Should education be free? - Page 19
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Do not derail the thread with discussions about other topics like global warming. | ||
Datz2Ez
Canada76 Posts
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Freddybear
United States126 Posts
Do you "believe in" Global Warming because that's what you were taught to believe, or have you learned enough science to understand the theory and formed your own conclusions? | ||
liberal
1116 Posts
On March 14 2012 01:30 HellRoxYa wrote: Interesting statistics but as far as this "waste" goes, there are more expenses than the teacher's personal salary. You have 1. Rent for, and maintainance of, the property in which you teach. 2. Administrative personell (which should probably be around another 50k$ per classroom) 3. Cleaning staff, also salary for any fulltime maintainance worker, on a big school this might be several people. 4. Books, educational material, nowadays, computers and technical equipment. Also lab equipment, protection. 5. Extra expenses. (Perhaps you need to make sure you follow a certain standard or code set up by the state, requiring you to hire an expensive consultant. Or fix vandalism to a number of lockers. Etc) Obviously this is a lot more than the estimated 55k$ per teacher. At least try to be honest when presenting problems such as this one. I'm sure there are a lot of problems and a 740k$ severance package is obviously unacceptable. A year's pay might have been more in line (rather than just over 6 year's pay). Do you know what you could do with $436,096??? Here, let's try to figure it out together... Let's start modestly. Hire a teacher for $55,000 a year. Now I don't wanna spend a bunch of time figuring out rent, utilities, janitorial expenses, upkeep, internet.... Let's just put all 18 kids in a luxury hotel suite every day for class, at $500 a day. And we still have $246,096 left over. Hmmm let's double the teachers pay.... $191, 096.... Buy every student an $800 imac computer that they can keep when school is over, for the rest of their student life! $176,696..... Let's buy every student a $5 lunch every day of the school year. Chances are our luxury hotel suite will take care of that already, but we'll assume they don't. $152,396.... Damn I'm having a hard time spending this money..... | ||
fatfail
United States386 Posts
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Heweree
United Kingdom497 Posts
On March 14 2012 01:56 Freddybear wrote: Do you "believe in" Global Warming because that's what you were taught to believe, or have you learned enough science to understand the theory and formed your own conclusions? Your idea is nice but you can't learn about everything. So sometimes you have to trust people who spent most of their life studying the subject. | ||
windzor
Denmark1013 Posts
On March 14 2012 01:16 liberal wrote: Here are some facts: The US is among the highest spenders in childhood education per pupil in the developed world, and is the highest spender in higher education per pupil. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2003-09-16-education-comparison_x.htm What do we get for that spending? Poor results. In a recent PISA test for math proficiency, which normalizes to 500, the US scored a 474, ranking below 24 other nations, some of them less developed, such as Slovak Republic, and Hungary. The governments own testing through the Department of Education, the National Assessment of Education Progress, shows only 35 percent of high school students scored proficient in reading, and only 23 percent scored proficient in math. Let's take a look at the state which was number 1 in per pupil spending: New Jersey. Only 39% of 8th graders scored proficient in reading. Math, 40%. They spend more than any other state, and yet can't reach 50% student proficiency. How much is New Jersey spending per classroom? $17,501 per student * 17.9 average students per class = $313,268 per classroom, at John F. Kennedy High School. If we estimate the teacher's salary at $55,000, that's $258,268 going somewhere besides the teacher. And this school isn't the exception, it's in the middle of spending. Abington Avenue Middle School spent $436,096 per classroom. In some schools, up to 90 cents of every dollar goes to something besides the teacher's salary. http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/09f33pub.pdf Where is that money going? Waste, fraud, abuse, excessive administrator pay... Documenting it all here would be a serious task, so here's just a taste of it: Keansburg Superintendent Barbara Trzeszkowski received a retirement and severance package of $740,000, which is in addition to her annual pension of $120,000 per year. http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/topstories/index.ssf/2008/05/_outrage_over.html Here is a NJ Commission investigation report which includes countless other examples of abuse: http://www.state.nj.us/sci/pdf/SCIHigherEdReport.pdf New Jersey has 15 times the number of administrators compared with Maryland, which is also a small state with high population density. That alone should prove that the state is in the business of paying administrators and union jobs, not educating kids. Ok, now I'm jumping into editorializing mode: Why do I bring all these facts and numbers up? Why are thy relevant? Because they illustrate that the problem is not financial, and never has been. We could throw countless billions at education, we could provide more free education than any nation on Earth, that doesn't mean the students will actually be more educated. And the reason for that is because government monopolies do not adhere to the same principles and incentives as a market. There is immense fraud, waste, abuse, and absurd union contracts. There is no accountability, neither to the public who are consuming their product, nor to the government which is paying for their product. There is no incentive to cut costs, in fact the incentive is typically to raise costs, because any reduction in spending is met with a potential reduction in next year's budget. There is no competition, because parents do not have a choice of the public school they can send their child to, and besides, they are all run under the same system anyway. Their largest financial incentive is to invest in convincing the public that the schools need more money. If I gave you $436,096 per year and 18 students, you are telling me you couldn't get over half of them to know reading and math at a proficient level? Most of us could, quite easily. In fact, most of us would be GLAD to receive such pay for such a job. But public education is a government run monopoly. Everyone who is saying education should be free: I agree with you. That just means the government should be PAYING for it, not RUNNING it. Here is the solution: Take the money away from the schools and administrators, give that money to the parents. Give the parents the option of where to send their child and their money. If you still want government run schools to exist, fine, but give parents the CHOICE. Accountability, competition, choice... That's better than a union cartel dictating policy and funding to the consumers they are supposed to be serving, and returning less then mediocre results for above average funding. That is hands down the best way to improve education in America, and people have been saying it for decades. The unions have spent millions to prevent it. So what you say is, if the goverment runs the schools, they suck at it and doesn't know how to. Better run them as private schools because they know how to and don't get anything out of it? If I understand you post correctly your main point is that your education suck because all your money goes to administration. But most of the contries which you rank against in the PISA has some form of free public schools. This suggest that running a good school doesn't mean it has to be run by a company. Running schools by companies is a bad thing, because they have to make money. They have to make a profit for their owners. And this makes a dilema. Because how can you not graduate people who pay you for their education? In Denmark we have free education all including free universities. At the university level the university only get money for the number of students who graduate a class, to make it like a private university, where you strife to educate more people to pass the course. The problem is this didn't happen. Several teachers felt forced to lower the standard of the education to the point where the reseachers know warn that our Masters Students education level is lowering. Now is it not known if there is a correlation. But it is pretty apparent that this doesn't work. Universities do too many things to get more money. In a private school this would be worse, because if you don't have high grades people wont chose your school so teachers can be inclined to not only lower the graduation level, but also the top grade level will be lowered, all because of money. The problem with US spendings on school isn't because the goverment is running it, but because the the money is spent wrongly because of stuff like unions and such. A company wont change things, it might look better on paper, but the fraud is just moved into places where you can't detect them on paper, in and audit. | ||
Freddybear
United States126 Posts
On March 14 2012 02:01 TanTzoR wrote: Your idea is nice but you can't learn about everything. So sometimes you have to trust people who spent most of their life studying the subject. And so you are indoctrinated to trust people with a particular political agenda. | ||
liberal
1116 Posts
On March 14 2012 02:05 windzor wrote: So what you say is, if the goverment runs the schools, they suck at it and doesn't know how to. Better run them as private schools because they know how to and don't get anything out of it? If I understand you post correctly your main point is that your education suck because all your money goes to administration. But most of the contries which you rank against in the PISA has some form of free public schools. This suggest that running a good school doesn't mean it has to be run by a company. Running schools by companies is a bad thing, because they have to make money. They have to make a profit for their owners. And this makes a dilema. Because how can you not graduate people who pay you for their education? In Denmark we have free education all including free universities. At the university level the university only get money for the number of students who graduate a class, to make it like a private university, where you strife to educate more people to pass the course. The problem is this didn't happen. Several teachers felt forced to lower the standard of the education to the point where the reseachers know warn that our Masters Students education level is lowering. Now is it not known if there is a correlation. But it is pretty apparent that this doesn't work. Universities do too many things to get more money. In a private school this would be worse, because if you don't have high grades people wont chose your school so teachers can be inclined to not only lower the graduation level, but also the top grade level will be lowered, all because of money. The problem with US spendings on school isn't because the goverment is running it, but because the the money is spent wrongly because of stuff like unions and such. A company wont change things, it might look better on paper, but the fraud is just moved into places where you can't detect them on paper, in and audit. On March 14 2012 01:16 liberal wrote: If you still want government run schools to exist, fine, but give parents the CHOICE. | ||
Heweree
United Kingdom497 Posts
On March 14 2012 02:05 Freddybear wrote: And so you are indoctrinated to trust people with a particular political agenda. Global warming is not political in the first place. You make it political. They have been studies on the subject, and if an overwhelming majority of scientists confirm it, yes I am willing to trust them. | ||
Dbars
United States273 Posts
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Freddybear
United States126 Posts
On March 14 2012 02:10 TanTzoR wrote: Global warming is not political in the first place. You make it political. They have been studies on the subject, and if an overwhelming majority of scientists confirm it, yes I am willing to trust them. Not political? They aren't asking countries to spend trillions of dollars to fix it? Get real, dude. That's what makes it political. And no, I am not willing to trust them. Not when they try to smear their critics instead of answering their criticism with documented facts and valid arguments. Not when they hide their data and their methods from skeptics and critics. Not when they go about trying to suppress publication of articles that are critical of their methods. And most especially not when they lie about it when their methods are finally exposed. | ||
Heweree
United Kingdom497 Posts
On March 14 2012 02:16 Freddybear wrote: Not political? They aren't asking countries to spend trillions of dollars to fix it? Get real, dude. That's what makes it political. And no, I am not willing to trust them. Not when they try to smear their critics instead of answering their criticism with documented facts and valid arguments. Not when they hide their data and their methods from skeptics and critics. Not when they go about trying to suppress publication of articles that are critical of their methods. And most especially not when they lie about it when their methods are finally exposed. Source? Evidence? So something like 90% of the scientists are liars for some sort of world wide conspiracy? Seems legit. | ||
Dagobert
Netherlands1858 Posts
On March 13 2012 15:45 NotSorry wrote: Feels kind of odd hearing people complain about that while in the US we pay 10x that each semester...., but then again a 100% increase does seem like a lot I've always thought of college as a business, it's design is to make money off of training you for future work so that in theory you can make more money, but doesn't always happen that way. Guess what, someone having it worse than you doesn't make your situation better. | ||
SySLeif
United States123 Posts
I'm starting my third year's worth of classes this summer and I have 0 debt, and most likely will have 0 debt until my senior year. In America you can get free, but you have to really work for it, which is a good thing. It weeds out people who otherwise go to college just for the heck of it or shouldn't be in college at all. It also makes the rich kids, who go to college because daddy tells them to, to pay a high tuition rate so I can go free. | ||
TBone-
United States2309 Posts
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FreddYCooL
Sweden415 Posts
On March 14 2012 02:26 SySLeif wrote: I don't think Uni education should be free or trade school. I worked my butt off getting enough scholarships to be able to go through college free and also working part time to pay for side expenses. I'm starting my third year's worth of classes this summer and I have 0 debt, and most likely will have 0 debt until my senior year. In America you can get free, but you have to really work for it, which is a good thing. It weeds out people who otherwise go to college just for the heck of it or shouldn't be in college at all. It also makes the rich kids, who go to college because daddy tells them to, to pay a high tuition rate so I can go free. And those who should go to college but due to financial reasons cannot afford it? There cannot be scholarships for all. | ||
tryummm
774 Posts
The options are: (1) Each student will pay for their own education out of their own pocket. (2) Taxpayer money is pooled then goes to pay for children's education. (3) Some combination of (1) or (2). The US employs option (2) and economists back the idea by arguing that education is a positive externality. This simply means that the well being of society is proportional to the number of people going through the school system. Therefore, if education is already payed for and therefore you can maximize the number of children going to school, you will maximize the well being of society when those children grow up and enter the workforce. However, the measurement of public happiness is theoretical, therefore people can rebuttal this idea by arguing the costs to society to fund the school system doesn't make up for the improved well being of society. | ||
Balgrog
United States1221 Posts
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Heweree
United Kingdom497 Posts
On March 14 2012 02:33 tryummm wrote: Education will never be free. The options are: (1) Each student will pay for their own education out of their own pocket. (2) Taxpayer money is pooled then goes to pay for children's education. (3) Some combination of (1) or (2). The US employs option (2) and economists back the idea by arguing that education is a positive externality. This simply means that the well being of society is proportional to the number of people going through the school system. Therefore, if education is already payed for and therefore you can maximize the number of children going to school, you will maximize the well being of society when those children grow up and enter the workforce. However, the measurement of public happiness is theoretical, therefore people can rebuttal this idea by arguing the costs to society to fund the school system doesn't make up for the improved well being of society. Omg why all the Americans are starting with "Education will never be free.", ofc it's not free. We are talking about free for the students, therefor paid by the taxpayers. | ||
WerderBremen
Germany1070 Posts
On the other hand i see the people from well saturated families. they are studying at the most expensive private universities (buying every book necessary / having a great laptop / car / making semesters in other countries).And in many cases these are the exact people who would have never received a high educational degree (to be allowed to go to university) without getting extra help (by well payed private teacher). In my opinion education must be free for everyone! People with money are heavily priviliged anyways. Higher taxes even increase the difference. | ||
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