Ahhh...now you're talking Trish Charter Schools....School Choice.
Easy? Hardly. Too many entrenched interests.
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True enough, but I'd wager a vast majority of the money goes to layers and layers of administration bureaucracy, fat cat union officials and favored vendors. The education cartel works diligently to ensure there is little or no transparency - and NO ACCOUNTABILITY - learned oh so well from the banksters' favorite opaque markets, namely derivatives, real estate and gold. OK, I will admit the school systems are accountable to the pupils performing "well" on the standardized tests. So they are prepared to perform well on a test, not learning how to learn and certainly not learning critical thinking skills. 40% make honor roll, pleasing non-discrinminate parents. In the meantime, very very very few students ever develop the passion, work ethic and preparation to succeed at institution such as MIT, Caltech and some of the ivyies. Education is a big business. Al the college level, is even bigger business.
New Jersey is a poor example because the vast majority of local jurisdictions (e.g., towns, boros, townships, etc) each have their own bureaucracies (school board, centralized administration with deputy superintendents, etc). The taxpayers want to maintain their illusion of control over "their" school boards. The State is insolvent, and the state's citizens are still resistant to creating regional school systems. Pension funds are vastly underfunded [a balance sheet shuffle started over a decade ago by CT Whitman and used by each successive govrenor] and use bogus actuarial figures [e.g, 8% yoy equity return from 2000-1010 when the real return was essentially 0%, and the foregoing figure does not factoring in inflation]. Mathematically measuring the efficiency of dollars collected versus dollars actually and necessarily reaching the students is probably less than 10%!! The same dismal efficiency of our food supply chain (8% efficient, too energy dependent).
Mandates will be stripped out in the near term, and nearly all entitlement programs will be gutted. This will happen out of necessity - survival. Following the restructuring of Europe, the markets will shift their focus to the US state and local municipalities. Cost of capital, commodities and food are going up and the long term trend is up and up. In the meantime, the value of hard asses [real estate, equities, debt] will continue to trend downward as will the wage of the worker - whether measured in absolute or relative terms against inflation. The balance sheet restructuring has been underway for two years and has at least another decade to proceed, assuming the underlying structural deficiencies do not cause a systemic collapse.
Why havent the been eatin by an animal yet? You know these idiots dont know not to pet bears...
Who's buried in Grant's Tomb? Anybody know?
Here are the two things that seem to require reconciliation: 1)i.e. the U.S. performs poorly on worldwide assessments of educational achievement and the majority of our schools and universities are underfunded. 2)Quote:
Everything you say is on balance true...
Onmyknees seems to think that by an easy reconciliation one means that there is an easy solution to these problems. I, however, was speaking to the appearance of conflict between the two observations and pointing out the that it's easy to see the conflict is only apparent. The $100, 000 figure is an average that includes all the wealthy and middle class school districts. The majority of students in the U.S. don't see that kind of money, even though some students see much more.Quote:
...but based on the most recent per-pupil expenditure figures, the average student enrolled in public school for the next 12 years can expect to have about $100,000 spent on his or her education.
koolhip wagers that a goodly portion of that $100, 000 goes to layers of administration, and unions and vendors. It's true that there are school boards, superintendents, principals, secretaries, teachers, janitors, technicians, teacher's assistants, coaches, vendors, cafeteria workers and union dues to be paid. This leaves out lab equipment, gym and sporting equipment, maintenance and the exorbitant money that's spent on special students. Typically school boards are not paid at all. Unions never take a cut of taxpayer money, they are paid through the dues of the teachers. I'm not familiar with how it works in k-12. At State Universities the salaries of all employees and all the vending contracts etc. are public and can be found online.
I agree that No Child Left Behind has created a deplorable situation where teachers feel compelled to teach to the State exam rather than teach the subject per se. The message to the students is that the subject (Math, Science etc.) has no intrinsic interest or worth, it's the test that's important. Every year, by law, each school has to improve...so the school that made 95% last year is shit out of luck this year. Some States have solved this problem by designing easier and easier tests. It's a fiasco.
You mention the troubles that embroil NJ. Actually they sound rather typical. School districts all over the nation are reluctant to consolidate. You mention the Pension system in NJ. In Illinois the State has raided the State Pension system decade after decade, literally stealing the money paid into it by workers, to pay for other programs, and people wonder why teachers feel compelled to protect themselves through unionization. The same thing happens to private corporations. During the last two decades companies were being bought out right and left simply because the buyer want to raid the pension funds.
We need to stop depending on local property taxes, State gambling casinos and lotteries to fund our public schools. But as Onmyknees says, "There are too many entrenched interests."