an income above the national average.

Charter schools apparently prevent divorce/teen pregnancy or any other situation that may cause the existence of single parent families.

• Charter school students are more likely to be from traditional 2-parent families

Charter schools apparently prevent autism and other maladies that require Special Education facilities and instructors.

• Charter school students are less likely to be autistic or require special education facilities.

Need I go on? Race, parent involvement, whether or not a set homework time exists in a family's schedule, whether or not a student works a part time job to help pay family expenses, even the number of trips a family takes to a science museum or national park - in each case, the percentages are different between standard public and charter schools.

Your charter school statistic is no different than Cliff Clavin's claim that Drinking beer makes you smarter based on "Buffalo Theory".


Buffalo Theory Explained:




A standard bit of advice, When you want to compare the results of two processes, start with the same raw materials.

 

Meet Albert Einstein

 

The capital construction and related debt service are handled by different bills in the state legislature and are separate from the per-pupil allocation of education funds.

I have not referenced appropriations side. I'm talking about the national average for school spending that includes state, local, federal and all other forms. This is the number that bantered about, and I believe it includes all money spent, regardless of its origin.

 

Meet Albert Einstein

Meet my brother; he doesn't follow the classic law of natural selection. Somehow he continues to survive? You'd think predators would find this an easy meal; rather than chasing an Athlete.

kv

Edit: On second thought; maybe it's the foul smell.

 

Hey, no argument here -- I don't have a problem with the new programs or requirements themselves so much as them not being paired with any new money to get the job done. Unfunded mandates are good times.

Maybe you won't but I have brought up the basic numbers of how much a single special needs child costs a school systems in other forums and threads and it often brings up considerable argument.

Personally I find it strange that parents of special needs kids find no problem with their kid sucking up the financial resources of in many cases 10+ typical students and that the parents of the 10+ typical kids are supposed to swallow that without complaint that their child is being denied the education they are supposed to be getting and their tax dollars are paying for because of it.

The rub for me is parents of higher than average intelligence children do not get any extra funding because their child is special in an above average sense. Instead their child gets a lesser education than they are capable of supporting resulting in a lesser potential become someone of future outstanding actions or discovery because of it.
Basically they needs of the many who will actively and positively contribute to future society are pulled down to support the needs of the few who will likely never fully contribute to society as whole as the majority will.

My point is I do not want to see 1/2 or more of the tax dollars I pay into the school system going to support a lesser capable student at the disadvantage of my above average kids education. Basically I want what I am paying to go to whom I am paying for is what I am saying. That does not seem unfair to me in the least.

 

So, Charter Schools are the answer all educational quality

I never said that charter schools are the answer to all educational quality. You are taking the usual tack that if someone says that most birds fly then you "prove" them wrong by pointing to the few species that don't.

 

My point is I do not want to see 1/2 or more of the tax dollars I pay into the school system going to support a lesser capable student at the disadvantage of my above average kids education. Basically I want what I am paying to go to whom I am paying for is what I am saying. That does not seem unfair to me in the least.

I think you will have to talk to Ronald Regan about that. "No child left behind, even if a hundred others have to go uneducated to pay for that one."

But seriously. I am in complete agreement with you on many subjects. And, because 2 people that are the same means that one is redundant, I say, "Keep up the good work" and thanks for representing me. I have other chores to do today.

 

It is important in all walks of life that tall poppies get chopped down.

Otherwise, the short poppies don't stand out as well...

...and that just isn't fair.

 

Buffalo Theory Explained:

That was so good, I had to put it on my FB wall.

It's so unfair... thinking about how those special need kids ruined my chances of greatness almost ruines my martini hour

 

This is what we were as children.
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Range-Raise-Self-Reliant-Children-Without/dp/0470574755

This is sad.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/03/0...rents-hit-with-unsubstantiated-child-neglect/

CPS reportedly followed up and forced the parents to sign a safety plan acknowledging that they would not let the kids go unsupervised. Alexander told the paper he resisted at first, but CPS threatened that if they refused, the kids would be removed from the home. He signed.

 

This is what we were as children.
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Range-Raise-Self-Reliant-Children-Without/dp/0470574755

This is sad.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/03/0...rents-hit-with-unsubstantiated-child-neglect/

What's really sad is that I have no problem believing that this story is actually true and not some satirical piece out of The Onion.

I was walking to and from school in kindergarten at age 5 and all through elementary and junior high, both of which were slightly over a mile from our house.

 

That is a very good representation of how me and my wife differ in views of how our daughter should be raised.

For my wife any unperceivable risk, no matter how absurd or imagined, is too much of a risk to ignore where I follow the let her figure things out herself and keep a watchful eye on her from a distance approach.