Public Education: Vital for modern society or a scam?

[giblets]

Don't you have to pay teachers more just to get them to teach in inner city schools?

[Al B. Sure!]

Don't you have to pay teachers more just to get them to teach in inner city schools?

So less total funding plus it costs more to hire teachers? What does that mean, gribbler? Fewer teachers per student, larger class sizes, and less qualified teachers.

And no, it's not even necessarily true that inner-city teachers need to get paid more:

Here's Philly's teacher salary schedule:
http://www.nctq.org/docs/7-08.pdf

Here's the teacher salary schedule in the Fairfax VA school district (which HC attends, Fairfax county being one of the wealthiest counties in the nation):
http://www.fcps.edu/DHR/salary/scalepdfs/fy11/FY11-194-day_teacher.pdf

Fairfax county starts off at $44K/year whereas Philly starts off at $41,111. Fairfax also has higher salary caps. The 'salary distribution curve' over a career favors teachers in Fairfax as well.


So Philly teachers get paid less (which is understandable since the budget per student is smaller) and have a harder job... education quality suffers since less talented teachers will fill those positions.

And if you pay them more in the face of budget constraints and a smaller budget per student than affluent areas, that means fewer quality teachers, larger class sizes due to fewer teachers, and shortfalls in other areas such as textbooks and materials... again, education quality suffers.

[Al B. Sure!]

Obviously, cost of living adjustments would have to be made to those salaries. Thankfully, Sperling's Best Places can do the work for us!

In a comparison of Philadelphia and Fairfax county, the overall cost of living index indicates Fairfax is more expensive but that is due solely to 103% more expensive housing (holy ****! over twice as expensive! No wonder their lower property tax rates can finance their schools!). However, on all other accounts, Philly is a lot more expensive.

Philly vs. Fairfax
Overall 105 124
Food 124 97
Housing 85 173
Utilities 123 97
Transportation 100 94
Health 109 97
Miscellaneous 115 98

Taken in sum, living in Fairfax is 18% more expensive than Philly but this is due entirely to inflated housing values. Philly is far more expensive and more expensive with regards to the national average in all other categories.



As an aside, it is interesting to note that day-to-day living in Philly is more expensive than Fairfax and even steep housing only puts Fairfax at 18% more expensive but median Philadelphia household income is $30,746 compared to Fairfax's $102,460.

Fairfax households make 3.4x as much, housing costs twice as much, yet the cost of living in Fairfax is only 18% higher than in Philly.

Nice. So the privileged get paid more and have a cheaper lifestyle. Isn't the world grand?!

I assume there is no 4% city wage tax on income nor 8% sales tax in Fairfax, either, right?

[Heraclitus]

Why do we continue to believe that funding has an effect on outcomes?

+1

[Heraclitus]

This discussion is silly. America has one of the best school systems in the world, almost all the groups outperform countries with similar demographics. There was a thread on this some time ago:

Extremely centralized standards - set very high standards for what kids must have learned by what age. Finland is always ranked #1 in education so just carbon copy Finland's standards even if the retards in Kansas don't want evil science or evolution.

This can't be done. If it is people will notice the unholy gap which their American puritan spirit will not tolerate. If people notice the gap that must not be named they will moan obsessively and pundits will demand something be done about it. When someone does manage to lower the holy gap they do it either by loosening the standards on the lower grades or by making the tests so hard no one is passing. Which brings us back to the start.






Up and down
this curve we ride
when editorials imply
that oh the happy day has come
when the wretched gap is gone.

But disappointment
always sets
when our children be learning less
and stricter standards are enforced to
stop the failing of the schools.

[Al B. Sure!]

+1

Oh gee... skin color has the primary effect on outcomes, right?

[Heraclitus]

Oh gee... skin color has the primary effect on outcomes, right?

Ridiculous, skin color has no effect on academic performance.

Both dark skinned Indians and pale skinned East Asians do great in US schools.

[giblets]

Oh gee... skin color has the primary effect on outcomes, right?

I guess Krazyhorse is right. There's no point in spending money on the morlocks.

[Al B. Sure!]

Holy **** Heraclitus has gone insane. You're providing stupid poetry to support your claims and then using stock footage of Indians and Asians in lab coats for what reason, I don't know. This is bizarre.

[Heraclitus]

I guess Krazyhorse is right. There's no point in spending money on the morlocks.

Lets for a second assume that all peoples have identical IQ ranges.

There is still no point in sending more than 20% of people to college.

You need to be realistic about IQ and its heritability and when education gives real value rather than it just being signaling.
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Education.../dp/0307405389

[Heraclitus]

Holy **** Heraclitus has gone insane. You're providing stupid poetry to support your claims and then using stock footage of Indians and Asians in lab coats for what reason, I don't know. This is bizarre.

There there alby, I'm just using the pictures to troll.

However my response to your question was honest and true. Skin color has zero effect on school performance.

[Al B. Sure!]

There there alby, I'm just using the pictures to troll.

However my response to your question was honest and true. Skin color has zero effect on school performance.

I said skin color as a casual proxy for ethnicity. In US racial politics, things are usually seen in a Black/White context so skin color is the relevant variable.

[Heraclitus]

I said skin color as a proxy for ethnicity.

It's a lousy proxy. At least it is if you want to talk about real ethnic groups that show up when the genes are analyzed rather than 19th century fiction.

In US racial politics, things are usually seen in a Black/White context so skin color is the relevant variable.

I think that should change. America is much more diverse now.

[Al B. Sure!]

And, Hera, you do realize that that picture you showed was of Hebrews, right? The one guy's wearing a yamaka!

[Heraclitus]

And, Hera, you do realize that that picture you showed was of Hebrews, right? The one guy's wearing a yamaka!

Yes, but I was just going for light skinned Middle Easterners crying. They are similar enough to Lebanese Arabs in appearance.