It is?

How does it help the Supreme Courts of Ohio, Texas, Massachusetts, New York, etc. to agree with me again?

How does it help the private Standford university or education officials appoint by the republican governor of California to agree with me?

I mean I see how it could help your far more partisan sources to disagree, but mine are pretty safe .


You've linked to an opinion piece claiming it without detailed stats. I'd love to see actual data. What's more a theory on why this is (that you could back with evidence) would be nice.

I wouldn't even know what to argue against.

In every discussion of education, it strikes me odd that most people focus only on what can be done at school. All that I have read in journals regarding how people learn suggest the most potent means by which to improve learning come from steps taken at home. All the teachers I have spoken to also emphasize that what happens at home it also very important, which is why they have the PTA. I suspect, however, it may actually be pivotal.

An article I read back in the 80's in Scientific American regarding the "paradox of the boat children" recently had a serendipitous resonance with another article I read just yesterday regarding "First born kids have higher IQ". When the south Asian refugees landed in the US after the Vietnam War, they became a much sought-after cohort for study, because many people wanted to see how fast they would integrate. What they found out turned one important education theory upside-down. Previously, it had been assumed from studies done in the 50's that the larger a family size, the worse each child would do academically, presumably because the interactions between the parents and children grow geometrically with each new child, thereby diluting attention. What was surprising was the opposite was true for the large traditional families from Vietnam: the larger the families, the better the kids did academically as a whole. Not only did they do well, but the new immigrant children were outperforming their U.S. born peers within 1.5 years.

The researchers reported, after much observation, that the only difference was how education was approached. Basically, instead of separating the kids to do homework separately as is the typical American family custom, all family members remained together (usually after dinner), and because in large families kids are usually only separated by a year, the parents assisted the oldest child, the oldest child assisted the next oldest, and so on down the chain. No separation or isolation and education was a family activity. The new IQ article I read yesterday indicated older kids have advantage because, "researchers insist it is not due to nature but nurture, with the firstborn enjoying the fruits of undivided attention early in life. Experts believe that when older children tutor their siblings, it may help their brains grow." Basically it is intelligence through tutoring. (Plus one gets to review the material almost forgotten from the year before).
I wonder if it sharpens up the parents as well?

I suspect also, making homework a ritual family event also imprints education in young minds as a positive value, a value which continues to focus them amid the churning distractions of the public schools. These tutoring structures are also occasionally used within public schools, because I remember as a 3rd grader once, being assigned to tutor someone in the 4th grade on fractions. That experience is one the few moments from that age which I can recall to this day, so there is definitely something very special about inter-child tutoring.

So, as far as intermingling kids vs. setting aside the best for the best, I am mixed... it would depend on your goals: are you trying to give everyone a leg up or just streamline advancement for those who already don't need as much help. If you want to give everyone a leg up, then there should be much more active tutoring between skill levels, since I feel passive mixing is almost pointless.

Oh yes, and in answer to the poll: concrete methods.

The reason for my laser like focus is an entirely practical one.

Education is well past the crisis point for millions of American children and as much as one could do in the home (provided one's parents and older sibling have the academic wherewithal) one can do more through the school.

Before public education this was a nation populated mostly by those who never made if past the eight grade. Public education is a key to an informed populace and a pillar of democracy.

For those of us who know the real trouble schools face distractions are hard to tolerate.

Its as straw man. Certainly you can do more with more money but the studies I posted were not all comparisons of different states. The reality is money is insignificant once the basics are met – and from there on its management, teachers, and discipline.


In 1994, the five North Carolina counties with the highest per pupil expenditures (mean of $6,327) produced mean proficiency scores of 59.7% for reading and 58.9% for mathematics. See Cline, supra note 4, at 73. In contrast, the five lowest spending counties (mean of $4,046) produced proficiency scores of 69.2% for reading and 68.2 % for math. Id. Additionally, despite the levels of spending in public schools, a recently released National Adult Literacy Survey "revealed that 90 million American adults, almost half the population, possess, at best, the most rudimentary reading and math skills." See Sielaff, supra note 83. "Forty to 44 million couldn't locate a single piece of information in a written passage if doing so required making an inference from the text or any background information." Id. "Another 50 million adults couldn't calculate the total cost of a purchase, determine the difference in price between two items, locate an intersection on a street map or enter information on a simple form." Id.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa37..._n8736898/pg_36


I know many good teachers who have told me they would NEVER ever work in an inner city school where they had to deal with unruly kids, violence, etc. So spending more money alone is worthless.

Here is some data and the classic case of the disaster in MO:

The Kansas City, Missouri, experiment to improve achievement by providing a school district with limitless funds has ended in failure. In 1985, federal judge Russell Clark took control of the Kansas City's school district. Outraged at its condition, he gave educators carte blanche to design a school system that included everything that might possibly improve student achievement. Missouri was ordered to pay for everything on the wish list. Teacher pay was raised 40% to an average of $37,000 for a 180-day year. Class sizes were cut and teacher workload slashed, some teachers taught three classes per day. Transportation was provided. Course offerings and school facilities were palatial. In all, $2 billion was spent over 12 years.[3]
No improvement occurred. Parochial schools operating on a shoestring continued to do a better job serving a similar population.http://www.i2i.org/main/article.php?article_id=113

I tend to think a practical aspect of my observation does exist: instead of just using ordinary achievers within a school to teach the slower kids, get the slower kids to teach what they do know to kids operating just below their achievement level as well. If there is intellectual benefit to being the teacher, (and clearly this would have to be tested more objectively first), the benefit accrues the the person who needs it most. It would also train the slow learner to respect the problems of teaching, and I would like to think, also make them more sympathetic to the education process in general. Besides, walking in someone else's shoes is an old idea, and although well-worn, still has a few miles left on it, -- so why wouldn't it fit here?

I would also argue the very fabric of our economy and therefore culture is based on distraction. One can not sell goods or services, or develop personal networks, without advertising oneself. Modern advances in communication have simply brought that inherent trait to its non-stop 24/7 potential. I susupect kids simply reflect that mania. I would argue it is impractical to try and get around that without isolating oneself rurally, but even there, the Internet and TV is ever-present as a double-edged sword of both education and distraction.

Repeating this mantra won't make it so. Neither will the anecdotal evidence.

Despite the opinion pieces from conservative think tanks Missouri had far from unlimited funds (in fact, the idea is ridiculous on its face).

You want to talk about Missouri? There's another state that lost at court over its funding system.... and not in the eighties either.

In 1993 Committee for Educational Equality v. State with caused the passage of the Outstanding Schools Act of 1993, they are still in court as we speak.

Straw man?

First that's not what that means, and second, anyone who reviews this thread can see where the bulk of the evidence lies.

I offered academic studies and Supreme court cases. Others offer Cal Thomas op-ed's and partisan think-tanks.

Nothing “anecdotal” about the data I posted especially about MO. They threw money at the problem and got nothing. If you really think “money” is the answer we have nothing to discuss because IMO money alone will not solve out problems.


Certainly some systems are under funded and going to court to get the inequity dealt with is ok by me but that has not and will not solve our education problems – never has and never will.

I've already said that money alone isn't the solution, but is is an essential part of any solution and in many districts is issue #1.

Those are the cold hard facts.

I've read on the Kansas City issue and its far more complicated that it would appear. Otherwise the state wouldn't be losing at court on finance yet again.

On states like Massachusetts the verdict is already in.

Yes, there are other problems in our schools, but funding is the prime mover. Without the cash, any reform proposal is dead.

Ideas I've always thought were worth pursuing:

One, if we're gonna throw money at the problem (which we're not, btw), here are some programs that are REALLY worth paying for, as opposed to maybe electronic chalk boards or computer labs where kids just check myspace and download music:


1.) Foreign exchange programs for sophomores in High School, especially to safe developing nations.

Why? Nothing cures adolescence like a dose of perspective. In more than a few developing nations, the value of education is not taken lightly, like it is in America. You'd be hard pressed to find a Ghanaian student, for instance, talking back to their teacher. Wouldn't happen. Let kids know the value of their education, let them see the world, and learn more about themselves, their nation, and their world as they do it.

2.) Robotics Tournaments

Why? Science and math are the engine of global industrial innovation, and our students are the sparks to ignite it. Robotics programs -- while extraordinarily expensive -- do teach students how to write computer code, design a complex piece of machinery, all the while learning old fashion values like team-work, creativity, and dedication to an extra-curricular activity.

3.) Luring the Supreme Court into a box and hiding them.

4.) Tutors and afterschool programs for the children of our working poor.

Why? Because way too many children need a place to go after school, especially children of single or divorced parents, who may not get home until 7 or 8 PM each day. It's a well-documented fact that afterschool programs reduce the crime rate, improve test scores. Moreover, I think we all agree the number one inspiration for a child to perform well are the people around them. Children who are surrounded by positive role models just tend to do better.


It's an obvious fact that these programs would make our nation a better place. The American people will just have to decide that purchasing multi-billion dollar F-22s to pursue terrorists is less important than putting our children on the right track.

The coming war for international ascendancy will not be fought in Iraq, or Afghanistan, but will take place on chalkboards in scientific institutions across the World. I think Thomas Friedman is a real bag of wind, but he does harp on one sound point relentlessly: we're losing our innovative edge, and we're losing it fast.

A lot of the time we get the idea that an increase in funding is meant to pay for new top of the line facilities and tech gadgets.

The real issues are attracting and retaining qualified teachers, having reasonably decent infrastructure, having enough materials,etc.

We aren't talking perks here.

One of the most movign descriptions I've posted in previous threads was a ruling of the Ohio Supreme Court back in '93

The DeRolph case

DEROLPH ET AL., APPELLANTS, V. THE STATE OF OHIO ET AL., APPELLEES.


How Within-District Spending Inequities Help Some Schools to Fail

That is the kind of thing we are up against. Electronic blackboards are a long way off from many school systems...

As I have demonstrated and has been documented time and time again just “spending money� has little or NO result.

Certainly schools that are “under funded� need to be better supported but this is a tiny part of the big problem which revolves around a total lack of discipline, poor management and often poorly trained teachers.

http://www.rjgeib.com/biography/inner-city...s/innerblu.html

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadA...le.asp?ID=27408

You have demonstrated no such thing. You have given one example of a schools system where it did not seem to work, though there was more in the mix in Kansas City.

You have then studiously ignored the various statewide judgments I've presented, including that from your own state.

You given anecdotal evidence on California and then ignore the statewide study just commissioned on that school system that spoke of the need for billions in new funding.
IREPP Study

All the conservative op-eds in the world won't trump the fact that the studies and the courts point to funding time and time again as a key issue.

Few if any point to discipline.

It is the discipline issue that is a tiny side-story.

You have then studiously ignored the various statewide judgments I've presented, including that from your own state.


Give me a break. Sure there was “more in the MIX in KC. The money means squat unless the system is managed right. As I have posted numerous examples.

But you keep harping on money ignoring the fact that we have doubled schools spending twice in the last few decades and results are WORSE.

Your examples are the totally negligent school systems not the typical school system in a city.
\
How not to define an adequate education
By Ed Mosca

Published: Friday, Apr. 29, 2005

The New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies recently released a study about the impact of increased state spending on public education since the Claremont decisions. The study indicates that school districts continue to spend widely varying amounts on a per student basis. In 2004, the difference between higher-spending districts and lower-spending districts was $5,158 per student.

Liberal newspapers such as the Concord Monitor and The Keene Sentinel have seized on the study as proof that the state has failed to provide every student an adequate education. The Monitor went so far as to call for the state to set a minimum per student spending requirement. When the study is viewed in conjunction with other data regarding New Hampshire schools, however, what it shows is that there is no correlation between increased education spending and better results.

A recent analysis by Standard & Poor’s, which can be found at schoolmatters.com, found that four school districts in New Hampshire were “outperformers.” An outperformer is a school district that meets the following three criteria:

• The district must report higher percentages of students scoring at or above state standards on reading and math than districts with similar proportions of economically disadvantaged students.

• The district must perform at a level that significantly exceeds statistical expectation.

• The district must repeat this performance for at least two consecutive years.

The outperformers were Bow, Gorham, Littleton and Moultonborough. For the 2002-2003 school year, the state average of students performing at or above proficiency in math and reading was 72 percent. Bow scored 88.6 percent, Gorham 79.6 percent, Littleton 76.3 percent and Moultonborough 82.7 percent.

While three of these four school districts spent more than the state average of $7,809 per student, only Moultonborough, at $11,223 per student, spent significantly more. Bow and Gorham, at $7,473 and $8,289 per student, were right around the state average, while Littleton spent $9,119 per student.

On average, the outperformers spent $9,026 per student and scored 81.8 percent. In contrast, Claremont spent $9,350 per student, but scored only 59 percent. And while Franklin spent only $5,665 per student, it achieved the same 59 percent as Claremont. All of which shows that there is no correlation between spending disparities among school districts and whether they provide an adequate education.

The study also reports that “the state’s school districts continued to increase their aggregate spending at rates more than double the rate of inflation” since 1999.

The Standard & Poor’s analysis indicates that the additional spending resulting from the Claremont decisions has not improved public education. Its “return on spending index,” which measures the average number of reading and math proficiency points achieved per $1,000 spent per student, fell for New Hampshire from 14.6 for the 2001-2002 school year to 13.4 for 2002-2003. SAT scores, which were flat from 2000 through 2003, also indicate that the state isn’t getting any bang for the bucks it has spent in response to the Claremont case

http://www.nh.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AI...VIEW13/50427019

Ted would it help a little if one liberal poster here heartily agreed that money alone will not solve the problems that face our education system?

One hesitates to make that concession because often conservative posters turn around and seem to argue that spending less money could be a key to improving education. We all know that money can be spent ineffectively and be just outright wasted.

My frustrations with our national education systems have continued for decades and I see no traction moving in the right direction.

Granted education is a very difficult issue and it is tremendously complex.

I think the number one problem with education is that we have taken a consumer approach to education. We feel that we pay our taxes our our tuition and that we should drop off our children and they should come out educated.

In fact, I would say that my complaints with the American education system start where most conservative criticism starts with education. I think the clear exceptions would be using teachers unions as the buzz word to express the problems with education without actually saying anything other than UNION, and the economic conservative pragmatic approach that would have 13 year olds confident about the information they will need to know and feel that somehow it is a loss if education is made to be broader than what is deemed to be all you really need to know.


To pare down a rant, I argue that while America pays tremendous lip service to education that we don;t actually highly value education and we don;t have the will to push our children to achieve to the level of value we presently collectively hold.

As a society we do not impress upon our children the value of the education they can get if they push themselves everyday. We do not really believe in education for education's sake lie previous generations did (as a value, not as an achievement)
As a result we have turned our schools into glorified day care centers and wee get more upset if our children's feelings get hurt somehow during the day than if they wasted an entire day of educational activity.

We are not engaging in trying to raise our collective level of education. We are not focused on creating a better national result. Instead we argue about different world views and our schools have become one of the fronts in the national culture wars.

We we are not doing is truly engaging in the scientific method to really try to find out how our school systems could be improved, what are real weaknesses are, and what solutions could be applied to our school systems and our societies.


Instead, bad school systems lumber on.

I really do believe that more teachers would stay in the profession if they felt that they had the support to help more students achieve real heights in education. Teaching capable people who only want to get by is about as stimulating as watching game shows. I don't think the money is ever going to be there for teachers. But the practical support of society for education could be there. And when sutdents comp[lain that they will never use something again, even if it is true for them, there is a life lesson to learn from truly mastering something like that as well. I think all of our jobs have things that we do that we wish we didn;t have to. In many ways our values are measured in getting that stuff done and done wel.

So endeth the rant.

Ah, but I've made that concession many times.

My point is that it is an unavoidable part of the solution.
I'm still researching the particulars of the Claremont case and results and I ran into a bunch more studies supporting the relationship between funding and student performance.

I like to be able to answer any concerns so I'll try and get the New Hampshire stats. In the meantime...

School finance reform, the distribution of school spending, and the distribution of student test scores


THE IMPACT OF STATE LEVEL EDUCATIONAL FUNDING STRUCTURE ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT IN SELECTED STATES IN THE UNITED STATES
I mean the sheer volume of research (some of which I can't quote here (lousy copyrights) and some I probably will later ) is staggering.

If only we as a nation could stop ignoring it out of political intransigence at best and sheer apathy at worst.

I think we are all getting tied up on the money issue. Yes, it is obvious that more funding in a numerous schools would certainly benefit the quality of education. I would certainly not dispute that. But I do believe that funding, while important, is not as significant as the overall structure and goals of the education system. Funding can only help to achieve the goals that are set out by the school board, State, or Dept of Ed. If those goals are based on false premises or are counter-productive, then the extra funding will succeed in helping to educate in the manner that is preordained to fail. The argument that I have made, is that the goals of our education system need to adapt to the current times. I do not think that model we have adopted is benefiting children and making them WANT to learn. As i have said before, we can hardly get full grown adults to see the long term consequences and benefits of their actions, how can we expect children to do the same? We need to revamp the system so that kids see an actual benefit to the stuff they learn. They need to see that benefit immediately or else they will either not try or not care. Only after our education is geared towards new goals will funding play a significant role.

...but what is our answer to children not wanting to learn what we want to teach?

We have two options.
Simply to cave in and give them what they want.

... or make them want what we've got.

I think the research is clear that funding and management changes are the two biggest issues so making this a pre-requesite to those reforms would be inefficient.

But once we got around to it, why again are we trusting children to decide what they should learn and what they shouldn't?

You are framing the options in a skewed way. We aren't giving them what they want so to speak as we are focusing on their strengths. Furthermore, I do not really see why "giving them what they want" is such a bad thing. If they are passionate and enthusiastic about one particular subject, we should be encouraging that enthusiasm, not placing equal importance on subjects they either cannot or choose not to do.



But what is that research being compared to? obviously more funding and better management will be favorable over cutting funding and old management. But it is still within that sphere of education that is currently failing our students.



We aren't trusting them to decide what they should learn based on some meaningless and arbitrary circumstances. If a kid isnt good at math throughout elementary and intermediate school, what is the likelihood that they will excel in math in high school? Why should they be forced to continue taking a subject that the evidence shows they will not do very well at? That time could very well be spent on subjects that they do excel at, making them a better student and more enthusiastic about learning.

I disagree. We have every right to expect that when we send our children to school they will be taught by competent professionals and actually “learn” something. If they are misbehaving or fail to do homework the teacher is responsible to demand the parents help – this is how my school system works. I find it ludicrous to “blame” parents for the poor education their kids receive.

That said I cannot blame teachers for all the problems either. We have a pitiful broken system that allows for gross mismanagement, violence, and poor performance and we need to fix it.

I have no problem with teachers unions only the system that now gives us the shortest school day and year in the industrial world. The “unions” have negotiated very nice contracts and are heavily connected to the political system. Their PACs are among the largest in the country and they work hard to defeat vouchers and other “parent choice” initiatives. Thus many poor Americans have kids trapped in some of the worst schools in the WORLD.

.


Speak for yourself please. My family and the people we know do push our kids and they do value education – and their teachers do the same. But in some schools (inner city schools in particular) we have allowed the system to work to the lowest level – the schools do not demand excellence – they accept mediocrity and incompetence. And yea some of this has to do with money but not much.




You must be joking. We have plenty of good school systems, including parochial schools to look at. We “allow” schools to be poor and to graduate kids who can barely read – and frankly my problems with the Unions is I don’t hear their statements of outrage over this situation.

Let me tell you one story from a school principle I sat next to on a cross country plane trip. He had left a public school in frustration over the lack of discipline at all levels in the school and moved to a parochial school where he said the atmospheres was completely different. He would have an “all school” auditorium meeting at the beginning of the year with all students and lay down the rules. Parents were sent letters as well. All were told that Violation of major rule was punished by immediate expulsion for the year. Then he just waited and within the first 2 weeks he expelled – publicly- a student. The result was that the rest of the year there were NO infractions.

Needless to say this is illegal in our public schools. We have the schools we deserve and IMO the parents are not at fault.


Teachers would be happier if they had the power to get rid of the bad apples and get parent support were needed. Right now their hands are tied by well meaning but failed “rules” that force them to deal with problem kids who should be dealt with in different settings or just expelled.

Still kicking against the goads I see. While still searching for the Claremont, I've got an article that neatly captures the trouble with the Kansas City situation.

Urban Legends, Desegregation and School Finance: Did Kansas City Really Prove That Money Doesn’t Matter?

So as I said, there was "more in the mix" in Kansas City, funding was only elevated for a short time on a schools system with a long history of problems due to entrenched financial difficulties.

Please don't oversimplify my post into an issue where I am blaming parents and giving the educational system a pass. But I do say that we as a society tend to say the right things about education but not really do anything to fix it. Ted you are in one of the strong segments of education in the country, I know Boston, like many cities, has had a lacking education system at times, but you are in a strong, high tax, high results segment of the country.

I still suspect that even in your children's school there are ways to go an an accept mediocrity as an education.

Many of our nation's schools provide excellent educational opportunities, but even at many of the top schools, pursuing education in earnest is seen by the students as a mistake.

We have some coming national problems that we need to address, namely a gap in math and technology training in the country. That gap probably cannot all be made up by our university system which is the tops in the world. And we could easily look more closely at the differing school systems around the world to improve our system.

It is a shame that we are producing such mediocre results and it is true that many nations with very poor resourecs blow us out of the water. We should study this with an open mind and try to find some better directions to go. I also agree with Leder in that often when we do take a direction at one of the administrative levels it seems to be a step back. Couple this with the American administrative system that tends to discredit loudly anyhitng that happened before and launch a "new" system that is meant to give the new administrative executive the credit, is a disruprtive and vain process. Many teachers have been through many "new" systems which primarily mean getting rid of the right and the wrong that had just been tried five years ago.

Now that's the truth in ways I can't fully describe in any single post.

I think that we have a tendency to believe that only a radical sweeping change of the system can save us from the crisis we find ourselves in, when the real answers are almost obvious.

We know what helps students. Smaller class sizes, qualified teachers, adequate facilities and streamlined administration.

A large segment of the public just refuses to believe it's so simple and insist that if we were only like parochial schools everything will be peachy.

We've done the studies and the answer to that is... no not really.

This report dealt specifically with Tennessee as an example.

Reassessing the View That American Schools Are Broken
We've carefully studied the issue for a very long time, we just haven't acted on the studies.

This is interesting. My kids attend a private (Catholic school). The school spends less than 2/3 of the amount that the local public school district (Cleveland, Ohio) spends on its pupils. The heat was out twice last winter, causing school to shut down. It does not have air conditioning. The teachers, while they are excellent and a majority have over a decade at the same school, are paid far below they are in the public schools. Their "benefits" are nearly non-existant. Most do not hold advanced degrees.

Teachers in the public schools (at least the big city districts) are well paid. Here is the schedule for Cleveland public schools: Cleveland teacher salaries. If I were a teacher there, I'd be paid $70k for about 9 months (39 weeks) of work. That's good money, equivalent to about $85k plus 4 weeks of vacation, whatever you might think. I don't buy this argument (at least for Cleveland, a habitually poor performing district) that teacher salary increases would have any effect whatsoever.

My assertion has always been that parental involvement and encouragement is the #1 problem with public schools and it is a problem that is really outside of the schools' control. Is it surprising that schools which are no longer a part of the neighborhood they are located in no longer have a community feel to it? Does it surprise anyone that when nobody attends school functions (plays, concerts, sporting events) that this is an indication of the lack of community in the schools? In contrast, my kids' school is literally packed for every single event, big or small. Parents, grandparents, and former students (!) all attend. The school is a part of the community and parents feel connected to it and want to support it.

I worked with a former teacher from South High in Cleveland. He told me he left the school district for one reason: safety. The school was out of control with kids ruling the school (his words). When the schools all have metal detectors at the doors and you have teachers assaulted on a semi-regular basis, that is probably going to hurt any instruction that might occur. He had over twenty years with the district.

Cleveland ranks fourth in the country for teacher salaries when cost of living is adjusted for.


The math on teacher salaries



So we can do away with the "teachers are underpaid" rhetoric.

Here's a look at Washington DC's spending in 2003: DC public school spending

This brings up two points in my mind, at least one of which is actually the subject of this thread.

First is the security spending. DC spends almost $250 per pupil in security costs. Neighboring districts spend a fraction of that (10-25%). I'm sure that districts are being pillaged by textbook printers, but $180 per kid could buy a lot of books (assuming DC needs books).



To the subject is this tidbit:


Oddly, two of those three districts spend LESS per special education pupil than they spend on average. Hmm... And yet DCPS more per special education pupil than on the general population and this colors that unfavorably. You sometimes wonder how these people think or whether or not they actually examine what's going on. Why should DC have more special education students than the neighboring communities? Is being poorer automatically mean you are more likely to be a special ed?

And this tidbit:

(emphasis mine)
So the buildings are CROWDED. Curious.

As far as class size goes, the debate is not finished. The Class Size Debate



In conclusion, I think it is hard to draw many conclusions based upon the evidence that we have at hand. So much of it is conflicting and conflicts with anecdotal evidence (which, granted, is of limited usefulness).

Amlord, I know that in AZ, the districts no one wants to work in (because of neighborhood/lack of parental involvement and support/poor administration) are usually the districts where they pay is highest. It's the only way to get teachers to stay or even to consider teaching in such a school. AZ teacher pay is ridiculously low (my computer is acting crazy and it won't let me pull up another IE window, so I'll have to come back and add stats later). I know that the highest salary I've heard of is in the Dysart district, historically one of the absolute worst districts (in terms of performance) in the state. I believe the starting salary there is in the 32K range, though I could be wrong. My mother-in-law is a K teacher who will retire in 3 years (she's been teaching long enough to retire now, but some of those years weren't in AZ and don't count toward her retirement). She barely makes enough money to support herself now, let alone how hard it was for her to raise two boys alone with no child support. She works in a district in which all of the schools are on warning from NCLB AYP standards. Her district is 95% non-English speaking and the children usually come to her knowing a few letters of the alphabet, maybe how to count to five, and that's about it. She had 32 Kindergarteners with NO AIDE last year. Some of the kids didn't have desks/chairs and she buys a great deal of the supplies the students need with her own money because parents can't afford it (she really can't either, but she's a dedicated teacher, so she does what she has to do). Certainly in her district, more money would do a whole lot of good...it just has to be directed at the right things (classroom expenditures...I'd be curious to see the stats on classroom expenditures as related to administrative expenses in most AZ schools - her district is only 4 schools, I assume that means a lot more administrative money per student than in larger districts). Not all problems can be solved by throwing money at them...but there are certainly MANY places in which money IS a huge factor and where money is being spent for the wrong things.



ITA with the issue of parental involvement being #1. I definitely believe that the system is extremely flawed (the wrong people making decisions about where money is to be spent and of course NCLB and standardized testing nonsense are the two biggest issues for me), but I think in the end, parents really have a lot of the blame. Most of the behavior issues fall back on parents (and a great many of the problems teachers have today in the classroom is a result of disruptive behavior). Parents are the ones who set the standard for behavior and what is expected. Teachers are not parents to all of the students in their classroom and they should not have to be. Preparing your child for school involves much more than ABCs and 123s. And many parents aren't even doing THAT much to prepare their children for school. I really think there's a big difference between parental involvement today and parental involvement just 20 years ago.

When talking about my generation and the current one, I like to use third grade as a comparison. It's when I believe kids really start becoming independent students (and currently in AZ, it's when the state version of standardized test, AIMS, begins). There is a such a VAST difference in performance and retention between the two groups, just 20 years apart (I was in third grade in 1987). We still have the same money issues we had then (low teacher pay, standardized tests, etc.), but I think parents were more involved in education twenty years ago. It wasn't just a matter of dropping your kid off at 8 and picking them up at 3:30 (I seem to recall school days being about 20 minutes longer than they are today...that's probably an issue, too) and expecting the teacher to be completely responsible for learning.



The problem with a merit pay system, IMO, is that the best teachers will not have any incentive to work in the areas in which they are needed most. Teachers would flock to high performing areas if they knew their pay depended upon the students' performance. That's just common sense. Paying teachers based upon student performance is also a sure-fire way to increase dishonesty and cheating and to eventually eliminate any atual "learning" . If a teacher knew that he or she would be paid more if his/her students did better on a standardized test, I'm sure it wouldn't be long before "teaching to the test" reached a whole new level of absurdity (from teaching nothing but what is going to be covered on tests to blatant cheating). Paying teachers more money to work in more stressful environments makes sense to me. If I knew I would have to spend 3 hours a day outside of school working on curriculum, buying supplies, coming up with new ways to get kids to understand the very basic fundamentals of education, etc. I'd sure hope I was going to be rewarded for my efforts. A good teacher is not determined by the results of his/her students' standardized tests.

As for hourly earning comparisons, I've heard that argument before, but I highly doubt those "hours" include personal time that each teacher spends on curriculum and lesson plans and other classroom duties. My mother-in-law works around 9-10 hours a day on average. Most teachers work at least 8 hour days during the school year (plus mandatory teacher's meetings throughout the year)...just because the students are not in the classroom does not mean teachers are not on the clock. And again, this doesn't take into account how much time they spend outside of the classroom on things that are required of them - such as lesson plans and grading papers. On an average day, my mother-in-law goes to school at 6:30 a.m (school begins at 7:30) and goes home between 4:30 and 5:30 (school is out at 2:10 for kindergarteners, but teachers must stay on campus until 3:30). Then when she gets home, she grades papers, works on lesson plans, etc. Teachers also return to work usually at least a week prior to students returning in the fall and often stay up to a week after students are out for the summer. Here in AZ, summer breaks are only 2 months long (end the last week of May or first week of June go back the first or second week of August), so that leaves teachers with only about 6-7 weeks of actual "off time" in the summer. I'd say teacher pay (at least where I live) is roughly equivalent to that of our service men and women. My dh makes a decent amount on paper after nine years in the Army, but when it boils down to the actual hours he is required to work, he doesn't make nearly enough for what his job entails.

I think there are a lot of things wrong with our current system. No one thing is going to solve the problem with our education system, be it money, parents, teachers, administration, or getting rid of the worthless NCLB. Money is a factor, as are all of the other things mentioned. You can't throw money at the problem...you have to figure out exactly where money is truly needed (and no, superintendents and other high-level administrators who rarely step foot in a classroom don't need to get a new raise every time more money comes in) and fund those things accordingly.

Came back to add some AZ salary stats:
From [url:www.azcentral.com/rsslinks/283130]AZ Central[/url]


The Peoria district is where I attended school. It happens to be one of the best districts in the metro PHX area in terms of performance. The Deer Valley district is another good district. I'm slightly surprised that our average salary is as high as it is (though $43K is certainly nothing to write home about), only because my familiarity with starting salaries is that they are considerably lower than that. We must have a state full of teachers getting ready to retire, lol! I have to go back and open the other link I saw regarding stats when I'm done here, but there was a report about teacher salaries decreasing while administrator salaries are increasing.

Also of note in this article is the administrator's comment about the different ways school districts can code their expenditures. Kinda makes you wonder how often the superintendent's "business trips" are being counted as a "classroom expenditure", lol.

from the Arizona Daily Star:



This same article mentioned a decline of .1% in teacher's salaries with a 1.1% increase in administrators salaries. And the fact that teacher salaries are not keeping up with inflation.

Thunderstorm... lost post... long post... restraining Fist of Death...

Maybe I can do this with fewer words.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the trouble in that state's public school funding system is on an order of magnitude that can only be called appalling. I've already posted the description to this thread.

Teachers in high poverty and/or lower performing schools tend to have less experience and less pay. For proof check below.
Link


Statistically, yes.

The medical community blames environmental factors.

Hanushek, as usual, stands alone in his analysis of class size and its affect on performance. I've addressed his research directly, his own number tend to prove the opposite of his claims. The STAR study is the best we have to date and it shows the positive relationship loud and clear.

Arizona is yet a another state that lost in court over its school funding repeatedly in Roosevelt Elementary School District No. 66 v. Bishop and Hull v. Albrecht, everywhere you look funding matters.

Edited to Add;
I mean I'm not saying I don't trust the Hoover Institution...
wait... no.

I'm a sayin' it.

We have had this debate on in several threads. I applaud your detailed and researched report, but I would think you would know better than to try to slip this line by. As KM said, many times this pay is essentially a bonus of combat pay for tough teaching conditions. Everyone suffers in that environment and money isn't enough to keep many teachers in this situation. The usual line is teaching a few years in these types of schools, gaining experience and learning how to teach and then get out of Dodge on the first available stagecoach.

You post is simply not comprehensive enough to dismiss the notion that teachers are underpaid. I live it. The other problem with using the 10 month job approach is that most teachers are left scrambling for income during the off months. That pay is rarely stellar.

I wonder in your Catholic school if spending per pupil is dramatically lower when the Catholic church expenses for the school are added in. Don't know, just wondering.

And this is my point. We “allow” this to take place at the highest levels of a school system.


How about merit pay for student “improvement” in performance – then the worst schools would have the highest potential for merit pay?





Ya lets just blame those parents and the NCLB tests – give me a break please. No one likes to have someone looking over their shoulders but to me the “tests” are the best thing that ever happened to the system.

And I really hate the idiotic statement by teachers Unions that teaches have to “teach to the test”. I say please DO teach to the test – which by the way cover the core knowledge the kid needs in a subject.

In MA when they started the tests (MCAS) we were told by the schools that the test would have a 50% “failure “rate – and they were right. Disgraceful – but enlightening and ever since the scores have improved – so spare me the ire about tests that tell parents just haw crappy their schools are.

That said the teachers are victims to the “let em pass and move em out” mentality that started in the late 60s with the “social promotions”. Hey if you want parents “involved” then send the disruptive kid home with the truant officer or a cop. MAKE the parents come ion or boot the kid.

What out crappy system does is punish the good kids and allow the thugs to run the classrooms as Amlord points out above – that is not the parent’s fault that is the School’s fault for allowing it to happen.

I rest my case. In the worst districts, more money for teacher pay is NOT going to solve the problem. The problem is not with funding (why is it that the most troubled districts in the country are amongst the highest in per pupil expenditure?) but with the administrative structure and with the ver attitude of the teachers, the students, and (perhaps most importantly) the parents. The schools are bad because the parents allow them to be bad. They allow their kids to get away with behaviors that drive good teachers out, force good students to either avoid school or pretend like they don't like it, and generally provide a poor learning environment.

Does "combat" pay get paid other than in war zones, in this case academic war zones?

I freely admit that some districts across the country do without, but when we talk about an education gap with other countries, these aren't the districts we are talking about. I also will agree that rural districts have lower teacher pay. Of course, cost of living is lower there as well.

The talk of low teacher pay (the oldest and most persistent of talking points) is outdated and probably does keep some of the best and brightest out of teaching. I know that the Education majors I knew in college were usually transfers from "tougher" disciplines like Pharmacy and Engineering. Very few people that I knew of went to college thinking about becoming a teacher. However, if I knew I could make a comparable salary with a month (or three!) of vacation after fifteen years, I might have considered it. By the way, teacher pay across the country rose by over 30% in the decade between 1993 and 2003. Source

Keep in mind that nationally, 80% of spending on education is on salaries and fringe benefits (increasingly on the latter).


Yes, the parish subsidizes. I don't know the exact amount, but I have heard that the parish kicks in an amount equal to the tuition. That tuition is about $3,000 per student, making the total education cost $6,000 per pupil. Waaay below the amount spent in Cleveland public schools.

As far as spending per pupil and test score correlation goes, again when one looks to Ohio schools, we see data that is unable to be interpreted. More school money?



We cannot extract meaningful data because so many districts do things differently. And because nobody takes a "best practices" approach, the problems in urban districts linger, for multiple reasons.

The 'idiotic statement' about teaching to the test refers not to covering the core knowledge in a manner in which the information will be remembered and actually "learned", but to teaching just enough so that the kids can pass the test (often leaving out all other subject areas in the process). "Teaching to the test", in most instances, means that social studies and science are rarely covered (if at all) in order to make sure that English and Math tests will be passed. Now, I'm not going to argue that being able to pass these tests is a bad thing...not at all. I was one of those 99 percentile kids growing up on the Iowa tests and I'm sure dd will follow in my footsteps when she starts with the AIMS tests. But I don't want her education to suffer as a result of such importance being placed on these tests. What I am seeing (working in the classroom where these tests are given) is that other subjects are suffering. Believe me there's nothing wrong with covering the core knowledge...but not at the expense of a more well-rounded education (in my opinion).

Can you back that with evidence? A study perhaps?

The fact is that district numbers do not tell the whole story as the last study I posted shows clearly. Poor performing schools tend to have less well payed teachers. The Ohio Supreme Court has already proven that poor districts tend to have less funds overall.

It's not just "rural" districts as anyone who reads the studies or court cases can see. The unifying factor is poverty, a small property tax base. That's where the money problems originate.


It's actually only a small point in my argument, but I'm curious about such a statement.

If it has such an effect, why is the concern outdated?

Well then look at the study data, or the court decisions, or (I hate using this argument, but it applies)
use common sense.

Classroom resources affect student learning. Is that really a shock?

Eeyore, wouldn't this indicate that money/teacher pay is not either the real problem, or more importantly, necessarily the solution? It seems to be the environment that is the issue, and that is not always a problem that throwing money at will fix, as your discussion here with Amlord bears out.

Ah, the enduring power of the anecdote.

Are we then ignoring the fact that the opposite it typically true?

That poorly performing schools have less well-payed less experienced teachers?

Anecdotal?

North Central School District (Ohio)



http://www.homesurfer.com/schoolreports/vi...m?LEAID=3905056


How can this poor district in Creston, Ohio and the surroundings perform so well when the spend so much less than other districts? Guess what--nobody cares. Administrators in Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, or Cincinnati have no interest in copying the techniques of this little district from nowhere that spends half the amount per kid that they do.

Here is a summary of all Ohio schools: http://www.schoolmatters.com/pdf/addendum_...o65addendum.pdf. What seems to correlate is economically disadvantaged enrollment and poor performance or district size (larger being worse) and performance. Spending seems superfluous. Some of the worst performing districts (Akron 56% passing Cleveland 46% passing, Columbus 48%, Cleveland Heights 55%, Cincinnati 54% Dayton 38% Toledo 57%) spend far, far more than the average: (Akron $9154 Cleveland 10199 Columbus 9946 Cleveland Heights 12002 Cincinnati 9677 Dayton 9090 Toledo 9712 ). These seven districts educate over a quarter million students. Recall that the state averages a 74% passing rate and an average spending of $7389. Who can say that these districts need even more money than the thousands more per pupil already being spent on average on pupils in these districts?

[By the way, I'm unsure why the data for the different quotes differs so greatly. One source has average spending in Ohio at $10348 and the other has $7389. The data for North Central Local is even lower on the source with the higher state average $5759]

Given the range of numbers from the sources cited I have a question.

What are these different techniques?

Or are the numbers just different for the same unexplained reasons?

I've already show that with Cincinnati the within district inequities, with more money going to schools that serve students from economically advantaged homes, can distort our understanding.

Furthermore when a district must educated 25 times more students than tiny Creston are we to assume cost increase linearly? Might class size and administrative complexity have much to do with it?

Even your own sources say funding matters. The opening S&P graph shows the positive relationship, the house search site rated Creston at less than one (0.9) out of five because its spending is so low ("5 is best" as they say).
Edited to Add:
...and if this data is post Abbot are they adding in the huge repair costs that decision highlighted the need for?

Yes, the one link was from a funding site. They rank the Creston district a 0.9 out of 5 because its spending per pupil and capital spending are so low.

And YET the district is ranked EXCELLENT by the State of Ohio. A huge disconnect between criticizing funding and examining results.

To illustrate the absurdity further, let's examine Cleveland, a district we know to be poor.

http://www.homesurfer.com/schoolreports/vi...fcity=CLEVELAND


Cleveland spends a lot of money per pupil compared to other districts. Its results are POOR (oh, wait, ACADEMIC WATCH). I wonder what the Ohio Department of Education says about Cleveland public schools?
Look at the results. Notice that the teachers are more qualified than the Creston teachers (99.9% with bachelor's degress, 40% have Master's degrees). Recall that they spend more. Oddly, every single student in Cleveland is economically challenged. I find that hard to believe, but whatever. The district met 0 out of 25 state performance indicators.


No, costs should not increase linearly. They should decrease. It is an economic concept known as economies of scale. Even if the costs do not decrease, they should never increase. If they do, then we should create 25 small districts instead of one large one.

Large districts are a mess as a rule. I propose it has nothing to do with money and everything to do with a sense of community and giving a damn about what happens at school.

Curious: i don't know where this stat comes from, but I have a hard time believing it -- especially the emphasis on fringe benefits -- *unless*

You count teacher training as a fringe benefit. Many public schools, especially in urban areas, pay their teachers' way through grad school, and other departments of study. Then there's also conventions.

Now we could debate how much is or is not accomplished at a teacher's convention... but certainly teacher's training is a worthwhile expense. We're not talking about a dental care program that will pay for a full mouth of gold caps or an automobile... we're talking about an investment in the workforce that, logically, is promptly returned into the school system itself.

So I'm not sure that holds up as an example of teacher having the good life.

An outlier, yes. I notice you haven't provided the supposed "techniques" that allow this to occur.

The trends all point towards a positive relationship between funding and achievement.

Should we ignore the bulk of the evidence?

It makes more sense to point out that when some schools break the trend then the individual circumstances should be investigated. How much of that urban spending was to repair schools that investigators called "decayed carcass from an era long passed"?


The economy of scale issue is a valid point however the conclusion here I do not follow.

I provided a lot of studies in this thread that indicate the relationship between spending and performance. In return we get vague assertions about "giving a damn."

It is ridiculous to believe that parents in urban environments love their kids any less than suburban parents, so where is the evidence that "a sense of community" has a greater affect than teacher qualifications and adequate facilities?

HUH????

If you must...
http://www.ontheissues.org/VoteMatch/q10_2006.asp
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16478
http://www.publicpurpose.com/pp-edpp.htm
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10...ournalCode=qjec

Seriously.

Show me ONE article that says that Public Schools out perform private schools.





Oh man. Come on Turnea.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cb_20.htm (by a Judge none the less... you should like this one)
http://www.heritage.org/Research/UrbanIssues/BG1128.cfm (all the sources are posted on this one)

The thing is that inner city schools, regardless of spending, won't turn out better students unless the parents and communities get behind the notion of education. It's Maslow's hierarchy of needs really. It also has to do with the sociology of poverty in America. Why go to college? Dad did just fine without it. People really think that way.

Amlord (and others, including myself) have proven unequiovally that:
1. Private schools outperform Public schools
2. Private schools spend less money

Tell me, Turnea, with some objectivity, why more MONEY would make a difference?
Your posts that show that the teachers' unions state that they've got a correlation or two between spending and performance are far outweighed by the immense data that states otherwise.

You really ought to set your bars higher, this makes life too easy.

Link

However I never disagreed that private schools tend to perform better, I merely asked you provide data that they do so on fewer resources and give evidence for how they are able to do so.

Approach this rationally and describe the actual differences between private and public schools. If private schools perform better then the key must be in these differences correct.

Well, what is it?

Despite what politicians may say about vouchers, there can never be enough to empty our failing schools. I'd love the voucher idea, if it didn't mean millions of children being left behind.

I suggest you review the thread then, Amlord own sources pointed to the positive relationship between spending and performance and I've provided many studies that do the same.

..and not one of them is from a teacher's union.

Again the tests are not derived by Martians form another planet but by education experts who look at world education standards (and then water them down some here in MA) and I maintain that if we really want a decent system we MUST provide kids with this level of knowledge. And if that can pass this test why have that not “learned” – what is different from any other test? I have seen the tests my kids take and I strongly disagree.

In fact the “writing” test has actually got teachers now focusing on sentence structure etc. – Which they were not doing before. My kids write better no because of this – so I don’t buy this argument


And I believe the tests should cover all sciences as well but some tests are better than none and we know that without them the kids are just not getting it and the parents do not even know