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_ Meta Discussion _ Sister Milton Ignatius Explains It All For You

Posted by: Jon Awbrey


Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Thu 10th March 2011, 8:26am) *

Those few pointers to the past are the barest hints of a prologue that will have to be prolonged as we go. They frame the canvass of a work in progress that we imported into the 3rd Millennium to do our best brushwork and our grossest graffiti on. No matter how dim the picture looks in many spots, especially the corners that we find ourselves forced to focus on here, it is still the background of all we do and all we care about for the future of education.

So what the hell has been happening lately ???

Jon Awbrey

What has been happending (broadly) is that local, state, and federal government has spend more and more per student on K-12 education, and getting less and less and less for it.

Source http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/10facts.pdf

QUOTE(2005 government report)
On a per-pupil basis and adjusted
for inflation, public school funding increased: 24 percent from 1991–92 through 2001–02
(the last year for which such data are available);

19 percent from 1996–97 through 2001–02; and 10 percent from 1998–99 through 2001–02.

Importantly, the increase in funds has been linked to accountability for results, ensuring taxpayers get their money’s worth.


wink.gif Yes, the taxpayer is definitely getting their money's worth. rolleyes.gif The same government report shows that spending (in constant dollars) per pupil (see graph, page 3) has increased from $3400 to $9000 per year from 1965 to 2002.

And did we get our money's worth? Do our K-12 students read and write and do 'rithmatic 2.6 times better than in 1965? ohmy.gif

Well, no. By all standards, they don't do nearly as well as 1965.

Why?

Well, it's complicated. For one thing, taxes have gone up so much since 1965 that mommy now has to work, too, and she can't help you with your schoolwork. Or feed you your breakfast. Corporations cause taxes. And she can't pack your lunch. The school now has to do all that, as well as provide medical care and special neurological damage programs, so that's just more expensive, and so we passed bonds to help with that.

And also, you have to go to school a long way away from your home, since it would be racist if you didn't, and so mommy and daddy have to drive you, or else you have to take a bus. And since you don't walk now, you need a PE class to keep from getting fat, but we had to cut those out because of costs, so now you are fat. Sorry. You shouldn't eat at McDonalds just because mommy has no time to cook dinner. And the school had to add a soda machine due to the kickbacks to the school. So, it all comes down to the fault of businesses and corporations. Even your lard-ass, Billy. Do you see?

http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj30n1/cj30n1-8.pdf

"Teacher?"

"Yes, Johnny, you in the back, with the white beard. You hardly ever say anything. I'm glad you're asking a question!"

"Teacher, can't you jus work harder?"

"Oh, we do work harder, Johnny! We work 22% harder than in 1965, which is why our salaries in constant dollars have increased that much. But it's not enough to counteract the evil effects of corporations.

"Are Democrats helping you"

"Oh yes, 93% of our union money goes to Democratic candidates, to help them understand why schools need more and more money. And the time we spend helping our leaders understand the issues, like why our starting salaries and retirement pensions should be larger, is time we can't help students, so you see it's all the fault of the Republicans and evil corporations too. They even want to test TEACHERS. You can't test teachers. We GIVE tests, and Republicans don't understand even that."

"Would the Republicans not pay you?" huh.gif

"Not as much. We make 40% more in benefits and salary as the average private school teacher. And you can see what happens in private schools-- the education is terrible and the students don't learn anything."

"But I thought you said it was getting worse at OUR school!"

"Yes, and I explained why, too. Johnny! Is this why you're still in the 6th grade after all these years? Gee, you even remember the 6th grade in 1965, don't you? So you should know. Well, maybe we can explain more after RECESS! Go out and play now, but don't run too much, children, or else you'll get too skinny."

wink.gif

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Some of us actually know a teacher, Milton.

So bugger off …

Jon hrmph.gif

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Sun 13th March 2011, 12:54pm) *

Some of us actually know a teacher, Milton.

So bugger off …

Jon hrmph.gif

Yes, some of us do. Some of our parents and grandparents were teachers and some of us have worked as teachers. So bugger yourself. I KNOW very well you remember 1965. So do I.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Sun 13th March 2011, 4:00pm) *

I KNOW very well you remember 1965.


I sure do. My Junior year in high school (1965–1966) was when I had to leave public school and go to a military school in another State. I tell everyone it was because I was such a “Bad Boy”, because that makes me sound like Real Cool Rebel and everything, but the truth is a scene from a different movie. My parents had no idea how they were going to afford sending me to college, so my Dad hit on a desperate plan to get me a ticket to the Air Force Academy — all they had to do was scrape up the tuition for a high-rep military school and leverage my no doubt sterling performance there into a recommendation from our Reps in Congress.

To be continued …

Jon Awbrey

Posted by: thekohser

Here's http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XcZaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=L2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2753,3195353&dq=race+riot+high-school&hl=en from my home town in 1963, about 5 years before I was born. Schools sounded great back then, huh, Milton?

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(thekohser @ Sun 13th March 2011, 7:02pm) *

Here's http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XcZaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=L2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2753,3195353&dq=race+riot+high-school&hl=en from my home town in 1963, about 5 years before I was born. Schools sounded great back then, huh, Milton?

Do not confuse schools with hospitals, courts, restaurants, civil rights protest centers, rehab facilities, shopping malls, and the like. Also, at the college level it's well not to have your campus double as a hotel, flophouse, bar, disco, political protest center, and so on.

Do this, and when bad things happen, then you won't be tempted to blame the schools.

As for desegregation busing and other methods of correcting problems you'd never have if you hadn't try to make it happen-- what can I say? I said it would cause more problems than it would solve, all through the 70's and 80's, and my critics are just getting around to admitting (without actually admitting it) that I'm right, in 2011. They're trying different stuff now like "magnet schools" --the carrot rather than the stick (at least that's a better idea). In the 90's, the Clintons, hypocrits that they often are, sent their own daughter to a private school. That's White Flight at the very top.

I'm not at all sure the U.S. is better educated than it was in 1965, nor that "minorities" have made substantial gains compared to whites. Substatial gains, yes-- substandial compared to everybody else, no. A lot depends on whether you see things in absolute numbers or in ratios. In 1965 the failure to ever get a high school diploma, was something like twice as high for blacks as whites, and twice as high for hispanics as blacks. Today, though these absolute %'s and numbers all down, the ratios are all just the same. If that massive increase in public school funding and desegregation work did anything, it's very hard to see (especially since I don't really trust a diploma to mean the same thing, on an absolute basis). Again, I don't think we got our money's worth, and I'm rather outraged that we as Americans got no choice as to where to spend that money, except to vote with our feet where we could. Which a lot of people did (Clintons included).

Explain this-- In Jamaica they are fairly poor. I've been there and it's a rather angry Caribbean country compared with most (though as in all countries I've been in so far, the people on a personal one-on-one basis, are very decent and interesting, as a whole). But even though the average Jamaican income is $9000/year (about a fifth of the US) and their spending on education is comparable (about 20% of GDP), their literacy rate is about the same as that in the US-- roughtly 85 to 90%. In other words, the US spends PER pupil $9000 a year, the same amount as the entire Jamacan economy PER PERSON, gross, and we still have a literacy rate that is nothing to brag about. It should be 99% for US, that kind of money. In Jamaica, it should be 20% or something...

In health care you can sort of explain this: once the easy childhood mortality has been taken care of, it's very hard to lengthen human life span, at the end where mortality rate is doubling due to aging, every seven years you age, whether you get fancy medical care or not. In healthcare planning policy, the unavoidable exponential breakdown of the normal human body just kills you (so to speak). A lot of money doesn't result in much progress, there. But education? Progress should be roughtly linear per $, at least to a fairly good level, and it's not. Somewhere, the US pissed away a GIGANTIC amount of money in the last 50 years on education as we spent 2.6 times per money per student, and got very little for it.

If you've got a better idea about where it went that we can point to, speak up. Did they bus you to an inner city school, Greg, where they beat the superfluous apostrophes out? How did that work?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Milton seems desperately trying to prove something, but I can't for the life of me tell what, and he's verging dangerously into All Butt Dissipation (ABD) territory. Maybe someone else can 'splain it to me without all the sadistics.

Or maybe he could get a webcam.

Jon dizzy.gif

Posted by: Kelly Martin

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Sun 13th March 2011, 1:51pm) *
"Not as much. We make 40% more in benefits and salary as the average private school teacher. And you can see what happens in private schools-- the education is terrible and the students don't learn anything."
See, this is the sort of fact distortion that truly gets my goat. The vast majority of private schools in the United States are parochial schools run by religious organizations, and it's true that the salaries paid, and benefits received, in those school are often worse than in public schools, and the quality of education in those schools is often quite bad. Now, can you support the same statement in a comparison of secular private schools and public schools?


Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 12:47am) *

Progress should be roughtly linear per $, at least to a fairly good level, and it's not. Somewhere, the US pissed away a GIGANTIC amount of money in the last 50 years on education as we spent 2.6 times per money per student, and got very little for it.

If you've got a better idea about where it went that we can point to, speak up.

I know where it went, Milton -- pensions for teachers who only work 8 months a year, and for high-speed Internet hook-ups for Macintosh computers!


QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 12:47am) *

Did they bus you to an inner city school, Greg, where they beat the superfluous apostrophes out? How did that work?

Who is "they"? My parents? The government? The teachers?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Mon 14th March 2011, 8:50am) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Sun 13th March 2011, 1:51pm) *

“Not as much. We make 40% more in benefits and salary as the average private school teacher. And you can see what happens in private schools — the education is terrible and the students don't learn anything.”


See, this is the sort of fact distortion that truly gets my goat. The vast majority of private schools in the United States are parochial schools run by religious organizations, and it's true that the salaries paid, and benefits received, in those school are often worse than in public schools, and the quality of education in those schools is often quite bad. Now, can you support the same statement in a comparison of secular private schools and public schools?


Don't get me started on parochial school❢

Been There Nun That …

Jon ph34r.gif

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 14th March 2011, 6:06am) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 12:47am) *

Progress should be roughtly linear per $, at least to a fairly good level, and it's not. Somewhere, the US pissed away a GIGANTIC amount of money in the last 50 years on education as we spent 2.6 times per money per student, and got very little for it.

If you've got a better idea about where it went that we can point to, speak up.

I know where it went, Milton -- pensions for teachers who only work 8 months a year, and for high-speed Internet hook-ups for Macintosh computers!


QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 12:47am) *

Did they bus you to an inner city school, Greg, where they beat the superfluous apostrophes out? How did that work?

Who is "they"? My parents? The government? The teachers?

Does it matter? I'm guessing it didn't happen, anyway.

No, the education spending crisis isn't upon us because they bought all the kids computers. That's about as funny as the idea that their parents are financially strapped because they bought all the kids cell phones. Jon doesn't care that we spend 260% more than in 1965 and I guess that nobody else does, either. If the states are going broke, let them raise state taxes (already a bargain) or else take it out of medicaid (a REAL bargain, wink, wink wink.gif ), Who am I to say that goverment is not doing a teriffic job?

Liburne: I was being fascetious. Private schools do pay their teachers better, whether religious or secular. And they do a better job. Feel free to disagree, but you're wrong. smile.gif

After writing last night, I was amused to see an edition of 60 Minutes in which Joel Klein, who just stepped down as NYC schools chancellor, said that in order to get tenure, an NYC teacher just has to show up with a pulse for 10 years. And that in the last 3 years, out of 55,000 tenured teachers, just seven had been fired for cause. More of them had DIED than been pinkslipped (so, I guess at least THEY didn't have a pulse).

I don't know of too many professions where you're guaranteed a job for life, after 10 years. It's certainly not true of any job I ever had. When I tought at the university I was an "adjunct professor" and soon learned exactly what THAT meant.

If I wanted to help teach at the local high school they wouldn't let me without several years of additional college (apparently I am underqualified) and a teaching certificate. (Of course, I'd have have to have an ethnic cleansing and maybe a sex change first; perhaps I could get in touch with my gay side hmmm.gif ). In any case, apparently, without that certificate, if I tried to teach high school kids anything about math, chem, physics, physiology, or something, their little brains would explode. And they'd maybe detect the typos in my speech. And apostrophes would creep in, where they should not be. From apostrophe hypostasy, they'd go instantly to apostrophy castastrophe. So it's well that the system is protected from even my part-time help. But I'll volunteer eventually. Just as soon as I get through fixing Wikipedia. happy.gif

Milton

P.S. More on Curveball and why we went into Iraq on 60 Minutes also, last night. Apparently our CIA is full of geniuses, too--along with the rest of our government. Perhaps they have tenure also? I know as federal workers they have really GOOD retirement. Joy, Joy that I live and will eventually retire in this efficient and fiscally responsible country. Why should I complain? wub.gif

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 1:04pm) *

When I tought at the university ...


The letter "o" isn't even close to the letter "a" on a keyboard, Milton. I'd love to see how your noodle is ticking when you fire off these rants.

As for this notion that private schools do better than public schools at teaching kids, I wonder what you'd say about http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.asp (that has the wherewithal to understand that private schools tend to be comprised of self-selected samples of the broader populations).

At the 4th grade level, after adjusting for selected student characteristics:

READING: No significant difference between private and public.
MATH: Public schools significantly better than private schools.

At the 8th grade level, after adjusting for selected student characteristics:

READING: Private schools that are not of Conservative Christian affiliation significantly better than public schools. (Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different from public schools.)
MATH: No significant difference between private and public. However, when you break out the private schools, the Lutherans do achieve better in 8th grade math than public schools, the Catholics show no difference from public schools, and the Conservative Christians show inferior math performance than public schools.

Do these findings correspond with your "facts", Milton? How do you explain that 4th grade math skills are stronger among public school students than private school students?

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 14th March 2011, 10:56am) *

The letter "o" isn't even close to the letter "a" on a keyboard, Milton. I'd love to see how your noodle is ticking when you fire off these rants.
It's just that there seems to be no limit to the greed of America's public school teachers, whose ostentatious lifestyle and voracious gorging at the public trough is imposing unbearable sacrifices on America's billionaires who are out there trying to make a difference.

Posted by: lilburne

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 5:04pm) *

Liburne: I was being fascetious. Private schools do pay their teachers better, whether religious or secular. And they do a better job. Feel free to disagree, but you're wrong. smile.gif



Well I don't know about the American schools, but from the perspective of the UK you are wrong. These schools can get a higher percentage of their pupils to achieve high grades in national tests, which isn't surprising given that the parents are generally motived to get their kids a push in life. And the kids generally have more opportunities to experience different things. The teaching in the private schools is generally geared to preparing the kids for exams, there is little else but that, and many flounder when they reach University as they are no longer being told what to do.

The company I work for has some of the UKs best mathematicians, in my department there are 40 PhD graduates, perhaps a couple of which were educated in private schools, the rest come from state schools.

Lately in the UK State School system the teaching has been more focused on passing exams the result being that as so many are now gaining 3 or more good A level grades SOMETHING MUST BE DONE because there are far too many of the proles with the same grades as the nobs.


Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 14th March 2011, 10:56am) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 1:04pm) *

When I tought at the university ...

The letter "o" isn't even close to the letter "a" on a keyboard, Milton. I'd love to see how your noodle is ticking when you fire off these rants.

Well, how would I know? Ask my fingers. Why do they type "works" instead of "words"? that's reflex. I'm also a terrible speller, and not all the problems in my writing come from hitting the wrong key. You won't see too many of the homophones and malapropopisms of the illiterate, but you'll see letters that should have been doubled or vice versa, the wrong vowel for the schwa in unstressed syllables, and so on. I type "ou" words like cough and bought more than "au" words like caught and taught (a rare word in my writing vocabulary), and that's probably it. Beyond that, I have no idea.
QUOTE

As for this notion that private schools do better than public schools at teaching kids, I wonder what you'd say about http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.asp (that has the wherewithal to understand that private schools tend to be comprised of self-selected samples of the broader populations).

At the 4th grade level, after adjusting for selected student characteristics:

READING: No significant difference between private and public.
MATH: Public schools significantly better than private schools.

At the 8th grade level, after adjusting for selected student characteristics:

READING: Private schools that are not of Conservative Christian affiliation significantly better than public schools. (Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different than public schools.)
MATH: No significant difference between private and public. However, when you break out the private schools, the Lutherans do achieve better in 8th grade math than public schools, the Catholics show no difference from public schools, and the Conservative Christians show inferior math performance than public schools.

Do these findings correspond with your "facts", Milton? How do you explain that 4th grade math skills are stronger among public school students than private school students?

There are many possible explanations, the most obvious of which is that they massagedadjusted their raw data (which of course came out in favor of private schools) so rigorously to try to get rid of confounders, that they ended up adjusting out their primary effect, also. In epidemiology that can happen because you never know all the confounders to use to adjust with and by how much, and it's hard to estimate what their effects are, without knowing the answers already to all the questions that you're asking.

However, let's assume the results are correct and came out with the correct answer-- which is basically that there's not much difference in results between public and private schools, overall. That's still damning, as private schools do the same job, for a lot less money. Even if you subtract out the extra services offered by public schools such as meals and transport and so on, NYC kids still cost that city $5000 per pupil/year, whereas Catholic parochials in the same place, are only half of that price. Ouch.

That difference is what that huge entrenched bureaucracy and not being able to get rid of what the deadwood costs you (us). That's the moss on the trees and the barnacles on the hull. It's entropy. It's nature. It's the parasites that grow on government and business and academia unless continuously and vigorously sought and rigorously removed! Jon says his world doesn't resemble mine, where I see this everywhere, and I can only conclude that Jon must live on Mars not Massachusetts (the home of bean and of cod/ Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots/ And the Cabots talk only to those who can spell Massachusetts).

When it comes to statistical measurements of effects, you look at controlled multivariate analysis of retrospective epidemiology, if that's all you have. But if you can get prospective randomized-treatment studies, they are the gold standard, because the randomization removes a lot of the stuff that has effects you can't be sure of, when you got to control epidemiologic data. Of course, in education you have to do "intent to treat" studies, because you can't force people to go to a parochial school, but what you can do is offer them a voucher (money) to do just that, if they win a lotto, and then you use the lotto to randomize them and compare people who use the opportunity, vs. those that don't (and compare those groups to the losers.)

This has been done in at least three US studies I know of: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c10087.pdf.
As well as one done in Columbia where much the same results were found. Which was that private schools do modestly better at educating those who get vouchers to go to them (dispensed by lotto) despite confounding effects of charter schools drawing off some of the public crowd in some places (the fraction of people who took the vouchers even when they won them, ran from 30 to 70%). The effect was stronger in African Americans, and larger in math than English. But it was robust and showed in all the studies. And the people who went to the private schools were very happy with them.

AND AGAIN, THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS WERE A HELL OF A LOT CHEAPER. I would love to see how your noodle is ticking, when you ignore these "rants." Maybe you wouldn't mind if you took half the money you spend (one way or the other) on your kids' education, put it in the fireplace, and simply ignited it.

obliterate.gif

Okay, I suppose at this point I'll get some claim that public education is twice as expensive because it deals with special needs kids that parochial schools won't take. To which I'm going to ask: who would those kids be? Kids on ventilators, or just severe cerebral palsy, ala Timmehhh? What? Anything so extreme might benefit from a special institution, one would think. If the cost of mainstreaming 1% of kids is to double the cost of the overall system, I have to ask

1) Actually I don't believe it. Prove it, first. Then:

2) Even if it's true, is it worth it? That child not left behind would then be quite an anchor. And did you notice that you (your state education system) is sinking?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

QUOTE(lilburne @ Mon 14th March 2011, 4:56pm) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 5:04pm) *

Liburne: I was being fascetious. Private schools do pay their teachers better, whether religious or secular. And they do a better job. Feel free to disagree, but you're wrong. smile.gif


Well I don't know about the American schools, but from the perspective of the UK you are wrong. These schools can get a higher percentage of their pupils to achieve high grades in national tests, which isn't surprising given that the parents are generally motived to get their kids a push in life. And the kids generally have more opportunities to experience different things. The teaching in the private schools is generally geared to preparing the kids for exams, there is little else but that, and many flounder when they reach University as they are no longer being told what to do.

The company I work for has some of the UKs best mathematicians, in my department there are 40 PhD graduates, perhaps a couple of which were educated in private schools, the rest come from state schools.

Lately in the UK State School system the teaching has been more focused on passing exams the result being that as so many are now gaining 3 or more good A level grades SOMETHING MUST BE DONE because there are far too many of the proles with the same grades as the nobs.


I got the majority of my primary and secondary education from U.S. public schools, but I also did brief stints in a Catholic parochial school staffed by nuns and a military school staffed by U.S. Army officers. I know something about the character and quality of the education in all of those places and — as usual — Milton is talking about stuff that he knows not of, except maybe by way of Rush Limbaugh and Wikipedia.

Jon tongue.gif

Posted by: lilburne

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 9:25pm) *


However, let's assume the results are correct and came out with the correct answer-- which is basically that there's not much difference in results between public and private schools, overall. That's still damning, as private schools do the same job, for a lot less money. Even if you subtract out the extra services offered by public schools such as meals and transport and so on, NYC kids still cost that city $5000 per pupil/year, whereas Catholic parochials in the same place, are only half of that price. Ouch.



Here in the UK http://www.atl.org.uk/Images/Faith%20schools%20PS%202007.pdf are 90% State funded. They are hardly the private schools, for those you'll be paying something like $45,000 a year for a place at Eton or Harrow. A day pupil at Rugby school, just up the road from me, is $25,000 a year $40,000 if the child is boarding. A few miles distance is a private Catholic day school that will cost you $15,000 a year.



Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Mon 14th March 2011, 2:52pm) *

I got the majority of my primary and secondary education from U.S. public schools, but I also did brief stints in a Catholic parochial school staffed by nuns and a military school staffed by U.S. Army officers. I know something about the character and quality of the education in all of those places and — as usual — Milton is talking about stuff that he knows not of, except maybe by way of Rush Limbaugh and Wikipedia.

Jon tongue.gif

Since we're basically talking about how bad things have gotten in US public schools SINCE the days when you were a pupil, I have no idea why you think your personal experience waaaay back then, is relevant to this discussion. Unless (as I said) you're actually still in K-12 somewhere, secretly trying to pass.

BTW, how much did your family pay for the parochial and military schools? While I've no doubt you still nurse your knuckes and don't like nuns and officers (who would?), there do exist private schools that are neither religious schools nor boarding schools, and you don't have to put up with the crap at either of them. Kids do like them. They'd be more common if it weren't for the compulsory tax that pays for the services of the public schools, whether the ones in your area are nice, or not.

Posted by: thekohser

Milton, around my area, the property taxes on homes range from about $3,000 to $6,000 per household, annually. Local income taxes (again, regardless of whether or not you have kids in school) are assessed by the townships in the county, and they range from 1.0% to 2.5%, typically. For an average HH income of $100,000, that's another $1,000 to $2,500. These monies go to pay for schools, county parks, township parks, police, parades, social services, etc., regardless of how many children you have in the public school system.

The better private schools in our area will run parents about $18,000 to $26,000 a year, per child. The Catholic schools run $5,400 per year, per child.

Even if we backed out 60% of the local taxes for parents who opt out of the public schools, that would only be a "savings" back to the household of about $4,500, generously speaking.

Can you explain for me how -- as a parent of a kid in elementary school -- public school "costs more" than private school? Or, are you saying that $5,400 is less than $4,500?

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 14th March 2011, 5:20pm) *

Milton, around my area, the property taxes on homes range from about $3,000 to $6,000 per household, annually. Local income taxes (again, regardless of whether or not you have kids in school) are assessed by the townships in the county, and they range from 1.0% to 2.5%, typically. For an average HH income of $100,000, that's another $1,000 to $2,500. These monies go to pay for schools, county parks, township parks, police, parades, social services, etc., regardless of how many children you have in the public school system.

The better private schools in our area will run parents about $18,000 to $26,000 a year, per child. The Catholic schools run $5,400 per year, per child.

Even if we backed out 60% of the local taxes for parents who opt out of the public schools, that would only be a "savings" back to the household of about $4,500, generously speaking.

Can you explain for me how -- as a parent of a kid in elementary school -- public school "costs more" than private school? Or, are you saying that $5,400 is less than $4,500?

The costs of a Catholic school vary widely across the country, and depend in part on charitable subsidies, which can vary from 20% to as much as 40% or more of the tuition. So it may not be fair to compare the actual tuition fee to public school spending, as somebody pays the charitable part, so that's a social cost. So, we do need to remove the donation part (which was undoubtedly part of the NYC figure).

http://www.ncea.org/news/annualdatareport.asp

Catholic schools report that their total operating expenses run from about $5,436 a year TOTAL cost for elementary-plus (K-8) students to numbers like $10,228 per pupil in secondary (freshman 9th grade). In Catholic schools across the country there were 1.526 million students in K-8 and 593,000 grade 9-12 students, for a total of 2.119 million pupils. This report doesn't give a total mean K-12 student cost, but if you figure K-8 at the stated cost and 9-12 at the stated cost, it would be somewhere between these figures. At the high end, figure the mean at $7832 per year. The same report gives the public school costs as $9683 per pupil (total K-12, with no breakout of elementary from secondary). That accords with the US figures (NYC school tuitions are depressed for both public and private K-12 figures nationally)

Thus, at the national level, Catholic schools do it for 7832/9683 = 80% of public school cost . Not counting charitable donations at all. This is not as good as the 50% savings in NYC, which no doubt didn't count donations. Still, it's 20% off.

Now-- what the country should do and what you personally should do, are very different things. If you want to maximize personal savings you should have 10 children and live in an inexpensive house on a small lot in a lower-real-estate tax area. One of the problems of public education is that everybody thinks they're getting a partly free lunch, since property taxes are paid by a lot of people who don't have children. However, they're all paid by SOMEBODY, and those costs get passed on to society (anybody who owns real estate and does business passes taxes to their customers), so ultimately, there's no free lunch. Hope I don't have to go into that more. Anyway, on average, every kid that goes to public school gets $9700 or so, from society, somehow. Even if you personally are under the impression that you personally pay less. Vicious illusion, that.

If your state is running overbudget and making it up by selling bonds (what's happening in California), you may figure that the interest rate just ends up paying back some tax money to those who hold the state bonds. But there's no guarantee that all those people will be in your state, or even in the US. If outside the US, you end up paying not only for your K-12 education, but interest on some of it to foreign parties, just to pay your teacher retirement. unhappy.gif So it gets to be like the federal debt in that regard. Parochial schools don't do that. Indeed they have endowment funds like some Ivy League universities, so they lend money and get paid interest from somebody else. Somebody less fiscally responsible. tongue.gif

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 14th March 2011, 8:20pm) *

Milton, around my area, the property taxes on homes range from about $3,000 to $6,000 per household, annually. Local income taxes (again, regardless of whether or not you have kids in school) are assessed by the townships in the county, and they range from 1.0% to 2.5%, typically. For an average HH income of $100,000, that's another $1,000 to $2,500. These monies go to pay for schools, county parks, township parks, police, parades, social services, etc., regardless of how many children you have in the public school system.

The better private schools in our area will run parents about $18,000 to $26,000 a year, per child. The Catholic schools run $5,400 per year, per child.

Even if we backed out 60% of the local taxes for parents who opt out of the public schools, that would only be a “savings” back to the household of about $4,500, generously speaking.

Can you explain for me how — as a parent of a kid in elementary school — public school “costs more” than private school? Or, are you saying that $5,400 is less than $4,500?


You see what happens here, Greg? You let yourself get pulled into that DED (Dog Eat Dog) Republican Mindset, where Etication is a Product that you buy for your kids, so they can get ahead of all the other kids on the block, in the sub, in the country, in the world — so why should you have to pay for the trick-or-treats that someone else's kids gobble up?

All our Founding Fathers and all our Founding Mothers would be revolutionizing in their graves at the very idea that We The People have become so poorly educated that We allow ourselves to forget even for a moment what Universal Free Public Education is all about.

Jon dry.gif

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Mon 14th March 2011, 9:42pm) *

You see what happens here, Greg? You let yourself get pulled into...

Not so fast, Jon -- I haven't issued my slam dunk yet. Here goes...


QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 14th March 2011, 9:21pm) *

In Catholic schools across the country there were 1.526 million students in K-8 and 593,000 grade 9-12 students, for a total of 2.119 million pupils.

Hey, Milton... how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest, then having the bishop surreptitiously move the offender to another parish so that the local parents don't catch on? Is that a free, value-added feature, or do the parishioners chip in to help pay for that service? Or, wait... is that some sort of government program?










<done>

Posted by: Gruntled

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 15th March 2011, 4:23am) *

Hey, Milton... how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest

Of course, such a thing could never, never happen in a secular boarding school, could it? It's absolutely impossible, isn't it?

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(Gruntled @ Tue 15th March 2011, 11:09am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 15th March 2011, 4:23am) *

Hey, Milton... how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest

Of course, such a thing could never, never happen in a secular boarding school, could it? It's absolutely impossible, isn't it?

Most secular boarding schools don't have an international network of campuses where the offending staff member can be shuttled off to, with light reprimand and "closed" personnel file.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

QUOTE(Gruntled @ Tue 15th March 2011, 11:09am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 15th March 2011, 4:23am) *

Hey, Milton … how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest … ?


Of course, such a thing could never, never happen in a secular boarding school, could it? It's absolutely impossible, isn't it?


All sorts of bad shit happens all the time everywhere, Gruntled, in military schools, religious schools, private schools, and public schools. But it's the variant cultures of those institutions that determines what happens next.

Jon Awbrey

Posted by: It's the blimp, Frank

QUOTE(Gruntled @ Tue 15th March 2011, 3:09pm) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 15th March 2011, 4:23am) *

Hey, Milton... how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest

Of course, such a thing could never, never happen in a secular boarding school, could it? It's absolutely impossible, isn't it?
I thought that's how candidates for the foreign service were selected.

Posted by: Gruntled

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 14th March 2011, 5:56pm) *

Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different than public schools.

To revert to the subject of the thread: what would be the impact if Wikipedia replaced English teachers who allowed pupils to say "different than" rather than "different from"? Would that improve standards of grammar? Or does Wikipedia also allow sloppy grammar?

Posted by: Gruntled

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 15th March 2011, 4:03pm) *

Most secular boarding schools don't have an international network of campuses where the offending staff member can be shuttled off to, with light reprimand and "closed" personnel file.

Not individually, but these schools are part of networks and "old boys clubs" - headmasters know each other - things can be done without being formally part of the same organization.

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Wed 16th March 2011, 5:00am) *

You know it's the one Cardinal Sin we have around here …

Cardinal Sin was a great man. Let's not be making fun of him please.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/20/AR2005062001362.html

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(Gruntled @ Fri 18th March 2011, 11:22am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 14th March 2011, 5:56pm) *

Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different from public schools.

To revert to the subject of the thread: what would be the impact if Wikipedia replaced English teachers who allowed pupils to say "different than" rather than "different from"? Would that improve standards of grammar? Or does Wikipedia also allow sloppy grammar?


But that's not what I've written now, is it?

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(Gruntled @ Fri 18th March 2011, 8:22am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 14th March 2011, 5:56pm) *

Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different than public schools.

To revert to the subject of the thread: what would be the impact if Wikipedia replaced English teachers who allowed pupils to say "different than" rather than "different from"? Would that improve standards of grammar? Or does Wikipedia also allow sloppy grammar?

Yes! Get him where he lives! Ha. tongue.gif

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Thu 24th February 2011, 8:30am) *



Now stop that! mad.gif

Posted by: It's the blimp, Frank

Although I don't think it is generally a problem, I think that there is such a thing as over-moderation.

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(It's the blimp, Frank @ Fri 18th March 2011, 6:30pm) *

Although I don't think it is generally a problem, I think that there is such a thing as over-moderation.

Indeed, and you've just seen a great example of it, above.

The suggestion here, of course, is that since most of the figures for private education happen to come out of Catholic schools, that when I use those figures, I'm somehow a Catholic school apologist. (I wonder if there are any regular readers of this forum who are unaware of my personal dislike of organized religion, as well as my feeling that disorganized religion doesn't have a lot to recommend it either...).

So I'll have some things to say about non-religious private schools in another thread. No more discussion of this in a "meta" thread where an involved moderator is waiting to work me over. If I wanted that kind of argument, I'd go to Wikipedia for it. hrmph.gif

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

QUOTE(It's the blimp, Frank @ Fri 18th March 2011, 9:30pm) *

Although I don't think it is generally a problem, I think that there is such a thing as over-moderation.


It's not easy thinking up fitting titles for some people's hijackofferies, but I followed the rules of my order and elected the funniest from a multitude of evils.

I tried to sift out the chaffing that had more to do more with comparing and contrasting the virtues of the 3 P's — Parochial, Private, Public — when it comes to education. Funny titles and comic relief aside, that's all that's really implied here.

Now, Milton is under the impression that I have a POV about this side issue, but the Palin Fact is that he never St. Fu'd long enough to find out what I thought about it. Oh sure, I said, “Been There, Nun That”, but I would have to say “None Of That” to most of the experiences I've had in every estate of school house and yard.

So by this sifting let me say in deed what I think of the 3P issue, to wit, or not, that it's largely irrelevant to the issue that HK raised at the start. If I myself got drawn into the fray, well, y'know, I'm afrayed that happens from time to time, and so now I've done what I can to make a mend.

And with that I say amen —

Jon Awbrey

Posted by: Gruntled

QUOTE(thekohser @ Fri 18th March 2011, 4:49pm) *

QUOTE(Gruntled @ Fri 18th March 2011, 11:22am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 14th March 2011, 5:56pm) *

Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different from public schools.

To revert to the subject of the thread: what would be the impact if Wikipedia replaced English teachers who allowed pupils to say "different than" rather than "different from"? Would that improve standards of grammar? Or does Wikipedia also allow sloppy grammar?


But that's not what I've written now, is it?

May I express my sincere thanks to Mr. Kohs for that wonderful compliment. I pointed out an error he has made, and what did he do? Did he get angry? Did he accuse me if being powercorrupts or Zoloft or lilburne? No, he corrected it!!! Has anyone else in the history of WR received such a compliment? Thank you again.

Posted by: Lar

What was the original thread title before JA changed it to take a swipe at a longstanding good contributor here? I'm curious.


Posted by: Jon Awbrey

QUOTE(Lar @ Thu 24th March 2011, 2:32am) *

What was the original thread title before JA changed it to take a swipe at a longstanding good contributor here? I'm curious.


For listeners just joining the programme, the present divertimento is one of two Variations on a Theme from Wiki-Paradise Lost that I excerpted from Herschel Krutofsky's original musement on the question, “Will Wikipedia Replace Your Kid's Teacher?”

♪ Thanks for tuning in ♫

Jon Image