Comment by chasil | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chasil | Hacker News Reader

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Several years ago, I wrote against a local option sales tax for schools with some uncomfortable data.

This particular referendum was lost, but the next prevailed.

We do not allocate money to education intelligently.

As an aside, the comparison engine provided by the Federal Education Budget Project appears to have been taken down.

[My Illinois town's] Schools have again placed a sales tax increase before the voters for the April 7th election. Voters should reject this increase after reviewing the financials below.

In Iowa, the average 2013 teacher salary is $33,226. The Illinois average, however, is $37,166, which is above the national average of $36,141. Illinois teachers are (more than) fairly compensated.

On a local focus, the Federal Education Budget Project lists the [nearby Iowa] Community School District budget for 2012 (which likely includes local option tax funds) as $174,000,000, which served 16,955 students for a per-student cost of $10,262.

[My town's] budget for the same period was $76,568,000 and served 6,622 students, for a per-student cost of $11,562.

[Our neighboring Illinois town's] budget for the same period was $78,817,000 and served 7,429 students, for a per-student cost of $10,609 per student.

[Our nearby Illinois town's] academic performance is solidly ahead of [my town] - [our nearby Iowa town's] scores 70% and 66% proficient in the 2011 "No Child Left Behind" [high school] reading and math tests, while [my nearby Illinois town] respectively scores 46.9% and 53.8%, and [my town] trails the pack at 30.1% and 25.9%. [My nearby Iowa town] achieves performance dominance while spending $347 less per student than [my nearby Illinois town], and $1,300 less per student than [my town].

[My town's] schools should not ask for larger budgets, but instead trim costs and increase performance to match our nearby peers. If [my town's] schools cannot meet these standards, then perhaps we should consider outsourcing the maintenance of [my town's] schools to the [nearby Iowa town], which appears both more capable and thrifty by all measures. [My town's] students deserve better.

I'm at a loss for how trimming budget can ever really lead to increased performance. "Do better" is not a plan. And if you are behind, as in most areas of life, things are more expensive to catch up. I'm not aware of any case where this is not the way of things.

Such that, in large, I would expect areas that have poor families to, in fact, be more expensive to educate than areas with well off families. Many of the kids are literally having to catch up. Not just learn the curriculum, but catch up on a lot of learning they never had access to.

"Do better, or perish" is the way of small businesses. Where most of them fall into the perish scenario.

Our high school scores for English and math were 30.1% and 25.9%.

We had Iowa towns that were in the 90%s.

No, I cannot compare them, you are right, these people were exactly where they should have been.

Is this sentiment perhaps a bit biased, especially for what I am paying.

(Yes, I live in one of the most affordable places in the U.S.)

I'm not even sure what you are suggesting, to be honest. My point was that if you want scores to improve, you will have to pay more. Pretty much period. You don't get improvement, at any level, for free. Certainly not by cutting funding.

Keeping the same level of funding will at best tread water. Likely, the area will fall, though. And I certainly wouldn't be comfortable pushing that outcome.

Management talent makes more happen for less.

That's what we expect, as industrial management moved our industry offshore.

Education has no right of excusal. Perform.

Management talent, I would push, is largely a myth. I'm sure it matters more than I'd give it credit, but so does a lot of capital cost in infrastructure and support that are invisible in your numbers.

And again, industry largely fails and goes bankrupt. Education and townships are not things I would feel comfortable pushing that outcome for.

Also... Offshore movements were pushed not by shrewd management, but by shopping around for cheaper labor. Not sure how that is relevant here?

My understanding is that industrial management only works for certain employments, mainly non-knowledge employment. Learning/education is 100% knowledge, which has performed poorly when offshored for cheaper, at least in my knowledge-based field. You get into knowledge debt, which then needs to be paid down, which costs more than actually having bought good talent in the first place...

So, same thing- if you need to catch up you need to pay more...

This makes about as much logic to me as saying you can hire a junior engineer and expect the quality of a senior engineer if you have a senior manager.

The best management hires the right people for the job to be done, and retains them.

More importantly it fosters them, and gives them the spaces that they need for this to happen.

The best management overlooks the things that do not infringe on the job to be done.

The best management negotiates rather than imposes terms, on all subjects outside of the task.

I agree that capital allocation and management are real and valuable skills, but it doesn't require any significant amount of talent to move industry offshore. It's simply shopping around for the cheapest price that meets requirements and writing up a contract.

Ignoring any potential ethical concerns, offshoring only tends to work financially for short-term tasks that don't require long-term understanding of past work. You mentioned in your previous comment that your department is struggling to find engineers that are willing to stick around long-term to work on your legacy systems. How do you square those two ideas?

Are you suggesting that education should be shifted offshore? Or that lower budgets would attract more talented managers?

Why would anyone who has the talent to "make more happen for less" stay in education considering the abysmal pay?

What I would say to your assertion is this.

I am the last person, hired in 2000, that has stayed with our division/site within our company, who enjoys what they do (Oracle DBA).

Everyone hired since has been gone within 3 years.

We are hiring the wrong people, and I'm starting to quietly state that fact. We need to hire people with an appreciation of computing history, specifically with a desire to learn VMS and OS2200.

In the same way, education needs to hire the "dedicated long-haulers."

These people are probably not in their 20s. Maybe, but likely not.

They need to proselytize, and they need to be efficient.

I acknowledge that such people do not come cheap, but they are the point of the infrastructure.

I'm not sure how this is the same, honestly. I'm assuming most of the folks that left went to more expensive places, but got higher salaries, too? Many probably left to go where they feel they have a better chance at building a family?

Such that, I'm not sure how this works. They should count their luck that they have you happy to be there. But luck only goes so far. Or are my above assertions wrong and you think the people that left made a wrong choice for them?

And my assertion on the cost of education is a bit more nuanced. Specifically, I posit that if you transplanted the teachers from the good schools straight into your school, grades probably would not change. It takes more than just the teachers. Even transplanting the administration would likely not do much. The low performing school doesn't need the same level of skill as the well performing one. It needs better. And more.

If you're going to maintain ancient legacy systems and refuse to modernise, then really your inability to attract talent is your company's own fault. I love computing history, but a career in computing is a learning pathway too.

If your staff are only learning skills they can't apply elsewhere, they're going to feel trapped. I left my last position as a systems integrator because I wasn't learning anything other than how to slap together off-the-shelf solutions and bullshit clients.

If you want new people to stay and you can't teach them skills that are valuable elsewhere, then you need to pay exceptionally well and reassure your staff that their jobs are stable. Ideally including contractually obligated recurring pay increases.

For someone with a 40 year career ahead of them, anything less will always feel like a risky dead-end.

The comparison is meaningless without knowing the needs of the two districts. Are the students in the thriftier district from wealthier households, for example, needing less support from school? Are there more ESL speakers in the costlier district? More students requiring special education? Are the buildings older, requiring more expensive upkeep? Some expenses don't break down to per-student or per-teacher. It's nice to say "trim costs and increase performance," but if a constellation of needs makes improved learning more costly in that context, you're stuck with it.

My district does have an influx of people from Africa, I will admit.

I rented one of my houses to such a family, but that is a story for another time.

...I will say also that our 8th grade scores put the other districts to shame (among the highest levels in the area), but the high school was our downfall.

like this generation migrated from Africa? Cause that seems awful close to saying that folks that had many systems tilted against them for a long time aren't up to par with folks that had systems working for them. As a higher post pointed out, catching up takes more resources than coasting on the hand downs from systems of generations past.

My relationship with them lasted many years, lasted through the pandemic, and they left angry.

I am selling the house that I rented to them, and putting it into stocks.

I don't know if this makes me a bad person, but I did want something better out of the experience at some point. That's past.

I would not recommend rental property, but most of you know this by now. Nothing like being young and foolish.

> In Iowa, the average 2013 teacher salary is $33,226. The Illinois average, however, is $37,166, which is above the national average of $36,141. Illinois teachers are (more than) fairly compensated.

Where are you getting these numbers? According to BLS, median pay for elementary and high school teachers are respectively $60,660 and $62,870 per year.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/kinde...

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/high-...

EDIT: There is actually more granular information available as well. Fewer than 10% of elementary school teachers earn less than 40k per year. Probably fewer than 5% earn as much as or less than the 36k number you quoted for national average.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252021.htm#nat

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