FORUM WARNING [2] Division by zero (Line: 2933 of /srcsgcaop/boardclass.php) FORUM WARNING [2] Division by zero (Line: 2943 of /srcsgcaop/boardclass.php) Sister Milton Ignatius Explains It All For You -
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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.
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.
(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) Yes, the taxpayer is definitely getting their money's worth. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/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? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/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?
"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."
"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."
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.
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 Boyâ€, 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.
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Sun 13th March 2011, 7:02pm)
Here's something 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?
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.
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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?
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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?
“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.â€
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?
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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 (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/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. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/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 (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/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. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/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? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wub.gif)
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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 this study (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?
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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.
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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. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/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.
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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 this study (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.
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?
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. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/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.
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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 Faith schools 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.
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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.
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.
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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?
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Sister Milton Ignatius Explains It All For You, The Great Splitsville • Sacred And Secular
