6 ms·

We already have government schools that are closed by the edict issued by teachers’ union. How having government childcare would help?

quadrifoliate 6y ago
> We already have government schools that are closed by the edict issued by teachers’ union. How having government childcare would help? The government gives you money each month for each child you have, and forces your employer to allow you to work part-time. > the edict issued by teachers’ union This is greatly misinformed. Schools in the US are underfunded and have scarce resources to deal with the healthcare nightmare that is COVID. The unions simply are the medium through which some school organizations had to be convinced of this rather obvious problem.
- albertop 6y ago
  $23k+ per pupil in NYC is underfunded?
  - quadrifoliate 6y ago
    If that number was pre-COVID, then yes. No school system budgeted for healthcare-level precautions. Also, it doesn't seem overly surprising given the cost of living in NYC and how expensive everything else is. If the median price of a home in NYC is $799K [1] (likely the average is even higher), an average spending of $23K per pupil is not too surprising. [1] https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/new-york-real-estate-market/ https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/new-york-real-estate-m...
    - eanzenberg 6y ago
      Who do you suppose pays for it then? At that level public schools shouldn’t exist as private do a better job by all metrics.
      - quadrifoliate 6y ago
        > At that level public schools shouldn’t exist as private do a better job by all metrics. There is no real "that level"; average are misleading without better context. Bill Gates walks into a bar and "the average net worth is 1 billion per person". > At that level public schools shouldn’t exist as private do a better job by all metrics. Private schools have the liberty to pick and choose their students. A special needs student that requires extensive care throughout the day will be rejected by a private school, but the public schools have to accommodate the student. Most private enterprises are efficient precisely because they select their customers with a view to minimum cost and maximum revenue. This is fundamentally incompatible with a public teaching system that has to serve everyone.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > private do a better job by all metrics. Not much, if at all, when you correct for student body makeup. Private schools do a good job of selecting the students that would do better anyway.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      > If the median price of a home in NYC is $799K A pointless stat in the context of school spending. A ton of NYC residents can’t afford homes and still send kids to school.
      - quadrifoliate 6y ago
        > A pointless stat in the context of school spending. A ton of NYC residents can’t afford homes and still send kids to school. How is it pointless? Do you think house prices don't affect the rent that those people have to pay to be residents? Where do you think all the employees of NYC schools stay? I mean, sure, quite a few probably stay in New Jersey and such, but in general the NYC area has inflated prices of everything, so I'm not overly surprised by inflated school spending.
  - gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
    How much of that goes on rent? And is that rent paid directly back to the city?
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Not much. NYC's schools (and the schools in most cities) are mostly on property that has been owned by the city for a very, very long time.
- LibertyBeta 6y ago
  For example, most Schools are in massive violation of OSHA because their air filters aren't up to the job because they can't afford to retrofit buildings to support a clean air system. The unions are trying to keep their members ALIVE not out of spite, but because some one has to take the hit.
  - briandear 6y ago
    Yet all the millions in bond issues don’t address that? That’s mismanagement, not lack of funding.
    - ryanhuff 6y ago
      Who knows? I can tell you that my wife’s 60ish year old elementary school in Southern California finally got air conditioning last year. So the bond issues aren’t flushing schools in money.
  - rectang 6y ago
    My brother teaches in an Arizona public school classroom which has one window and poor ventilation. The Security Officer for the school forbids leaving the door open because of the risk of active shooters.
    - coldcode 6y ago
      Arizona having active shooters wandering the halls of public schools all day long seems like an unlikely problem. Even given the number of school shootings in the past decade the likelihood of a single classroom getting one is way less than one of the students getting hit by a school bus in the parking lot.
- simonsarris 6y ago
  > This is greatly misinformed. Schools in the US are underfunded K-12 in the USA is more funded than almost every country on this planet. What are you talking about? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp
  - objectivetruth 6y ago
    On average, you are technically correct. But the US also has the greatest disparity in funding, which isn't visible on your link but is absolute basic conventional wisdom for any discussion of US education. Fifteen of the fifty states had per-pupil funding less than the OECD average. Our median-funded state is around Canada, around 13th in the world. If Utah were a country, it would rank in the 30s, somewhere around the Slovak Republic. https://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html https://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-educ...
    - pas 6y ago
      [why was objectivetruth's comment downvoted to 'dead'?] Also should/are those figures adjustment for cost of living for the particular state?
  - quadrifoliate 6y ago
    > K-12 in the USA is more funded than almost every country on this planet. What are you talking about? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp As I have said elsewhere in this thread, statistics viewed in isolation are not useful, and are often used for shock value rather than to provide an actual insight. That article of yours refers to the OECD. The US has the highest population in the OECD countries (325 million), almost 3 times the next highest country (Mexico at 129 million). A greater and likely more diverse population with no social safety net means more challenges. Also, are you sure that the USA and say, Japan have exactly equivalent facilities for all students, including special needs students? Also, there's the issue of adapting to different cultures and languages, both of which American schools are far more accepting about. Japanese schools have gotten in hot water for forcing students to dye their hair black to maintain uniformity [1]. So yeah, making apples-to-apples comparisons between the US education system and other countries is hard at best, and meaningless at worst. The US has the challenges of being the largest population in the OECD, as well as being the most diverse culturally, the most liberal in terms of social norms, and not having a meaningful social safety net, particularly for healthcare. This is a unique set of challenges that requires an equivalent amount of funding to tackle. ------------- [1] https://japantoday.com/category/national/tokyo-public-schools-will-stop-forcing-students-to-dye-their-hair-black-official-promises https://japantoday.com/category/national/tokyo-public-school...
- fortran77 6y ago
  Schools in the US are _not_ underfunded. There's some issues with unequal funding (which I think is a real, large, problems). https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/school-spending.html#:~:text=MAY%2021%2C%202019%20%E2%80%94%20The%20amount,new%20tables%20released%20today%20by https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/school-s...
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >Schools in the US are underfunded This is pure flasehood. The US spends more per child than pretty much all of Europe. Maybe you meant they're under performing because while not lacking in money they are most certainly lacking in outputs. I'll happily cite sourced if you want but it's well known and well documented and written about you can corroborate it easily with whatever sources you find reliable.

quadrifoliate 6y ago

> We already have government schools that are closed by the edict issued by teachers’ union. How having government childcare would help? The government gives you money each month for each child you have, and forces your employer to allow you to work part-time. > the edict issued by teachers’ union This is greatly misinformed. Schools in the US are underfunded and have scarce resources to deal with the healthcare nightmare that is COVID. The unions simply are the medium through which some school organizations had to be convinced of this rather obvious problem.

albertop 6y ago
$23k+ per pupil in NYC is underfunded?
- quadrifoliate 6y ago
  If that number was pre-COVID, then yes. No school system budgeted for healthcare-level precautions. Also, it doesn't seem overly surprising given the cost of living in NYC and how expensive everything else is. If the median price of a home in NYC is $799K [1] (likely the average is even higher), an average spending of $23K per pupil is not too surprising. [1] https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/new-york-real-estate-market/ https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/new-york-real-estate-m...
  - eanzenberg 6y ago
    Who do you suppose pays for it then? At that level public schools shouldn’t exist as private do a better job by all metrics.
    - quadrifoliate 6y ago
      > At that level public schools shouldn’t exist as private do a better job by all metrics. There is no real "that level"; average are misleading without better context. Bill Gates walks into a bar and "the average net worth is 1 billion per person". > At that level public schools shouldn’t exist as private do a better job by all metrics. Private schools have the liberty to pick and choose their students. A special needs student that requires extensive care throughout the day will be rejected by a private school, but the public schools have to accommodate the student. Most private enterprises are efficient precisely because they select their customers with a view to minimum cost and maximum revenue. This is fundamentally incompatible with a public teaching system that has to serve everyone.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > private do a better job by all metrics. Not much, if at all, when you correct for student body makeup. Private schools do a good job of selecting the students that would do better anyway.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    > If the median price of a home in NYC is $799K A pointless stat in the context of school spending. A ton of NYC residents can’t afford homes and still send kids to school.
    - quadrifoliate 6y ago
      > A pointless stat in the context of school spending. A ton of NYC residents can’t afford homes and still send kids to school. How is it pointless? Do you think house prices don't affect the rent that those people have to pay to be residents? Where do you think all the employees of NYC schools stay? I mean, sure, quite a few probably stay in New Jersey and such, but in general the NYC area has inflated prices of everything, so I'm not overly surprised by inflated school spending.
- gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
  How much of that goes on rent? And is that rent paid directly back to the city?
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Not much. NYC's schools (and the schools in most cities) are mostly on property that has been owned by the city for a very, very long time.
LibertyBeta 6y ago
For example, most Schools are in massive violation of OSHA because their air filters aren't up to the job because they can't afford to retrofit buildings to support a clean air system. The unions are trying to keep their members ALIVE not out of spite, but because some one has to take the hit.
- briandear 6y ago
  Yet all the millions in bond issues don’t address that? That’s mismanagement, not lack of funding.
  - ryanhuff 6y ago
    Who knows? I can tell you that my wife’s 60ish year old elementary school in Southern California finally got air conditioning last year. So the bond issues aren’t flushing schools in money.
- rectang 6y ago
  My brother teaches in an Arizona public school classroom which has one window and poor ventilation. The Security Officer for the school forbids leaving the door open because of the risk of active shooters.
  - coldcode 6y ago
    Arizona having active shooters wandering the halls of public schools all day long seems like an unlikely problem. Even given the number of school shootings in the past decade the likelihood of a single classroom getting one is way less than one of the students getting hit by a school bus in the parking lot.
simonsarris 6y ago
> This is greatly misinformed. Schools in the US are underfunded K-12 in the USA is more funded than almost every country on this planet. What are you talking about? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp
- objectivetruth 6y ago
  On average, you are technically correct. But the US also has the greatest disparity in funding, which isn't visible on your link but is absolute basic conventional wisdom for any discussion of US education. Fifteen of the fifty states had per-pupil funding less than the OECD average. Our median-funded state is around Canada, around 13th in the world. If Utah were a country, it would rank in the 30s, somewhere around the Slovak Republic. https://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html https://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-educ...
  - pas 6y ago
    [why was objectivetruth's comment downvoted to 'dead'?] Also should/are those figures adjustment for cost of living for the particular state?
- quadrifoliate 6y ago
  > K-12 in the USA is more funded than almost every country on this planet. What are you talking about? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp As I have said elsewhere in this thread, statistics viewed in isolation are not useful, and are often used for shock value rather than to provide an actual insight. That article of yours refers to the OECD. The US has the highest population in the OECD countries (325 million), almost 3 times the next highest country (Mexico at 129 million). A greater and likely more diverse population with no social safety net means more challenges. Also, are you sure that the USA and say, Japan have exactly equivalent facilities for all students, including special needs students? Also, there's the issue of adapting to different cultures and languages, both of which American schools are far more accepting about. Japanese schools have gotten in hot water for forcing students to dye their hair black to maintain uniformity [1]. So yeah, making apples-to-apples comparisons between the US education system and other countries is hard at best, and meaningless at worst. The US has the challenges of being the largest population in the OECD, as well as being the most diverse culturally, the most liberal in terms of social norms, and not having a meaningful social safety net, particularly for healthcare. This is a unique set of challenges that requires an equivalent amount of funding to tackle. ------------- [1] https://japantoday.com/category/national/tokyo-public-schools-will-stop-forcing-students-to-dye-their-hair-black-official-promises https://japantoday.com/category/national/tokyo-public-school...
fortran77 6y ago
Schools in the US are _not_ underfunded. There's some issues with unequal funding (which I think is a real, large, problems). https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/school-spending.html#:~:text=MAY%2021%2C%202019%20%E2%80%94%20The%20amount,new%20tables%20released%20today%20by https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/school-s...
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Schools in the US are underfunded This is pure flasehood. The US spends more per child than pretty much all of Europe. Maybe you meant they're under performing because while not lacking in money they are most certainly lacking in outputs. I'll happily cite sourced if you want but it's well known and well documented and written about you can corroborate it easily with whatever sources you find reliable.