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California has a different set of rules about college enrollment via the community college system.

In California, you only need to be 18 years or older to attend a community college. A high school diploma is not required, though you may have to take remedial courses offered by the college and some majors, such as engineering, may require a GED before you can transfer to a four-year university

http://edsource.org/wp-content/publications/pub10-NoHSDiplomaOptions.pdf

I guess that's why California has some of the highest teacher salaries in the country but education scores are among the lowest in the country.

Your numbers are very wrong and you clearly did not do any research.

California is 49th in school spending across the nation.
- They spend $8,482 per student.
- That is $3,342 below the national average of $11,824 and $10,332 below the top spending state of Wyoming ($18,814).

California is 45th in percentage of state/local resources spent on education.
- California spent 2.9 percent
- The national average was 4.4 percent. Vermont was at the top with 5.8 percent.

California spends an average of (in unified school districts of 1,500-5,000 students):
- $38,578 for beginning teachers
- $59,799 for midrange teachers
- The highest teacher salary is $78,044
- $106,787 for a High school Principal
- $150,595 for a Superintendent
- Approximately 6% of a school's budget is allocated for Administrative salary
- Approximately 38% of a school's budget is allocated for Teacher salary

Across the state, four-fifths of school budgets look like this:
- 38.6% for Teachers' Salaries (Teachers, Nurses, and Librarians)
- 24.4% for other staff:
-- Superintendent, Principals, Vice/Assistant Principals, Directors, Coordinators, Managers, etc
-- Secretaries/Clerical, Janitors, Bus Drivers
-- Instructional Aides, Interpreter for the deaf, Special Ed, Speech and Hearing, etc
-- Tech support
-- Food services/Health services
-- Counselors, Psychologists, Therapists, Student and Family support
- 20.4% on employee benefits
- 12.2% on Services and Operating expenses
- 4.3% on books and supplies
- this budget excludes capital projects like building the school in the first place

Spending source
Salary source
California school budget breakdown

If this is true, then how come our schools are so awful?

We the people have been throwing more and more money at schoolteachers, and requiring ever-increasing levels of training and education to maintain their license to teach, yet the educational achievments of our students have been flatlined for 40 years, and have even fallen dramatically in some districts.

Have we really been throwing money at teachers? Teacher salaries have remained fairly constant in inflation-adjusted terms over the past few decades. W have definitely been throwing money at schools. With NCLB testing and gee-whiz-bang "let's give everyone a tablet" initiatives, and insanely overpaid administrators, we're spending way more, but we aren't seeing any results... hm...

Meanwhile home schooled children, taught by parents with no formal training as teachers, outperform government-schooled students so often that the high achieving home schooler has become a cultural meme, if not a cliche.

Charter schools have also been able to deliver superior results at lower cost.

Um, citation needed? Yes, some charter schools are great, but even more are worse.

No, I don't think we need professionally trained well paid teachers. What we need are voucher programs, more home schooling, teachers and schools that have to compete, the utter end to tenure of any kind, and pay/bonuses based on classroom performance instead of seniority.

Because tying pay raises to test performance doesn't give anyone an incentive to cheat. It would never happen.

Opening up the teaching profession to anyone with a bachelor's degree and a demonstrated knowledge of a subject (english, math, science) would be even better. There is no evidence that having a master's degree in early childhood education helps someone teach 3rd graders how to multiply. Let those who want to teach and who are good at it take the field, and get rid of parasitic space takers for whom a teaching job is a state-paid sinecure.

Most of all, outlaw public sector unions so that groups like the NEA aren't able to block real education reform.

I'm all for at-will employment, but let's be honest, if school systems could get away with paying teachers minimum wage, they would. After all, if all you need is demonstrated knowledge of a subject, why don't the 1st graders teach kindergarten? Too far? OK, well, certainly a high school dropout should be OK. After all, they know their colors and how to read "See Spot Run." I'm sure you wouldn't mind handing over your kids to a burnout stoner, right?

It seems like at least a few states us a thing called the "Average Daily Attendance" to track how many kids are actually going to school. Then this is the number that is actually used when allocating funding to the school. Here's a story about how much 1 student being chronically absent costs the school (87 days missed, school lost $2464).

This isn't all the funding a school gets, but it is part of it.

>Oh please, schools receive money based on enrollment and not per day the child is in school, if you believe otherwise, I'd like to see the citation.

http://www.edsource.org/1077.html

You don't know what your talking about K-12 education is the single largest spending line item in the state of California. (I suspect that it is the same in other states) Higher Education is the second largest spending line item. Together they use up over 50% of the entire state's general fund and over 40% of the states total budget. We are talking about 60 BILLION dollars here. That isn't counting all of the money collected through booster clubs and fund raisers. How can you say that no one is making money when there is 60 BILLION spent?

I'm not saying no one is making money, I'm saying that there are expenses in any field. When you have millions of individuals in a system and you need infrastructure to support them you are going to pay for it. I honestly don't think that $10000 per student per year is really that expensive which is about what California is paying. There aren't a lot of complaints in WA or OR when we want to increase the education budget.

Teachers do just fine pay wise. Maybe if YOU could get out our YOUR ivory tower, you might find that not everyone is making $100k to $200k for part time work. Yes, if you are counting yearly salaries, then teachers get a 3 month vacation. If you count hourly pay, they do even better.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that teachers make $100k or more? And we are talking about teachers here right, not professors at colleges? And part time work? Teachers work 8 hours a day, 180 days a year (in WA). A normal year is 250 but they aren't getting any pay for the other 70 days, contrary to popular belief. They get paid during that time but only because their paychecks were garnished during the year to pay them during the summer.

No teacher in Washington or Oregon is making more than 45k per year and that's after 25 years of work. They start out just above the poverty line at 24k per year, and that's after 4 years of college.

There's nothing left to say except you are spouting baseless propaganda against teachers.

Where do YOU think the 60 BILLION goes?

Based on the information here you have about 6.5 million students costing $60 billion. That's about $9200 per student. Figuring a student-teacher ratio of 30:1 that's about $276k per teacher. Ah, but we need buses, administration, bookkeeping, books, and facilities. That all costs money and eats away at the $276k. If spending less was possible then they'd be doing it. $9200 per student per year is a bargain.

Pharmaceuticals that make sure that their products get sold. Pediatricians that make sure their services are used. Restaurants and food service companies that the supply food for the ubiquitous school welfare programs.

Welfare is a different issue, but pharmaceuticals and pediatricians? Oh I get it, you're a conspiracy nutcase.

My wife worked in a lending institution. She has seen literally thousands of W-2s from teachers. They do just fine.

Then she's telling you as much bullshit as you are spouting off here.

Competition, since parents would have some choice. If they can make profit while offering competitive services as public schools and at a cheaper rate, then is there anything wrong with that? It'd still be an improvement over the status quo.

By harnassing the power of competition though, parents will have the choice to send to schools that buy classrooms instead of astroturf for the stadium. Thats what happened at the local high school, they use trailers for classrooms, but they managed to afford a big electric scoreboard and astroturf.

Furthermore the parent has no say in curriculum without choice. What if I want my child to study hard sciences. What if I don't want my child to learn sex ed or what if I want my child to learn sex ed in the first grade (Yes I know it's the parents responsibility, but the government has already decided to teach it)?

Education isn't a free service, it's something you pay for even if its laundered through taxation. The average cost per pupil at public school is $7k ( http://www.edsource.org/sch_ca_behind_states.cfm). Take $5k and offer it as a voucher for the parent to spend on private school and they'll have a choice. The other $2k is free to be used on other things, they could spend it to improve the public schools even.

By the chart I linked to you can see 30 years ago the price was $2k a student in public schools. Are the schools that much better then back then? The primary difference is the bureaucracy that's getting in the way, and the only way to fix it is to trim that bureaucracy.