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Comment by tsotha | Hacker News Reader

>Public schools are starved of funding..

That made me laugh, too. Somehow this has become received wisdom for the press, but not only is it false, it's very false. Here in CA we're spending twice what we spent per student in 1970 (in constant dollars), and if anything outcomes are worse.

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Just doing a quick check on WA, which has the 1992-2009 figures for CA and NY:

CA spending per pupil in 1992 was $5380, and in 2009 was $11652. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=compare+ca+spending+per...

Adjusted for inflation is $8225, so ($11652-$8225)/$8225 = ~42% increase in spending. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%245380.12+1992+in+2009...

NY spending per pupil in 1992 was $8710, and in 2009 was $21,264. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ny+spending+per+pupil+1...

Adjusted for inflation is $13317, so ($21264-$13317)/$13317 = ~60% increase in spending. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%248710+1992+in+2009+do...

EDIT: corrected NY percentage.

I think your Wolfram Alpha figures are wrong. This report from the Census Bureau shows public school spending for the U.S. http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/finance_ins...

U.S average is $10,600 per student in 2010. California average was $9,375. New York was $18,618. Lowest was Utah at $6,064.

Yes, I think you're right. WA does cite the same report as its source, but appears to have different figures.

Looks like for CA (before inflation adjustment in parens):

1992: $7684 ($4697), 2010: $9870 ($9375) = ~28%

And NY:

1992: $12267 ($7498), 2010: $19127 ($18618) = ~55%

EDIT: re-calculated using data directly from US Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/govs/school/).

I point that out to people and it annoys them. I ask how is it we've doubled the funding per student and our results are so bad, maybe funding isn't the issue.

It is a hard thing for folks to hear though. If the thing you are telling them means there isn't an "easy" (or even imaginable) solution to the problem they care deeply about, they really can't accept it. It feels like accepting defeat.

The problem isn't the amount we're spending, it's how it's being spent. Everyone I know who is a teacher has severe issues funding class activities and are usually told they have $0 for supplies for the entire year. That tells me the money is being used in largely unproductive ways.

Where is the extra money going? Probably to pay for a bureaucrat to enforce the new standardized testing and feedback crap that isn't really helping all that much. Probably to fund more sports because sports, amirite? Probably paying for iPads that, while useful, aren't being use the way they're supposed to because of untrained teachers.

Wherever it's going, it likely isn't going to fund classroom equipment that teachers actually need or quality textbooks for students.

Yup: UK we spent huge amounts of money on new school and college buildings which did not actually improve anything. Some College managements are so precious about their new buildings that they have regulations about putting things on walls. Yes, even art Colleges!

I haven't looked into it. My speculation is that it's going to labor: pay and benefits. That's the largest cost in almost any endeavor.

We've doubled the funding per student, but less of that funding ends up advancing education. More of it goes on administrators, metal detectors, security guards, textbook publishers, educational software vendors, and giant wall-mounted computer displays, which cost a lot [1] but don't really provide much day-to-day benefit over blackboards.

1. https://www.google.com/shopping/product/12258719876160431293...

Oh but they employ more IT people, and require a CTO for the district, and all kinds of other spongers. Teachers should be getting paid at least double what they are now, and I have no problem with teachers starting at high five figures like a web developer can. I don't know if this means they're underfunded, funded enough but in the wrong places, or what, but for all that teachers have to work under, it is criminal what they are paid.

What if, like say corn subsidies, teachers are guaranteed to be paid enough to be able to buy an average price house within a mile of the school they work at? What if we had to stop bombing one country, let's say Yemen, in order to pay for it? Rhetorical.

These are the most trusted people in society, much more so than the police and politicians, and should be compensated commensurate with both their responsibilities and experience. You gonna leave your 5 year old at the police station or city hall all day?

One problem is that many of the teachers of today don't deserve to be paid double. They aren't the cream of the crop.

I'd be fine with dramatically raising teacher pay if you hired the good new people who would be attracted by the pay and ditched all the not-so-good people who are in the field now.

Where the problem comes in is that we all know that's not what would happen.

But if you don't raise the salary you're not going to attract better people. I bet if you doubled the pay you would have far better people to select from.

You get better people when you raise compensation. Big whoop, you get some freeloader problems. Why would that be a bigger problem than any other aspect of society? My main point is that teachers are held to some of the highest character standards in society, and should be compensated as such. By way of contrast, think of the character standards for CxOs of public companies and/or financial institutions. Feel free to list your own here, but I'll start:

1. N/A

Money is not the only motivator. Constantly having to deal with politics is a de-motivator for people who want to focus on educating students.

When the market raises salaries, it is based on ability. When government does it and unions are involved, warm bodies are brought in. Friends and family, people who are political allies, people who kiss ass.

As with so many things, you can't look at an effect and treat it as though it were the cause. For example, productive people are more likely to own real estate. Giving everyone a house won't make them more productive.

Higher salaries are the result of competition for skilled workers and workers responding to the market. You don't get the same results by arbitrarily raising salaries.

The private sector will raise its salaries to keep its workers. And the public sector will get workers that want what the private sector will never give them: freedom from having to compete.

When the market raises salaries, it is based on ability.

I don't believe this at all, and in fact for teachers I think salaries and compensation have been effectively lowered with respect to their increased responsibilities over the decades. Put simply, teachers are sandbagged. See also: the fundamental attribution error, where an interesting thought experiment can be had by imagining entire occupations subject to its whims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/06/leveson-...

well, its true. The most capable workers earn more than workers that are barely capable. And as someone's capabilities grow, their salary tends to go up.

And when an employer looks at someone that can do a lot and at someone that can do very little, they want to pay the former more.

>Teachers should be getting paid at least double what they are now

Why? Teachers everywhere have a very hard time getting a job because the supply vastly outstrips the demand. Why should teachers make more when it's clear supply is overpopulated?

Sometimes this is because of tenure / union issues. Which brings me to my point: teacher compensation shouldn't just be about attracting new people (what do we do with the old ones, ship em to Yemen?), it should also be about training, empowering, and incentivizing the existing cadre to perform to higher standards.

Higher standards? They already have to perform under impossible demands with no resources.

Rephrase: with higher efficacy.

Nice, you downvote me for your imprecision. Are you an MBA?

How about "first things first?"

What is your definition of 'everywhere'? UK does rough supply management (well rough sometimes, we do get lags) and attempts to manage the number of training places.

This is true. That it is so hard to get a copy of the actual school budget is a testament to the fact that they really don't want you to know either.

A core tenant of the American ideology is that any problem can be solved and only solved with more money. Telling people that more money is not the only solution will simply not compute.

You forgot consultants. Always have more consultants. And slides. Need them slides.

> Public schools are starved of funding

For a different take on this, some urban school districts are consistently underfunded compared to their more well-funded suburban counterparts simply for the reason that their property-tax base does not exist (for the main reason of people who live in subsidized housing don't really pay property tax - and if they do, it is a fraction of what is paid in more affluent suburbs).

This is a touchy topic, for sure.

> That made me laugh, too. Somehow this has become received wisdom for the press, but not only is it false, it's very false. Here in CA we're spending twice what we spent per student in 1970 (in constant dollars), and if anything outcomes are worse.

The issue in CA isn't that money is spent on eduction. The issue is that it isn't making it to the students.

Here's just one example: a $500 million school in Los Angeles: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/08/los_angeles_u...

$1 in 1970 would cost $5.94 in 2012, so, there's that.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=197...

He already said:

> (in constant dollars)

He said "in constant dollars".

>Somehow this has become received wisdom for the press, but not only is it false, it's very false.

So too with student/teacher ratios.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_069.asp

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