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Looking at simple percentage deltas is rather misleading. It's important to understand the context and the causes behind those numbers. In Kansas, for example,

by dnomad 9y ago

Looking at simple percentage deltas is rather misleading. It's important to understand the context and the causes behind those numbers. In Kansas, for example, education funding has been deeply cut in non-obvious ways. It's so bad that the State Supreme Court has been forced to intervene and declare the current funding of the schools to be unconstitutional! [1][2] (Think about that for a second -- these are highly conservative judges, not "activist judges," deploying the logic of civil rights on behalf of school children.) The same problem pervades the Midwest -- except Minnesota. (Minnesota is very unique in the Midwest for actually investing in education and producing high levels of educational attainment [3][4].) The end result is that no matter how cheap the land or low the taxes operating and growing a knowledge-driven business in much of the Midwest is a really a non-starter. [1] http://kcur.org/post/5-reasons-kansas-supreme-court-found-state-s-school-funding-unconstitutional#stream/0 http://kcur.org/post/5-reasons-kansas-supreme-court-found-st... [2] http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article176606731.html http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article17... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/opinion/sunday/right-vs-left-in-the-midwest.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/opinion/sunday/right-vs-le... [4] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-03-02/minnesota-ranks-no-3-among-best-states https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-03-02/...

haberman 9y ago
> In Kansas, for example, education funding has been deeply cut in non-obvious ways. Even your own articles don't say anything about a cut. Your first article says Kansas added $300M to their educational budget. The lawsuit came because this was judged not enough of an increase, and because the increase was judged to be unevenly distributed across districts. > It's so bad that the State Supreme Court has been forced to intervene and declare the current funding of the schools to be unconstitutional! The implication here is that no enlightened coastal state would have such a problem. But in fact when the Atlantic wrote about underfunded schools in 2016, the case they centered on was in Connecticut. And they wrote "since the 1970s, nearly every state has had litigation over equitable education". [0] In 2012 WaPo wrote about underfunded schools in Connecticut, New York, Washington, Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas. [1] This issue is not unique to midwestern states. > The same problem pervades the Midwest -- except Minnesota. (Minnesota is very unique in the Midwest for actually investing in education and producing high levels of educational attainment If you follow your US News article through to its actual ranking of PreK-12 education, you'll find that Iowa comes in literally right after Minnesota (they are #7 and #8). [2] After that, you'll see: #14 Illinois #15 Nebraska #16 Wisconsin #17 Indiana #19 Missouri #21 Michigan #22 South Dakota [...] #26 Washington #31 New York #37 Oregon #44 California I can't speak to the Midwest's suitability for starting a company. But the K-12 system in the Midwest appears to be relatively strong. I did PreK-5 in Iowa and felt I had a strong educational foundation. I believe it is a place that respects and supports education. I don't think that painting the midwest as an educational backwater is accurate or fair. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/property-taxes-and-unequal-schools/497333/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/propert... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/25/how-grossly-underfunded-are-public-schools/?utm_term=.1784ab88ee68 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/... [2] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/prek-12 https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/p...

by dnomad 9y ago

haberman 9y ago

> In Kansas, for example, education funding has been deeply cut in non-obvious ways. Even your own articles don't say anything about a cut. Your first article says Kansas added $300M to their educational budget. The lawsuit came because this was judged not enough of an increase, and because the increase was judged to be unevenly distributed across districts. > It's so bad that the State Supreme Court has been forced to intervene and declare the current funding of the schools to be unconstitutional! The implication here is that no enlightened coastal state would have such a problem. But in fact when the Atlantic wrote about underfunded schools in 2016, the case they centered on was in Connecticut. And they wrote "since the 1970s, nearly every state has had litigation over equitable education". [0] In 2012 WaPo wrote about underfunded schools in Connecticut, New York, Washington, Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas. [1] This issue is not unique to midwestern states. > The same problem pervades the Midwest -- except Minnesota. (Minnesota is very unique in the Midwest for actually investing in education and producing high levels of educational attainment If you follow your US News article through to its actual ranking of PreK-12 education, you'll find that Iowa comes in literally right after Minnesota (they are #7 and #8). [2] After that, you'll see: #14 Illinois #15 Nebraska #16 Wisconsin #17 Indiana #19 Missouri #21 Michigan #22 South Dakota [...] #26 Washington #31 New York #37 Oregon #44 California I can't speak to the Midwest's suitability for starting a company. But the K-12 system in the Midwest appears to be relatively strong. I did PreK-5 in Iowa and felt I had a strong educational foundation. I believe it is a place that respects and supports education. I don't think that painting the midwest as an educational backwater is accurate or fair. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/property-taxes-and-unequal-schools/497333/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/propert... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/25/how-grossly-underfunded-are-public-schools/?utm_term=.1784ab88ee68 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/... [2] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/prek-12 https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/p...