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Hrm. That was never my experience. When I was teaching, I took the time off. I generally spent the first week gearing down, and the last month prepping, but took most of the time off or took classes. Most of my colleagues either did the same, though a few continued to work for the district teaching remedial classes over the summer, substituting, or tutoring. I don't know of anyone who waited tables or cleaned houseboats, though perhaps the low cost of living in Nevada is part of that? I also know that the year round schools never have difficulty filling positions with very well qualified teachers---even in low income areas---as there are a large number of people wanting to take those jobs. Traditional schools generally have greater difficulty. Of course, this may be symptomatic of there being a relatively small number of year round schools in the district and a somewhat larger, though stilly minority, population of teachers with a marked preference.

Of course, we can trade anecdotes 'til the cows come home---do you have any data, one way or the other? I can find a number of opinion pieces, but my google-fu is turning up nothing in terms of surveys of teachers and their preferences (this article is about the best that I can find and it is both out of date and answering a slightly different set of questions, though it seems to come down on the side of teachers in that particular district having a preference for year round schools). Have you had any better luck?

I would also note (again) that the issue of teacher compensation appears to be tangential to the issue of year round schooling. A year round schedule may exacerbate the problem, but the problem is inadequate compensation rather than the calendar cycle.

> If you read even the letters by ordinary Civil War soldiers to their families you see how far our education system has degraded

In 1870 20% of 14 year olds were totally illiterate. 100 years later it was 0.6%. In some instances letters that survive were written by having someone transcribe them for the illiterate and having someone at the other end read them aloud to illiterate spouses or parents.

> The education most Americans got in "the basics" in the 1930's (often in one-room school houses, often run by a young woman with a two-year degree) produced a generation able to build the and use the industrial might for WWII

The illiteracy rate at 14 was still an average of over 3% in the 1930s, very much higher than now.

http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/lit_hi...

And if you look at the rest of the data (i.e. the "National Center for Education" "Digest of Education Statistics" "Table 322.30") :

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_322.30.asp

You will notice, that if you breakdown the ethnicity into percentages of degrees conferred, for "computer and information sciences" for 2011-2012, you will see there were 47,384 Bachelor degrees earned by students, of which 30,211 identified as "white" (63.75%), 5,410 as "black" (11.41%), 4,008 as "hispanic" (8.45%), and 4,254 as "asian" (8.97%). There are also another 2,360 "non-resident alien" listed which no ethnicity is given.

Now looking at people working at Yahoo!, 50% White (13% less than percentage earning degrees in USA in 2011-2012), 39% "asian" (30% more than percentage earning degrees), 4% hispanic (4-5% less than percentage earning degrees), 2% black (9% less than those earning degrees).

If you look at all the other companies on that list linked in the article, you will see roughly the same trend, with "whites" having about the same proportional makeup of the companies as there are those getting degrees, asians having a much higher percentage of the workforce than are getting degrees in the US (wow, not surprising since we are importing most of this labor via H1B, green card, immigration), and blacks and hispanics having slightly lower than the amount they graduate.

Now the lower amounts of blacks and hispanics may very well be simply due to location. The companies they looked at are Silicon Valley companies, with the majority of their workforce in California. California has a much lower percentage of blacks than say Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, etc... If you even slightly believe that the percentage of graduates are equally spread out across the nation's schools based on percentage of population in the schools, and that attendance in schools more closely mimics the population in the state (not always, there are historically african american shools as well women only or male only schools, and schools certain ethnicities would never even want to go to for many reasons), and take into consideration that most people will tend to stay close to home/family when searching for a job, and you will see that the breakdown of ethnicity in Silicon Valley tech companies is probably really not that out of step with the percentage of population in the labor market in Silicon Valley.

The mods have identified you as a troll, but in case you're really this ignorant, here are some numbers showing that "patriarchal oppression" has not stopped women from becoming the majority of recipients of all degrees, up to and including doctoral degrees. This would seem to indicate that such oppression is purely the stuff of myth and legend.

For the 2009-2010 school year men received 42.6% of bachelor's degrees awarded. Rates were higher for associate's and master's degrees, but lower for doctorates. Data here.

The current schooling environment is hostile to boys.

I know this has come up a bit in recent years, but mostly it's a claim made about draconian measures to stop boys from playing games involving imaginary guns and shootings... mostly because of ineffective and ridiculous overreactions to recent school shootings.

Maybe this is having an effect, and maybe it results in alienation of some boys. But I fail to see what this has to do with the number of female teachers....

*That* is the reason they aren't good at it, they are not taught how because the teachers are predominantly female and don't know or want to know how to teach boys.

Umm, are you being sarcastic? Female school teachers have greatly outnumbered males at least for the past 150 years in the U.S. or so. (See, for example, the chart on p. 29 here.) We're not even at historical high points for female teachers -- female teachers composed roughly 80-85% of the public school teaching force from 1920 to 1950 or so. These were periods where the vast, vast majority of high school graduates and college students were male.

Now, it's possible that our culture has changed and that female teachers no longer care about educating boys (actively discriminating against them), or that boys no longer respect female teachers (or teachers in general) and therefore aren't learning well from them. Or maybe other aspects of our culture have changed overall.

But the idea that because "teachers are predominantly female" that boys can't learn is simply stupid, as even the most cursory glance at historical trends would tell you.

When collecting and analyzing data is difficult, the solution is not to stop collecting data. It's to collect more data, and try harder.

Education researchers have been collecting and analyzing data since at least 1970. Most people agree that the NAEP has the best overall data. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsrepo... There are other more specialized studies.

Diane Ravitch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... studied the data when she was an assistant secretary of education and a conservative writing editorials for the Wall Street Journal. She believed that standardized testing could tell you which teachers were good and bad, and she was trying to figure out how to do it. She finally gave up, and admitted she was wrong. It can't be done. The data was able to give broad, general trends among large populations, like black students vs. white students, or wealthy students vs. poor students, but it couldn't identify which schools were good or bad, and it definitely couldn't tell you which teachers were good or bad.

Ravitch (and every other education researcher) said that the main factor that predicted student test scores was family income. It wiped out everything else.

Further, I'd much rather have guesses based on some data, than guesses based on nothing.

That's not the way statistics works. If you have statistically invalid data, that's not "some data," that's noise. If you base hiring and firing decisions based on noise, you have unfair, arbitrary firings.

Here's an example:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03...
On Education
Evaluating New York Teachers, Perhaps the Numbers Do Lie
By MICHAEL WINERIP
March 6, 2011

A new New York City middle school teacher was doing a great job, in the opinion of her principal and everyone else, working 10-hour days, her students were getting good grades, and admission to the specialized science high schools. As the article explains, she was a good teacher in every way that you could judge a teacher.

Yet, according to a New York City high-stakes test algorithm, her students didn't improve enough from one year to the next, and they placed her in the bottom 7% of teachers. So the principal couldn't hire her again the following year, as she wanted to. However, the confidence interval of that 7% was 0 to 52%. So she could have been in the top half. Any statistician will tell you that this 7% is meaningless. I read medical studies all day, and if the confidence interval is that wide, you say that there's no correlation. Not some correlation. No correlation.

The problem this teacher had was that she was teaching a class of good students. Good students already have high grades, in the high 90s. Once your grades are at the top of the scale, you have nowhere to improve. So the best teachers, with the best students, were getting the worst rankings because their students didn't improve enough on the tests. Teachers all over the country were complaining about this. The test people really don't have an answer.

How would you like it if you were driving 35 mph, and a cop gave you a speeding ticket because, according to his poorly-calibrated radar gun, there was a 25% probability that you were driving 70 mph? How would you like to get fired because, according to your urine test, there was a 25% probability that you were using opioid drugs?

And lastly, if teachers only account for 1-14% of test results, that tells me that we need some dramatic improvement in teacher quality.

This is true of every education system, all over the world, free market, socialist, high stakes testing, low stakes testing, charter schools, public schools, Catholic schools, everything.

As I said before, the most important factor is the child's family income. If you wa

I actually went and dug and could find only one comparison internationally for 4th graders, and we don't look that bad till you see that Japan, Korea, Singapore, and a whole host of other countries don't participate in those studies. On the other hand by 8th grade we are comfortably behind, so much so that only 7% of our students score at the highest level! while in the best countries that number is around 47%.

This was the study: http://nces.ed.gov/TIMSS/

Are there others? I couldn't find any.

(inflation adjusted)

I know we don't check sources here, but from the sources in the GP's original post:
Summary of expenditures for public elementary and secondary education, by purpose: Selected years, 1919-20 through 2009-10

They also have a summary by state.

(inflation adjusted)

I know we don't check sources here, but from the sources in the GP's original post:
Summary of expenditures for public elementary and secondary education, by purpose: Selected years, 1919-20 through 2009-10

They also have a summary by state.

Thousands of apologies. I had that page book-marked, but — employing the best web-masters there are to be found, no doubt, the Department of Education has rearranged their pages. The information is now here, or, if you (like myself) are having trouble accessing the Windows-powered site, here the Google-cache of it.

On the page, there is a table. In 1962 the "total expenditure" per pupil per year was (in 2011 dollars) $3,915. In 2010 it was $13,692...

With per-pupil costs of public schools quadrupling since 1962 (inflation-adjusted), and results remaining as mediocre as described in TFA — and getting worse — the only conclusion is, we must spend more money.

Not just Math — only 30% of 8th-graders nation-wide can be considered "proficient" in reading. And some particularly well-managed locales spend much more pupil, while producing and even higher share of illiterates.

Despite quadrupling per-pupil costs of public schools since 1962 (inflation-adjusted), the education remains the same or is getting worse. In some particularly well-managed cities, the costs are even higher and the results — even worse, than national average. This article is about Math, but ability to read remains rather sub-par as well — with only 30% of 8th-graders, for example, considered "proficient" readers.

Clearly, we need to spend more money...

Let me ask you a really simple question: Why is it that when anyone else intends to join a new group they are expected to assimilate to that group's culture UNLESS they are a woman? Why do we expect men to alter their behavioral norms and culture to whatever women deem acceptable rather than the other way around? Why are women so infantilized and robbed of personal agency that they're not expected to be actors at all, but merely static pawns for everything else to rotate around?

In short, why do we blame men when women don't enter engineering, but completely ignore the fact that women staggeringly outweigh men in terms of overall college graduates? Why do we blame men for women being a small percentage of engineers, but not blame women for men being as little as less than 1/3rd of college graduates in the first place?

No, I'm not wrong. Total funding has gone up, up, up for US schools. Measure it in constant dollars, % of GDP, any way you like. Compare us to other countries, and there are perhaps two who beat us per-pupil. We spend enough money - the solution lies elsewhere.

And while schools still are highly dependent on local funding, that too has been changing steadily to the point where it is no longer the largest source.

No, I'm not wrong. Total funding has gone up, up, up for US schools. Measure it in constant dollars, % of GDP, any way you like. Compare us to other countries, and there are perhaps two who beat us per-pupil. We spend enough money - the solution lies elsewhere.

And while schools still are highly dependent on local funding, that too has been changing steadily to the point where it is no longer the largest source.

No, I'm not wrong. Total funding has gone up, up, up for US schools. Measure it in constant dollars, % of GDP, any way you like. Compare us to other countries, and there are perhaps two who beat us per-pupil. We spend enough money - the solution lies elsewhere.

And while schools still are highly dependent on local funding, that too has been changing steadily to the point where it is no longer the largest source.

According to the parent page, the chart for per-pupil spending is already adjusted for inflation. As such, the $4,221 per student figure in 1969 looks to be close to the truth, except that it's *already* adjusted for inflation at that value.

As much as I would like to have a simple explanation like "spending is less than half what it used to be", the numbers don't lie.

Bullshit lies. I can cite facts. Can you?

I agree that many IT disciplines are more analogous to a skilled trade than a scientific or academic discipline. These career paths would benefit from a structured apprenticeship program, and in some cases unionization.

However, the group of institutions consisting of ITT, DeVry, and "others" (UofPhoenix, Virginia College, Strayer, etc.) are not even a part of the answer.

This category of institutions are private, for-profit "vocational" schools. They are predatory companies that have extremely high tuition for very poor educational value. Their admissions requirements are dubious, essentially consisting of "can you pay your tuition".

Their business model is built around sucking as much money from their students as possible. In some cases they encourage their students to take out private, high-interest loans to pay tuition. A large portion of their students are also GI-bill students, whose education is paid for by the military.

This group of institutions as a whole has a 3-year federal student loan default rate of 21.8% - about 60% higher than public institutions at 13%. This does not reflect the default rate on private loans, which in the case of ITT tech might be as high as 60%. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is currently suing ITT tech for predatory lending practices.

You can check the official, per-school 2-year federal student loan default rates here.

Also, these institutions are not accredited in the same way that legitimate universities and colleges are, and their credits will NOT be accepted by most legitimate institutions, or even among each other.

TL;DR - stay away from the private, for-profit vocational schools. You will, without a doubt, receive a better education for dramatically less cost at your local community college - also, many credits that you earn at a community college can be applied towards a bachelor's degree at a legitimate university in the future.

Careful there.

Those values you quoted are *not* education statistics. They are estimates from a model built on national data, only a very small number of which actually came from Montana. In short, these are *specifically* driven by demographic data, and for especially low population, unusual demographic states like Montana, can potentially give very inaccurate results.

http://nces.ed.gov/naal/estima...

Specifically, the estimate for 2003 uses the following set of predictors:

- Percentage of the county population who were foreign-born and who had stayed in the United States for 20 years or less years;
- Percentage of county population age 25 and older with only a high school education or less;
- Percentage of the county population who were Black or Hispanic;
- Percentage of the county population in households with incomes below 150 percent of poverty level;
- Indicator variable identifying the New England and North Central census divisions; and
- Indicator variable identifying the SAAL states.

You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.

Education statistics from rural Montana for example are excellent.

here are some stats:

Alaska (2003) 13.3
California (2003) 20.3
Montana (2003) 5.9
New York (2003) 22

you can find the stats here:
http://nces.ed.gov/naal/estima...

As I said, to ignore the demographic information is to do no more then confess ignorance of the data.

It is a tragedy of this era that so many read statistics without understanding how to read them.

I say this without insult to you despite my bluntness. It is extremely common that people simply don't know how to read statistics. Major newspapers often fail to grasp very simple concepts like "causation" vs "correlation" which most people on slashdot get but only because enough members have harped on it to get people aware of the issue.

that is not the end of rules that must be followed when you read statistics. Statistical information is really about logic. Its like a constructing a mathematical proof where you describe all relevant phenoma to such an extent that there is only one conclusion. Its about isolating facts and eliminating false conclusions and irrelevant variables.

Too often people are lazy with statistics. They see it as a means to not have to think. They point at some numbers and say that's the answer not grasping that those numbers are data that must be processed scientifically. That requires intelligence, skepticism, curiosity, and patience. Statistics are very rarely handled with all four and so most statistical observations are utterly without worth.

If the above sounds lecturing, pompous, or arrogant, know that that is not intentional. I know no other way to express the concepts and ideas that as I have above. I do so with humility and good will. I do not think I am better then you... if anything I've had different experiences in my life that have given me some advantages in some areas. Doubtless you've experienced some things that have given you advantages over me. A healthy society is one in which we share our strengths and compensate for each other's weaknesses.

This is my attempt here... Best wishes from the internet.

wow, i didn't know this.
some quick googling found:
Fast Facts: Degrees conferred by sex and race
Homeless men and women: commonalities and a service gender gap

It might be worth determining why "sex discrimination" is an issue, and seeing whether the concept is a problem in this case for the same underlying problems, rather than simply jumping on it and implying it's wrong because it's discrimination.

I don't think so. There are large and growing disparities in higher education in favor of women. For example, this report showed that in the US schools it compiled records for, there were more than 30% more bachelor degrees awarded to women than men. That's a demographic disaster in the making. It's time to "re-examine the policies" now.

Where are the programs to incentivizing men to graduate from college. Currently women graduate from college at significantly higher rates then men. When men graduated more often them women there were programs and incentives set up get more women to graduate from college. Now that that has been reversed and the gap continues to grow, the solution is to offer programs to get women to college in the few areas where more men graduate.

According to ed.gov "From 1999–2000 to 2009–10, the percentage of degrees earned by females remained between approximately 60 and 62 percent for associate's degrees and between 57 and 58 percent for bachelor's degrees. In contrast, the percentages of both master's and doctor's degrees earned by females increased from 1999–2000 to 2009–10 (from 58 to 60 percent and from 45 to 52 percent, respectively). " http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/d...

So when will the trend of offering more women incentives then men to attend college stop when woman graduate from college 2 to 1 to men. Or 3 to 1.

Why should they not come out better than when they went in?

Forced education of the basic R's would be a good start. Nearly 60-70% of our incarcerated population can not read

Bullshit.

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs94/9410...

About 7 in 10 prisoners perform in Levels 1 and 2 on the prose, document,
and quantitative scales. These prisoners are apt to experience difficulty in
performing tasks that require them to integrate or synthesize information
from complex or lengthy texts or to perform quantitative tasks that involve
two or more sequential operations and that require the individual to set up
the problem.

They say that about 70% have some problems with complex or lengthy texts -- mostly as a result of them entering prison as a person who likely lacked an education to begin with. Nowhere will you find anything credible that says 70% are illiterate.

begintoread.com is propaganda.

You can see here:
http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/... ...that while prison rates are bad, they're not significantly worse than anything else. ...and still only measures people deficient -- not outright illiterate. At mostly, only 25% of specific prison groups by ethnicity have difficulty reading documents. ...and in some cases, their literacy level is HIGHER than outside prison.

Can someone explain how this is not a wholesale violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act?

I think your comment is full of the bull... Citation of a 1k% increase in tutition and fees....

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/...

This shows at most a 150%-200% increase....

In 1989, I paid $3.50 per unit at Foothill Community College.

Today, it's $31 per unit.

That's not quite 1000%, but it also only goes back as far as 1989.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/...

This shows at most a 150%-200% increase....

This is incorrect. From the horse's mouth:

When a student reaches 18 years of age or attends a postsecondary institution, he or she becomes an "eligible student," and all rights under FERPA transfer from the parent to the student.

This means that when a student of any age enrolls in a postsecondary institution, such as a community college or university, the rights of parents to access educational records passes to the student, and the parents no longer have rights to such access. It doesn't matter who is footing the bill, or if the student is a dependent major.

Uh, okay. I spent about 2 minutes looking for a suitable reference. Perhaps you'd care to cite the studies you know of which show that women, in fact, *do* perform worse at these activities, too?

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fullt...

From the study:

Looking at the overall performance data examined here it is clear that females do at least as well or better than males. Comparisons between mean male and mean female grade-point averages show superior female performance in the Faculties of Agriculture, Arts, Business, Education, Engineering, Physical Educa- tion and Science. In the Faculties of Law and Pharmacy male-female performance is more equal over the comparison years with male mean G.P.A. higher in some years and female mean G.P.A. higher in other years.

The data examined here do not provide any support for the commonly held belief that males are better in sciences, while females are advantaged in the social sciences and humanities. One might suggest that if selection factors favor women in science fields, they ought to favor men studying Education or Nursing. Such does not appear to be the case in Education, and too few men enter Nursing to permit such an analysis.

I will now eagerly await your factual critique of the methodologies of the paper, as well as your own citations supporting your implied claims that "chicks are, in fact, way different than dudes, because my grand-pappy told me so."

Actually, they have apparently been accepting grants all along, for many years, but never coming back.

The new decree (Do they not pass laws over there?) simply says:

Students who earned bachelor's degrees in Russian universities may enter leading [foreign] universities... and be eligible for financial support from the government.
If these students would like to stay overseas after graduation, they would have to pay a hefty amount to Russia that would include all the money spent on the education plus a fine twice as large as this amount.

Good luck collecting, unless they want to hire a boat load of lawyers in each country students go to. (If they thought US tuition was high, wait till they see US lawyer bills). Maybe they will get the parents to co-sign these grants so they can at least threaten to put the parents in the hot seat if young Doctor Ivan doesn't come back.

With US student loans defaulting at a rate of 10% they are just as likely to learn bad habits here.

On the other hand if you can legally wipe out all or most of your student loans by getting a good paying job in Russia (by virtue of your prestigious foreign doctorate), it just might work.
It all depends on the job and pay opportunities at home, and how much of the government loans will be forgiven. It might be pretty hard to pay back a western sized debt on a Russian sized salary unless most or all of it were forgiven by the Russian Government.

France for instance not only subsidizes students that enter the top univerisities (ecole polytechnique and ecole normale superieur among others) but it also pays the students a stipend. The catch is that once you graduate you owe the French state 10 years of your life. After that you can enter if you want the private sector, but the first ten years must be given back to the public sector. Else you must reimburse the money the French state invested in your education. And you can bet your ass they do come after you if you don't uphold your end of the bargain.
Russia is doing nothing alien. They pay for their student's education, even paying their stay abroad. It is only natural those students give back to the Russian state some years of their lives.
Only in the US (temple of individuality) does the state subsidize your studies (if you're fortunate enough) but then you are not compelled to give back. Individuality taken to the extreme, and then we ask ourselves why all the worlds big problems stem from that country.

Actually, they have apparently been accepting grants all along, for many years, but never coming back.

The new decree (Do they not pass laws over there?) simply says:

Students who earned bachelor's degrees in Russian universities may enter leading [foreign] universities... and be eligible for financial support from the government.
If these students would like to stay overseas after graduation, they would have to pay a hefty amount to Russia that would include all the money spent on the education plus a fine twice as large as this amount.

Good luck collecting, unless they want to hire a boat load of lawyers in each country students go to. (If they thought US tuition was high, wait till they see US lawyer bills). Maybe they will get the parents to co-sign these grants so they can at least threaten to put the parents in the hot seat if young Doctor Ivan doesn't come back.

With US student loans defaulting at a rate of 10% they are just as likely to learn bad habits here.

On the other hand if you can legally wipe out all or most of your student loans by getting a good paying job in Russia (by virtue of your prestigious foreign doctorate), it just might work.
It all depends on the job and pay opportunities at home, and how much of the government loans will be forgiven. It might be pretty hard to pay back a western sized debt on a Russian sized salary unless most or all of it were forgiven by the Russian Government.

Throw money at the situation and it will get better? Are you serious? We're spending already over double what we were spending on our students 20-30 years ago, and we haven't seen anything but continued failure and degeneration of our country's academic performance. http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.html#1 I am also a young parent with two kids (one in first grade, one that won't be in school for another few years. But when it comes to you and your kids, and if you are in a situation where your public schools are mediocre but you have the option/ability to put your students into a better Charter (or perhaps Private) school, that you're not going to jump at the opportunity? Are you honestly saying that you will keep your children in a sub-par public school because you don't want to "hollow them out further and make them worse?" I seriously doubt you would.

I'm not so sure about that. Forcing religious groups to follow the same set of laws that this country has always followed is certainly not a step back.

It's not about "really wanting them to change their mind", it's more about "forcing them to respect the law." I don't care how they think as long as they aren't shoving their religion in everyones' face.

But that is the question, isn't it? Has the country always followed a particular set of practices and laws? It takes very little legal scholarship to realize that the treatment of religion in society in terms of the law has been evolving, and not necessarily for the better. Due to many mistaken notions about what the "separation of church and state" means (a phase not found in the Constitution) there have been many instances of government overreach, and occasionally outright repression. As a result the there has been more than one instance of the executive branch having to issue guidelines to schools to prevent discrimination.

Prayer During Noninstructional Time

Students may pray when not engaged in school activities or instruction, subject to the same rules designed to prevent material disruption of the educational program that are applied to other privately initiated expressive activities. Among other things, students may read their Bibles or other scriptures, say grace before meals, and pray or study religious materials with fellow students during recess, the lunch hour, or other noninstructional time to the same extent that they may engage in nonreligious activities. While school authorities may impose rules of order and pedagogical restrictions on student activities, they may not discriminate against student prayer or religious speech in applying such rules and restrictions.

--------

Remember: religions are like penises. It's ok to have one, and it's even ok to be proud of it. But don't take it out and wave it around in public

If you think that religion is like a "penis," you probably don't have a well developed notion of their respective uses. Religion is not like a penis. Religion is often seen in public places, and rightfully so, and has had a prominent place in the public discourse on various matters on many occasions during the existence of the Republic. Your personal discomfort with that fact isn't necessarily relevant to that, nor does it change history.

I didn't say anyone would (or would not) like Texas more. I said that, by the actual numbers, Texas has worse education and healthcare then California. I further pointed out that because it's very easy for a relatively well-off person to avoid the places non-relatively-well-off people live the anecdotal experience of a relatively-well-off person is totally irrelevent to these discussions. The numbers I mentioned aren't particularly controversial.

http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/new-state-state-college-attainment-numbers-show-progress-toward-2020-goal
37.9% of Cali residents have college degrees, 32.2% of Texans do. California is (by definition) better educated then Texas.

http://www.kten.com/story/11532795/oklahoma-texas-among-most-unhealthy-states
Texas and Oklahoma were ranked as least healthy states in the nation, largely because Texans are fatter then average.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_expectancy
Despite those rankings, Texas life expectancy is about average (78.5 vs. 78.64 nationally), and beats the pants off good old Mississippi (75), but Cali is #4. Californians live to 80.

Look, there's nothing wrong with low taxes. But if you want low taxes you're gonna get reduced government services, and the major areas state governments service are health care and education. Which means you will be saying "Thank God for Mississippi" whenever health and education rankings come out. Mark Zuckerberg and other wealthy Californians aren't idiots who think that 17% income tax is less then zero income tax, they're smart people who have decided they prefer to live in a state with higher educational attainment, and better general health, in exchange for paying that utterly ridonkulous 17% income tax rate.

Do that many people pay for their PhDs? I'm not paying for mine; I wouldn't do it if I had to (racked up enough debt from law school).

Well, not that many pay FULL-PRICE. According to the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), about 86% of doctoral students received some form of financial aid, grant, assistantship, stipend, etc. in 2007-08. If we restrict this to Ph.D. students only (and exclude the field of education), that number rises to 91%.

I'm sure buried in all the statistics on that website, you might be able to find numbers that tell what percentage of tuition, etc. students actually ended up paying. But at least 9% of Ph.D. students in the U.S. apparently are paying for their degrees without ANY financial assistance whatsoever.

I don't know how many students have to pay at least some tuition, or don't get adequate stipends or pay from assistanceships to live on. I imagine it must be at least double that figure, and maybe a lot more.

So, it's not the majority of Ph.D. students, but there is a not insignificant number of such people out there. And among other graduate students (especially master's degrees), the numbers are much higher.

I think the point about debt was moot because most science and engineering grad students don't have debt.

I don't know the stats, but I'd bet that a lot of science and engineering graduate students have debt from undergraduate loans... but I'm guessing that's not what you mean.

I know I don't and I don't know anyone who took out loans for STEM grad school.

Congratulations! You must not know anyone who went to a crappy school or did their graduate degree part-time!

According to the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), which is admittedly a bit out of date since the most recent stats are from 2008, roughly 75% of graduate students in engineering and science fields received some form of financial aid or grant. That does NOT mean they all received full rides with stipends -- it means that they might have received something between a few thousand dollars in tuition rebate up to a full ride.

So, approximately 25% of STEM graduate students in the U.S. in 2007-08 were paying FULL PRICE for tuition, with no stipend, no grants, and no financial aid. I'm wiling to bet that many more accumulate at least some debt during grad school, whether that's because they don't receive a complete tuition waiver, or they don't get a stipend, or they don't get a stipend that's enough to reasonably live on. Is it true that "most science and engineering grad students don't have debt"? Possibly. But there's a fairly large percentage who probably do -- at least 25%, and possibly 50% or higher.

Now, if you restrict that pool a bit, you might get to your group of friends. If you look at only full-time STEM graduate students (as opposed to the working dad trying to finish up his master's on the side), you get up to above 85% who receive some sort of funding.

If you restrict it only to full-time doctoral students in STEM fields, you get up to around 95%.

Let me try again: your point is NOT moot about grad school.

My point was that most of those people who are going to schools in STEM fields where they aren't getting aid are mostly going to crappy schools, and they'd probably be better off working rather than dumping money into a graduate degree they have to pay for. I do agree with you that most science and engineering grad students going to good schools don't have debt.

Since 1962 the per-pupil costs of public schools has quadrupled (inlation-adjusted — the nominal increase is 25-times!), while the results remain just as — if not even more — disappointing. Indeed, merely 30% of 8th-graders are deemed proficient in reading . Will a "makerbot" help solve this fundamental problem? Somehow I doubt it...

What would that "fundamental problem" be exactly? That education outpaces inflation? It takes a very casual understanding of economics to know why this is happening. Can you figure it out? Here is a hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#Over_time.2C_by_race_and_sex

Cliffs in case you are still too dense: when the cost of the labor force enabling education in the US triples, you can expect the cost of providing the education to do the same (see: 1961 to 2004.) Still want to bicker about how education is too expensive? Clearly you know how expensive it is to be ignorant.

Since 1962 the per-pupil costs of public schools has quadrupled (inlation-adjusted — the nominal increase is 25-times!), while the results remain just as — if not even more — disappointing. Indeed, merely 30% of 8th-graders are deemed proficient in reading . Will a "makerbot" help solve this fundamental problem? Somehow I doubt it...

Look up how Jim Crow laws worked in the US. Even literacy tests were used for racial discrimination, and it's easy for that kind of thing to become self-perpetuating. If the poor people only have access to public schooling and it isn't very good, then you can write the tests so that only people who had a better education can pass it and then defund public schools more...

I stipulate, that despite everybody having a vote currently, the number of people able to solve a linear (much less square) equation remains far from 100% — despite the four-fold increase in per-pupil expenditures in the public schools since 1962 (inflation-adjusted!). Whatever we have today is not working (not for the schools, anyway), which would seem to invalidate your particular argument against Heinlein's proposed disenfranchising.

I'd be in favour of a simpler test: Do you know what the candidate stands for?

This is simple in your opinions?! Wow... And who — which omniscient, objective, and benevolent committee — will distinguish, for just one example, one man's onset of prosperity by abolition of the minimum wage from another man's starving off the working poor?

The candidate would be free to hand out solutions to the test on their campaign leaflets, as long as the voters actually read them and learn more than 'he wants to lower taxes / is {for, against} abortion'.

It certainly seems to me, solving an equation — even a cubic one — is simpler than the burden you are proposing to impose on the voters. And it is much harder to corrupt — because, unlike political speech, Math blind to ideology, as well as a man's color, pedigree, accent, and body shape.

How do you figure that a college education is a good bargain? Tuition prices have vastly outpaced inflation, mainly due to permissive government loan programs (throw money into a system, watch prices rise, economics at work). Meanwhile, because a college degree is the new high school diploma, the college offerings in - let's be blunt - useless fields have expanded. Here is some data from DOE:

Degrees with, um, limited employment prospects, change since 1985
- Visual and performing arts: up 150%
- Interdisciplinary studies: up 175%
- Recreation, leisure, fitness: up 620%
- Liberal arts, general studies: up 120%
- Family science (wtf?): up 50%
- Social science & history: up 80%

Meanwhile, technical degrees with good employment prospects, again since 1985
- Mathematics: no change
- Engineering: down 5%
- Computer science: down 5%

The only real exception seems to be in medicine and healthcare, which is eminently employable and is also up quite a lot. Otherwise, our colleges seem to be producing more and more well-qualified hamburger flippers.

p.s. I didn't mention business, although that is the most popular degree by far. Up 50%, whichever category you care to place it in.

The problems with Common Core are manifold, from the (lack of) primary research behind it, to the squishiness of the outcomes. Here's a nice quote: "even if they said 3 X 4 was 11, if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer, really in words and oral explanations and they showed it in a picture but they just got the final number wrong; we’re really more focusing on the how and the why." (Fuzzy Math)

Since 1970 we've more than doubled per-pupil spending on primary and secondary students in real dollars (National Center for Education Statistics) with little to show in academic improvement. <sarcasm>But hey! We've found the problem! What we need to do is yoke all 50 states to a common set of education standards! That'll help!</sarcasm>

I abhor the intelligent design crap that some states try to shove into primary and secondary school curricula. However, all the power to them as long as I'm free to influence the math- and science-rich curriculum I want established in my state. I find it more repugnant that the Federal government sees fit to bribe states to adopt a one-size-fits-all model.

"[T]he content was written at a sixth-grade reading level so it would be as easy to understand as possible."

They really are setting the bar high in Kentucky.

Despite per-pupil costs of public schools quadrupling over the last 50 years (inflation-adjusted), mere 30% of 8th-graders nation-wide are deemed "proficient" in reading. Kentucky did the web-site right, even though their average is slightly above national.

We are now all set for our healthcare to become the same sort of dizzying success, that the public schools already are.

"[T]he content was written at a sixth-grade reading level so it would be as easy to understand as possible."

They really are setting the bar high in Kentucky.

Despite per-pupil costs of public schools quadrupling over the last 50 years (inflation-adjusted), mere 30% of 8th-graders nation-wide are deemed "proficient" in reading. Kentucky did the web-site right, even though their average is slightly above national.

We are now all set for our healthcare to become the same sort of dizzying success, that the public schools already are.

The only thing socialism threatens you with now is better healthcare, and welfare (at a price, admittedly).

"Better"? As in Cuba? Where is this idea, that government can do something (be it manufacturing of goods, provision of services, or even charitable help to the unlucky) better than competing private entities coming from, when there is no evidence of such success anywhere in history?

Where are the welfare success stories? All I see are crime-infested neighborhoods populated by people born there to parents born there — a perpetuated misery.

Education, perhaps? Per-pupil costs of public schools quadrupled since 1962 (inflation-adjusted) — has anyone noticed improvement in quality? No — mere 30% of today's 8th-graders nation-wide are proficient in reading! And that nation-wide average is not helped, but dragged-down by those mighty pillars of Socialism like Chicago (21%) or Detroit (7%).

Maybe, the good old Postal Service? The program, that is, despite government-enforced monopoly on cheap ("First Class") letters, is usually in the red and in need of bailout every few years?

What, just what, makes you think, government-provided healthcare (and that is, where we are going as Obamacare-2.0 will be urgently needed, when the current version falls on its face in the mud) will fair better?

Socialism =/= Big government.

Right, Socialism does not equal Big Government. It is worse — big government not merely charging big taxes, but doing things with them, that no government should be doing at all.

The Senate passed a budget back in the spring, but the House has refused to follow regular order and appoint members to a conference committee. Thus the need for a CR.

It's not the Senate's job to pass a budget. The House controls the purse -- the budget process originates in Congress. Here, educate yourself: http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/process.html

Honestly, when people are so oblivious to reality it's hard to tell if they're truly that inattentive to the news or if they're deliberately trying to poison public discourse with misinformation and falsehoods.

How true, how true, anonymous coward.

paranoid conspiracy theorists which, according to MSNBC, makes you all racists, bigots, homophobes, terrorist, teabagging, hate-mongering, hating haters who hate.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/who-has-access-to-your-kids-information-more-people-than-you-think/

http://eagnews.org/medical-laboratory-procedure-results-and-religion-invasive-common-core-data-mining-worries-parents/

http://nces.ed.gov/forum/datamodel/eiebrowser/techview.aspx?instance=studentElementarySecondary

Rich parents take advantage

Exactly. Rich parents... Because only the rich can afford to both pay for some other kid's public-school education and their own child's private schooling. The public school system does not have real competition because of this — and that is exactly why its cost climbed up four times in fifty years (inflation-adjusted — nominal increase is 25-fold), while the quality is, if anything, only worse.

has everything to do with the fact that they write the checks in public schools. [...] So government doesn't prevent a method from being adopted at all.

Being the check-writers is an enormous power. Various rather restrictive and freedom-infringing federal laws begin with ".... receiving federal funds ...". Throughout the (short) history government having this power, it was (ab)used to enforce lower speed-limits ("States receiving federal funds to maintain public highways shall ...."), to coerce registration with "Selective Service", and, of course, quite a few details about schools.

It all seems perfectly fair — after all, if the recipient does not like the strings attached, he can refuse the things, they are attached to, can he not? Except that he often can't — the funds in question have already been confiscated from him (or her, or it) and the only way to benefit from the program is by complying with the additional rules. Or, of course, to forgo the benefits and pay for an alternative in addition. Which is why only the rich can afford it...

In this particular case, if this particular official's opinion prevails — that structuring the schooling based on individual child's (expensive) assessment is "bad", prevails, the check-writing authority (Department of Education?) can issue the same sort of directive, banning public schools "receiving federal funds" from using the program. And yes, they can do that, even if the new assessments themselves are paid for by other means. For example, religious schools already have problems getting public funds even if the actual classes on religion are optional and funded separately.

The infrastructure for plumbing was paid for by the gov't.

The local city governments paid for their infrastructure. But this is off-topic anyway — even ancient Romans built the viaducts to bring-in water, yet the water-closets made a leap from a rich-only item to mass-use within a generation. Thanks to the power of Capitalism...

So where the roads that made cars more than interesting toys.

Again, local governments (and private companies) built the roads — long before automobiles were even invented. And they were invented in Europe, but it required true Capitalism to make them affordable for the masses.

And telephone lines.

There were plenty of private telephone lines long before (federal) government decided to give AT&T the ill-devised monopoly (which they had to wrestle back through the courts some decades later). And, unlike with plumbing or roads, telephone wires were entirely privately-owned. For a while there were competing phone-companies (such as "Bell" and "Home") — a grocery store or a hotel would have multiple sets for the patrons to use (for a fee).

I think the problem we have with the $30,000 bill is that it's so high that the only way it'll ever be more than a toy and a curiosity is if the gov't steps in to fund it

Ford-T cost $850 in 2013 which is over $20k in today's dollars. Had there been more people like you back then, the government might've stepped in to fund it, and the price would've remained the same — or climbed up slowly. Fortunately, the US was healthier back then and it did not happen — by the 1920s, the price had fallen to $260 because of increasing efficiencies of assembly line technique and volume.

If research is focused on a few rich kids, it's being directed away from somewhere else.

Yes... If there are only 10 pairs of pants available to 20 people, then 10 people will be without pants, no matter, how you divide them — by race, creed, or by charging high prices. However, if you choose the latter model, charging the high prices will help paying the tailors to sew ten more pairs in short order. And it will encourage one or two tailors to come up with a more efficient method of making them too.

If, instead, you distribute the 10 pairs available by government decree (fixing the prices, of course, to prevent "profiteering"), the shortage of supply will remain for ever.

Then they trot out the old: "Economy's not Zero Sum" and call it a day.

Darling, whatever you say. Until you can explain, reasonably and without name-calling, the existing fact, that public school education costs four times more than it did in 1962 (inflation-adjusted), with no measurable improvements in quality, your method of paying for public education shall remain as discredited as its results.