Public Education: Vital for modern society or a scam?

[Riesstiu IV]

I want to be an Aryan overlord.

[giblets]

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.

Stupid poetry? He's rapping.

[KrazyHorse]

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

gribby, I base my judgment here on substantial evidence of strongly diminished returns to educational spending above a relatively low level. What, exactly, is your implication that more (or even sustained) spending is worthwhile based on?

[giblets]

The idea that too much money is being given to schools that haven't bought new textbooks in over a decade is hard to swallow.

[KrazyHorse]

So you're an idiot?

[Kuciwalker]

Because it does, to an unknown extent. Do you think there isn't a correlation between school district budget and high school graduation rates?

Budget is not exogenous, nor would that link necessarily be causal if it were.

Yale's budget is larger than UVA's. Oh, if only Richmond would increase funding...

[DaShi]

KH, do you have an readily available data (links or other sources) on the diminishing returns to educational spending above a certain level? I'm merely asking out of curiosity and laziness in looking it up myself.

[Kuciwalker]

.

[giblets]

Yeah, go ahead and call people idiots for having opinions on stuff they're not experts in. Why don't you provide some of that "substantial evidence"?

[Al B. Sure!]

There is data supporting KrazyHorse's assertion but their methodology of using state-wide data and comparing states always concerned me.

I decided to use data from greatschools.org to determine the relationship between school funding and performance in Philadelphia and the surrounding townships. I compared expenditures per student and Pennsylvania System of State Assessments (PSSA) scores for the Philadelphia school district and the bordering and 'two-over' townships in Montgomery County (ie- the townships that border Philadelphia and the townships that border those townships that border Philadelphia [there was no data for one township, Bryn Athyn]). As for the PSSA test:

About the Tests
In 2009-2010 Pennsylvania used the Pennsylvania System of State Assessments (PSSA) to test students in grades 3 through 8 and 11 in math and reading, in grades 5, 8 and 11 in writing, and in grades 4, 8 and 11 in science.
The results for reading, writing, science and math are displayed on GreatSchools profiles.
The scores reflect the performance of students enrolled for the full academic year.
The PSSA is a standards-based test, which means it measures how well students are mastering specific skills defined for each grade by the state of Pennsylvania.
The goal is for all students to score at or above proficient on the test.

I used 11th grade science results as a proxy for school performance. Unfortunately, this will likely overstate the performance of districts with low graduation rates such as Philadelphia since 11th grade results do not account for those who did not finish their junior years of high school.

The scores are the percentage of students who scored at or above proficient.

Obviously, this is not a comprehensive examination since it's only comparing two variables and only 11 school districts but it's interesting nonetheless since it shows a very strong positive relationship between expenditures per student and % of students scoring at or above proficient at science.

[DaShi]

Why don't you link your sources?

[Kuciwalker]

Obviously, this is not a comprehensive examination since it's only comparing two variables and only 11 school districts but it's interesting nonetheless since it shows a very strong positive relationship between expenditures per student and % of students scoring at or above proficient at science.

EXPENDITURES PER STUDENT IS NOT EXOGENOUS.

[Kuciwalker]

Also, you can remove one data point from that graph and your relationship pretty much disappears.

[Al B. Sure!]

Why don't you link your sources?

http://www.greatschools.org/

You'd have to look through all the districts.

These were the districts used:

Philly
Lower Merion
Abington
Cheltenham
Colonial
Upper Moreland
Jenkintown
Lower Moreland
Upper Dublin
Upper Merion
Springfield

[DaShi]

Oh god, I don't want to search. Just point me to your data. I want to see the numbers and calculations.