[Politics] Education spending and politics.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... 25_of_GDP) Wikipedia shows that the U.S. isn't exactly getting its dollars worth on education spending.

So what gives here? Is it because The U.S. is spending more money on non-general improvements? Is it income inequality suppressing results within districts? Is it just because education spending is weakly correlated with results? What?

ED: The BBCode for URL hates parentheses for some ungodly reason.

[Kaelik]

I'm sure it is a lot of things but I bet one of them is the inefficiencies inherent in trying balance 50 state education programs that are also funded from the federal level with it's own attached regulations.

[Ancient History]

Different things going on here.

For one, there is the No Child Left Behind Act - pretty much everybody agrees that attaching federal funding to test scores has been great for trying to teach kids to take tests and grade inflation, but hasn't particularly improved education. On the state side of things, teachers and schools tend to be at the forefront of a number of budget limitations and social policies - the most annoying of which include the promotion of unregulated (and often useless) private education through voucher programs, the promotion of textbooks with conservative (and sometimes non-scientific) bias because of outsized influence of state committees in Texas and California, limitations on sexual education in a number of states, and sometimes rather bizarre efforts to simplify or streamline core curricula like mathematics and literature (see the time Alabama tried to do away with fractions, for example).

That's K-12 sort of stuff, now. Limited funding (particularly in certain historically poor districts) means many schoolbooks are still years out of date, and liberal education programs like art or music are cut or reduced in favor of sports and core reading/writing/mathematics/science courses. At the university level, an entirely different level of politics comes into play - look at the mess last year in Florida where an (unneeded) sixth state univeristy was spun off of the Univeristy of South Florida despite evidence of budget misuse; the split was forced by a Florida State Senator who wanted it as a legacy project and held massive budget cuts over USF's head to force it - and the governor was looking to cut the state education budget anyway, and is working to limit liberal arts education in universities in favor of engineering and other "practical" degree programs.

On a fundamental level, most of the US still only has 5-day-a-week schooling and a long summer vacation; the US would likely benefit from year-round schooling (or at least shorter breaks) and 6 or 7-day schoolweek, though good luck getting that to pass. Teacher salaries in general could do with a raise to keep positions competitive (on the other side, teacher unions are so powerful that getting rid of pedophiles in some states is such a chore that they can remain on the books drawing salaries for years as their appeals go through).

University systems, which are even less regulated, have been reducing their tenure tracks for professors (in part because of a glut of graduate students), and in some specific fields like architecure and law produce many more graduates than there are available positions. The costs of higher education have risen significantly faster than inflation, but the job market has not responded correspondingly, hence the reason a lot of graduates from 2010-2012 have college degrees but can only get a job working retail and face near-perpetual student loan debt.

I'm probably forgetting a lot of things but, y'know, the big problem isn't just how much money we're investing - though it should be more - but how much of the money we invest is wasted either in overhead or because of the inefficient nature of education systems in the US.

[sabs]

Well Lets see.

Here in Atlanta.
We had a Super Intendent of schools who had a chauffeured Mercedes, and was making 6 digit anual salary, while sexting a janitor in the district. WHile doing this, she was also cutting salaries and hours of teachers.

We have had 2 different schoolboards who refused to step down even after scandals. One of which actually cost the county their accreditation. This caused 3 years of students to have diplomats worth about the same as toilet paper.

We have schools that are requiriing students to go to Christian Assemblies.
We have school districts actively trying to skullfuck science with Creationism.

We have parents who think that it's the school's job to potty train their kids. We have kids who only get to eat when they are at school.

There is a miriad of issues with the US school systems. And you really have to do targetted solutions. The issues facing inner city New York schools, are very different than rural Tennessee

[Kaelik]

while sexting a janitor in the district.

In what possible way is that relevant.

[sabs]

while sexting a janitor in the district.

In what possible way is that relevant.

Because she was busy riding around in her car, sexting her married not husband boyfriend, instead of actually doing any work, while drawing a 6 figure salary?

[Kaelik]

while sexting a janitor in the district.

In what possible way is that relevant.

Because she was busy riding around in her car, sexting her married not husband boyfriend, instead of actually doing any work, while drawing a 6 figure salary?

1) Why is it relevant that her boyfriend is married?

2) Do you really think she was sexting him eight hours a day? Or do you think it is more likely that she just wasn't doing work because she didn't want to do work, and happened to be doing that some non zero percent of the time?

3) Do you think if she had been not in car, but instead in the building, in her office, you would complain about the amount of texting she did as evidence of her not working?

[RobbyPants]

Ha! I was looking at countries above the US and saw Samoa and Slovenia right next to each other, and first read that as "Somalia". I thought "how the hell is Somalia, the country with no government, ahead of us!?".

ED: The BBCode for URL hates parentheses for some ungodly reason.

Lago, quote me and copy-paste this link in there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_spending_on_education_(%_of_GDP)

[Koumei]

I have to say, it's not all roses here either. Despite my earlier thread where I rather facetiously claimed the kids are idiots, the fact is they're not, but the quality of their education is still lacking, and the main thing is funding. They'll graduate, and at this rate the smart thing to do will be grab a shitty retail job, stick around, become a manager, do some company-funded management/finance courses and basically end up as a branch owner or similar. The unfortunate option would be going to university, gaining a student debt of $TEXAS, be taught outdated stuff with little funding and end up with a degree that won't help them get a job, and they'll be old enough that you have to pay them real wages, so they'll get passed over for a lot of the basic retail jobs.

And even ignoring the above, they graduate from schools that, due to not being private ones, have very little money so their science text books are actually stone slabs because paper hadn't been developed back then.

We did have a think called the Gonski Report, where they looked at the state of education in the country and said "They're doing the best they can, but realistically, here is the money they need."
Labor promised to go ahead with that, but they're trying to change their mind - they promised a balanced budget earlier (despite us not caring about that), and they failed on that so they're trying to not spend money. Indeed, their election promises seem to be built on how much money they won't spend on keeping the country running.

And the Liberal leader went a step further, by saying "it's not a matter of funding, they don't need more money. It's a matter of teaching kids morals". So apparently the problem isn't that the schools have no money, it's that they're not all Christian schools, and he knows this from all that research he didn't do. Even saying that shit should be a one-appeal, next-day-service Chinese-style capital offence.

[LargePrime]

(on the other side, teacher unions are so powerful that getting rid of pedophiles in some states is such a chore that they can remain on the books drawing salaries for years as their appeals go through).

Fucktarded Bullshit.

There was another fucktard that wrote a book that tried this same bullshit. The premise was that 'dem GOD DAM unionzs fucked the US edumication system'

Really? Like EVERY SINGLE ONE of the countries that beat the US in education dont have STRONGER UNIONS than we do!

The simple reason why the US has the most expensive system is simular to why a nation wide education system in samolia is very expensive and not very productive. Cause then you were shot in the morning you learn less in the afternoon. When you were hit in the morning you learn less in the afternoon. When mom and dad got a divorce in the morning you learn less in the afternoon.
20+% of Children in the US live in POVERTY. That means no stability and constant hunger, threat and problems. No one can learn in that environs. Even if they are Americans.

Look at the most efficient education dollar countries. Child poverty is near 0.

[Drolyt]

So. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... _of_GDP%29 Wikipedia shows that the U.S. isn't exactly getting its dollars worth on education spending.

So what gives here? Is it because The U.S. is spending more money on non-general improvements?

This is part of it (and those non-general improvements can be important) but

Is it income inequality suppressing results within districts?

Is the biggest problem. Income inequality is the main reason U.S. educational results aren't better, and when I say main reason I mean it is so large it completely overwhelms all other issues. It is late now, so I'll post again tomorrow with some evidence to back up my claims, but trust me when I say that child poverty is devastating and makes success in school extremely difficult if not nigh impossible.

Is it just because education spending is weakly correlated with results?

Not so much. Money, so long as it is intelligently spent, works pretty well. That's not to say there aren't possible improvements that don't cost money.

What?

Crazy creationists and the like trying to teach children bullshit is also quite a problem.

ED: The BBCode for URL hates parentheses for some ungodly reason.

I'm not 100% why this is, BBCode must reserve parenthesis for something. Just use escape characters (%28 for (, %29 for )) and if you want it to look nice use the URL tags like RobbyPants.

[tussock]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... per_capita

If you felt like knocking about eight points off that one with a single purchaser, a real public insurance system, and maybe some protection from bullshit lawsuits for doctors, you'd have endless money to throw at your abstinence-only sex education, cardboard-box public housing system, church-run soup kitchens, turning blood to oil aid programs, or whatever.

Maybe you could even make more poor-ass African countries stop handing out free condoms as part of the deal for giving them drugs to fight AIDS. That's some fucking brilliant policy, that is. More money for that shit.

[Orion]

America spends a lot on education, but we also have tremendous mission creep because schools are so often the only part of the state that gives a shit about the kids. Way too often schools are their students' only access to shit like healthcare, counseling, or fucking food to eat. I would suspect that countries who get more returns per "education dollar" are providing those basics through other programs that aren't part of their "education" budget.

[LargePrime]

and maybe some protection from bullshit lawsuits for doctors,

Fucktarded bullshit!

Every state that has enacted "tort reform" has seen exactly 0 effect on health care costs.

America spends a lot on education, but we also have tremendous mission creep because schools are so often the only part of the state that gives a shit about the kids. Way too often schools are their students' only access to shit like healthcare, counseling, or fucking food to eat. I would suspect that countries who get more returns per "education dollar" are providing those basics through other programs that aren't part of their "education" budget.

You cant really believe that an extra 5$ a day for FOOD is a relevant part of the education budget?

While your other points are totally valid, again, the whole problem is relative poverty. The US has it, and it STOPS education cold.

[erik]

You cant really believe that an extra 5$ a day for FOOD is a relevant part of the education budget?

While your other points are totally valid, again, the whole problem is relative poverty. The US has it, and it STOPS education cold.

In fiscal year 2012, federal school nutrition programs underwrote more than five billion lunches served to over 31 million students. Total funding for all nutrition programs sums to more than $14 billion in both cash and commodity payments. School nutrition programs are one of the largest federal funding streams to schools.

That's a big chunk out of the nearly $80B that we federally spend on education (including college grants and such). Just sayin.


[edit:]Now it is entirely understandable, however, if you want to say citation please to Orion on his suspicion that:

I would suspect that countries who get more returns per "education dollar" are providing those basics through other programs that aren't part of their "education" budget.

That's how you nail him. As I'd suspect that that does get included as part of their education budget. Why wouldn't it? It's a cost incurred at a school. What other budget would we expect that to come from?

And heck,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland[/url]]Comprehensive school students enjoy a number of social entitlements, such as school health care and a free lunch everyday, which covers about a third of the daily nutritional need.[19] In addition, pupils are entitled to receive free books and materials and free school trips (or even housing) in the event that they have a long or arduous trip to school.

[tussock]

What other budget would we expect that to come from?

Governments can get pretty damned creative in where they assign costs in a budget. Most social welfare goes through the tax department here, because welfare is demonised for votes. Most of the welfare department's budget goes to old folk, who also get funds out of the roading budget (for public transport subsidies) and health budget (for healthcare subsidies).

But single mums' healthcare subsidies come from the welfare department, so government can point out how much welfare all of three people in the country are getting whenever they make cuts. Medicine here is $1/month per pill type, because the rest of it is subsidised, so having two sick kids is a fucking huge subsidy.

Like, unemployed/sick people can get cheap government loans for various emergency shit like if your fridge breaks or your kids don't have shoes, and that counts as welfare. But paying it back counts as tax that you only pay when you get a job again. So look what taxpayers are paying for, again!



Aside: Finland is awesome, and the reason NZ only gets 2nd (or 8th, it varies) at education outcomes. But they also spend a lot of money on it, far more than us. IIRC, all their teachers have doctorates, right down to teaching the 5-year olds, and getting a education doctorate is free, because Finland is awesome.

[Drolyt]

I promised data and never got back to you, but here's a Stanford study that shows how big of an effect social inequality has on US educational outcomes. The study only dealt with PISA but I think the results are generalizable, especially combined with what else we know about poverty and education.

Still, a somewhat striking result does appear in that study, in that the highest achieving Americans do score lower than the highest achievers in other countries. This is bizarre, since the high achievers in the US typically have access to expensive programs designed to give them the best education possible. I could speculate as to why this is, but I won't, at least not right now.

[LargePrime]

That's a big chunk out of the nearly $80B that we federally spend on education (including college grants and such). Just sayin.

When I last looked at federal education food programs were funded out of the DoA budget, as your linked study confirms. So it is not part of the 80B figure.

In fact probably less of the "Education Dollars" are actually inflated with Welfare programs in the US than other countries, which means the US is performing even Worse then we might think.

As the study that Drolyt linked shows the US education system works fine when it is not making up for crippling childhood poverty. The last thing it needs is a Fascist Reformation to fix a problem it does not have.

[erik]

That's a big chunk out of the nearly $80B that we federally spend on education (including college grants and such). Just sayin.

When I last looked at federal education food programs were funded out of the DoA budget, as your linked study confirms. So it is not part of the 80B figure.

Nom nom nom. [eatingcrow.gif]

It sounded to me as tho you were discounting how much school lunches cost the government, which was my main thrust, but yeah, I got about everything else wrong following that. And hell, I may have even been misinterpreting your comment on the $5 lunches being relevant seeing as how you did place stress upon food rather than the dollar amount. Mea culpa.

I have no beef with the argument that poverty is a plague upon our education system.

[...You Lost Me]

I have no beef...

That's because crow is poultry.