Hacker News Reader

HNHacker News

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by ahh | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

ahh·

> Or give public schools $3K per student, > and you'll see huge changes. It's a lot of money.

Yes, you'll see them spend $3K more per student. You won't actually see any improvements in the students, though.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/04/07/study-no-link-betw...

The public schools have many problems; lack of money is not one of them. Having any idea what to do with it is.

View on HN

Well, this is kind of a red herring, because it's widely known that schools of all types have been drastically increasing their administrative bodies, ballooning costs without actually doing anything for the students with that extra administration. Plus also it's the CATO Institute.

Think about what you're saying: "It's a red herring! We know that schools spend money they get on dumb things!" Yes, that's my point. :) If we could magically fix that, it might--in principle--become a good idea to give them more money. Giving them money does not actually magically fix that.

It's worth noting that Maciej forgot that the tech barons he hates actually tried this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-newark-schools-p...

What I'm saying is that presenting a report which shows more money getting spent on not the students, but some side thing which doesn't actually benefit the students... That is the red herring. That report isn't actually about money spent on students. It's money schools are spending on "administration". If the money given to schools isn't spent on students, it is useless. Spending money on educating actual students (and not ballooning administrations) actually does improve student education, just ask any teacher and ignore the principal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com