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Hiigh School should continue until 25 years of age.

My entire point. You put it much simpler though.
Do you always just hear what you want to hear? I said that if there are less students there is less money in that budget for that district of individual school. Taxes go into a general fund and then they money goes to the proper sections. Your tax dollars do not go directly to the schools.



How much would it cost if I had to shell out the money out of my pocket instead of hidden in taxes and subsidized by the rich and those with no children? Who knows. The fact that I can home school a child for only $200 K-12 suggests that it would be much lower than the figures one sees around the country. Most certainly it ought to be less than what is currently being expended considering that test scores have not been improving and thus do not justify the added costs. Check out this chart of expenditures per student since 1961:

Year - Current - Constant
1961-62 - $393 - $2,808
1970-71 - $842 - $4,552
1980-81 - $2,307 - $5,718
1986-87 - $3,682 - $7,105
1990-91 - $4,902 - $7,857
1995-96 - $5,689 - $7,904
1996-97 - $5,923 - $8,002
1997-98 - $6,189 - $8,214
1998-99 - $6,508 - $8,490
1999-2000 - $6,912 - $8,765
2000-01 - $7,380 - $9,048
2001-02 - $7,727 - $9,309
2002-03 - $8,044 - $9,482
2003-04 - $8,310 - $9,586
2004-05 - $8,711 - $9,754
2005-06 - $9,145 - $9,865
2006-07 - $9,679 - $10,178
2007-08 - $10,297 - $10,441

Do you think this is a reasonable amount per student?

Yea and correspondence school is cheap, yet college is expensive. The reason being is there are no teachers to pay no buildings to take care of. A better example would be to compare the cost per child between public schools and private schools. It wouldnt be a dramatic though now would it?

Private vs. public schools - Defining Your Ideal School | GreatSchools For parents this quickly translates into the bad news: high tuition costs and sometimes an exhausting work calendar of parent-sponsored fundraisers. According to the National Association of Independent Schools, the median tuition for their member private day schools in 2008-2009 in the United States was $17,441. Tuition for boarding schools was close to $37,017. (Of the 28,384 private schools in the United States, about 1,050 are affiliated with the NAIS. Average tuition for nonmember schools is substantially less: Day schools charge $10,841 and boarding schools $23,448.)

Aren Aren’t independent schools only affordable for rich people?

Students from all socioeconomic backgrounds attend independent schools. Many schools work with families to help meet the costs associated with an independent school education. Financial aid can come from the school or a variety of other sources and may include grants, scholarships, or loans.

About 17 percent of students attending NAIS schools receive financial aid or tuition remission. In 2005-06, the average grant for students at day schools was $9,213; for students at boarding schools, the average grant was $14,520.

Oh gee private schools on average cost about the same or more as public schools. ANd then there is the upper end private schools that cost as much as $50,000 and what are their scores? You trust those test scores right?

Apples and Oranges: Comparing Private and Public School Test Scores - Defining your ideal school | GreatSchools Unfortunately, comparing private to public school test scores is a bit like comparing apples to oranges.

Public schools use their own stable of standardized tests, which they use for a variety of purposes: assessment and diagnostics, to name two. Private schools use a different set of tests - some derived from the same basic tests public schools use and created by the same companies - but still different enough that they can't be compared side by side with public school tests.

Public schools are required by law to administer the test chosen by the state government and to publish their test scores. Meanwhile, private schools are free to pick their own standardized tests and, because they don't rely on public funds, do not have to release their scores, though interested parents can ask to see them.

http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP111.pdf

"Demographic differences between students in public and private schools more than account for the relatively high raw scores of private schools. Indeed, after controlling for these differences, the presumably advantageous 'private school effect' disappears, and even reverses in most cases."


But all this isnt really what you are worried about, is it? taxes and subsidized by the rich and those with no children Despite the stupidity of some Americans, everyone in some shape or form pays taxes. Even renters indirectly pay property tax. Personally I own my home I pay property tax which pays for public schools. When my children are grown out of public schools I will still pay property tax proudly. I would rather have all children educated rather then not. And if you think that public schools are unaccountable try looking into private schools they are not even required to be accountable since they are private.
 
imagep said:
Based on why my school sytem operates on, thats way to much.

So you would agree that there is obviously waste in the system? What is the proper solution?

FreedomFromAll said:
Taxes go into a general fund and then they money goes to the proper sections. Your tax dollars do not go directly to the schools.

I realize this. The county extorts X dollars from the citizens and then divvies up the plunder between the various agencies under its control. In turn, each superintendent begs for X dollars for those schools under his control. At no point in this process do they know how much it costs them per student for an adequate education. They simply try to get as much money as they can and then they see what they can buy with their budget. This is essentially the exact opposite of what private companies which must compete for customers must do. Private companies make an estimation of how much their product is worth and how many customers will purchase it. With this figure in mind, they attempt to procure the necessary materials to produce that good. If the budget is too small they must either increase prices at risk of turning away customers or reduce costs. This entire process is missing from public schools (and other bureaucracies).

FreedomFromAll said:
Yea and correspondence school is cheap, yet college is expensive.

Not all colleges. There are many colleges which offer courses for a couple hundred bucks or less. Heck, you can even take many courses online for free as I mentioned earlier.

FreedomFromAll said:
A better example would be to compare the cost per child between public schools and private schools. It wouldnt be a dramatic though now would it?

It depends on the school. Just as we can’t rightly compare police costs to private security costs we cannot do the same for schools. That said, I’m sure you could find plenty of private schools which cost drastically less than public schools and other which cost significantly more.

FreedomFromAll said:
Aren’t independent schools only affordable for rich people?

Of course not. Check out the extremely cheap private schools around the world. Once again, you cannot simply group all private schools into one aggregate lump. We can claim all day long that public transportation is better than private transportation because Ferraris cost $500,000 but this would be a fallacious comparison. Even comparing a cheap economy car to the bus would be fallacious unless we considered the amount of subsidies involved in their operation.

FreedomFromAll said:
Despite the stupidity of some Americans, everyone in some shape or form pays taxes. … I would rather have all children educated rather then not.

I agree (though I wouldn’t go so far as to blame it on stupidity, perhaps mere ignorance). However, simply because everyone pays some taxes does not make my claim false. The truth is that those who are rich and have no children pay a greater tax than they receive in educational benefits. This is a subsidy.

Throwing a false dichotomy into the fray does nothing to advance your position. Extremely poor people around the world obtain their education through private sources; there is absolutely no reason whatsoever – despite your hyperbole otherwise – that “all children” would not receive some form of education. The only difference is that all children would be able to choose which form of education they preferred as opposed to being forced to accept the will of the masses.
 
So you would agree that there is obviously waste in the system? What is the proper solution?

Oh hell ya. There is waste left and right. And the higher the budget, the more the waste.

I believe that there is a funding amount that maximizes the education per dollar amount, and additional funding above that level may increase education but with a diminishing return. Once a district has that maximizing amount, those in charge recognize that most needs have been met, so they start just giving all of the departments and expenditure line items a tad of "fat", most of which gets wasted. Or they develop and fund new line items, usually for the type of items that will give the superintendant and board members brownie points, regardless if these items have any real educational value.

Every year the local band booster club hosts a marching band competition that is the largest private unsantioned competition in the USA. There is this one particular band that comes every year and takes last place in their class every year. I asked our band director why they even bother, he said that it is because that district pays their band director a bonus for just showing up. Now this band is from a county that gets extra funding for having so many minorities and such poor test scores. I guess it sounds like a good idea on the surface to encourage their employees to do a little more than the minimim, but when that doesn't actually result any any postive results, then it's a waste of money. Maybe they should pay him a bonus for a 1st or 2nd or 3rd place showing, but to give him a bonus for just showing up is like giving all of his kids a trophy for just existing. It's pointless and wasteful and takes away from others (who could have used that bonus money for something more productive).

So what's the ideal amount? I dunno, but I think I can make a pretty close guess...

The school district that I live in is incredibly average. In my area we have virtually no true poverty, and virtually no true wealth. Their are no mansions and their are no shacks or projects. I joke on our local sports forum is that if we expect to have a better basketball team the athletic director at the high school needs to figure out how to get some projects built in our community (they only average winning like 2 or 3 basketball games a year, despite having a great football and baseball team). It is also a subburb of a larger work and financial center, so there are no large businesses to provide a big property tax base. Our district is the 84th lowest funded district (per student) in the state, yet they are ranked near the top in terms of test scores. That alone tells me that the quality of family has much more to do with the level of funding.

So with the knowlege that my school system recieves a total of about $6500 per student, I would suggest that this would be a good base. Now some of the extracurricular programs are slighly underfunded, and there are still a couple of schools that could use some technology updating (a lot of this has been accomplished over the past 5-6 years as they built several new schools and simultaniously equiped them with the best and most updated technology), but we are only talking about a few hundred dollars per year of additional needs per student. So maybe $7k/student would be quite reasonable.
 
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I realize this. The county extorts X dollars from the citizens and then divvies up the plunder between the various agencies under its control. In turn, each superintendent begs for X dollars for those schools under his control. At no point in this process do they know how much it costs them per student for an adequate education. They simply try to get as much money as they can and then they see what they can buy with their budget. This is essentially the exact opposite of what private companies which must compete for customers must do. Private companies make an estimation of how much their product is worth and how many customers will purchase it. With this figure in mind, they attempt to procure the necessary materials to produce that good. If the budget is too small they must either increase prices at risk of turning away customers or reduce costs. This entire process is missing from public schools (and other bureaucracies).
Yet both private and public schools seem to have similar budgets. Well thats not true on average private schools have bigger budgets.


Not all colleges. There are many colleges which offer courses for a couple hundred bucks or less. Heck, you can even take many courses online for free as I mentioned earlier.
Still a bad comparison.


It depends on the school. Just as we can’t rightly compare police costs to private security costs we cannot do the same for schools. That said, I’m sure you could find plenty of private schools which cost drastically less than public schools and other which cost significantly more.
On average though private schools cost near the same or dramatically higher than public schools. While I am usually the first to oppose state ran anything, I do not see where private industry is doing any better in teaching children. And again I never claimed that there was not room for improvement in the public school system.



Of course not. Check out the extremely cheap private schools around the world. Once again, you cannot simply group all private schools into one aggregate lump. We can claim all day long that public transportation is better than private transportation because Ferraris cost $500,000 but this would be a fallacious comparison. Even comparing a cheap economy car to the bus would be fallacious unless we considered the amount of subsidies involved in their operation.
. You quoted the link that I provided, I never said Aren’t independent schools only affordable for rich people? I think it was dishonest of to make it appear as if I did.


I agree (though I wouldn’t go so far as to blame it on stupidity, perhaps mere ignorance). However, simply because everyone pays some taxes does not make my claim false. The truth is that those who are rich and have no children pay a greater tax than they receive in educational benefits. This is a subsidy.
So in your world only the people that use a public service or benefit form something that is paid for by taxes should be required to pay taxes? Oh good for the last 25 years I never used the fire department, so why am I paying for those free loaders? And that goes for the police too. And there are certain roads I dont use and I never use a senior citizen center. Oh and I never go to church, why should churches get a tax break? Hell why dont we privatize government while we are at it, since private industry is so efficient? Well except those private businesses that fold cause they had no clue what they were doing.

Throwing a false dichotomy into the fray does nothing to advance your position. Extremely poor people around the world obtain their education through private sources; there is absolutely no reason whatsoever – despite your hyperbole otherwise – that “all children” would not receive some form of education. The only difference is that all children would be able to choose which form of education they preferred as opposed to being forced to accept the will of the masses.
Again right now as you said some private schools charge less right? And there are many private schools how are we forcing anyone to use the public school system? As I pointed out above not everyone uses the fire department yet everyone pays for it. Last year during the 4th of July my lawn caught on fire (ooops) and I put it out with a hose eventually. Yet I am happy to pay the taxes that pay for the fire department. And when was the last time you heard of someone stopping a crime by themselves complain about paying taxes to have police?

Private schools just charge whatever they want. They are not trying to make it as cheap as possible by any means. Their target market base views the more expensive private schools as better. There is no proof that paying more gets you a better education for your kids right?
 
FreedomFromAll said:
Yet both private and public schools seem to have similar budgets. Well thats not true on average private schools have bigger budgets.

I have not seen any statistics of private schools versus public schools. Considering that the average is more than $10,000 per student I find it highly unlikely that private school is more expensive. But like I said, I have not seen any numbers. If you can come up with something addressing this I would be more than happy to acknowledge it.

That said, even if private school is more expensive (which I do not think it is), I have a theory as to the reason. Public school is considered to be free and for all intents and purposes is "free" from a net income point of view. Moreover, the price of public school per student per family is difficult to determine since the taxes appropriated are from such a progressive basis that no family would be identical. That said, private school must logically compete primarily for those students who are from specific backgrounds: religious ideologies, affluent society, specialized programming, etc. I would think that the largest groups of private schools belong to the religious and affluent classes. Typically religious schools are subsidized by the various churches which allows higher per student expenditures than would normally be possible and obviously the affluent are able to afford - and even demand - higher tuition rates to keep out the riffraff. I have no evidence of this but it seems logical and plausible to me.


FreedomFromAll said:
You quoted the link that I provided, I never said Aren’t independent schools only affordable for rich people? I think it was dishonest of to make it appear as if I did.

My apologies. I cut and paste into Word without formatting so I must have missed the fact that this was from a quote. You are continually suggesting that private school is more expensive than public school so it must not have been that far from the mark.

FreedomFromAll said:
So in your world only the people that use a public service or benefit form something that is paid for by taxes should be required to pay taxes?

Yes. Why is this a bad idea? You don't have to pay for any other purchases of other people so why should it be any different in the public sector? Fire departments are poor examples since they operate on the theory of distributive risk in the same manner as any sort of insurance policy. Police and national defense are also within this realm. They are good examples in the sense that they have no method available to ensure efficiency of operation.

I would completely support private maintenance of roads. Senior centers are private in my area so it must be a local thing for you. I don't believe there should be different tax treatment of any individual or company or organization. It would be a good thing if a bunch of governments closed down due to bankruptcy. We would certainly have fewer wars anyhow.

FreedomFromAll said:
And when was the last time you heard of someone stopping a crime by themselves complain about paying taxes to have police?

Today.

FreedomFromAll said:
Private schools just charge whatever they want. They are not trying to make it as cheap as possible by any means. Their target market base views the more expensive private schools as better. There is no proof that paying more gets you a better education for your kids right?

They charge what the market deems is a good value for their money.
 
I have not seen any statistics of private schools versus public schools. Considering that the average is more than $10,000 per student I find it highly unlikely that private school is more expensive. But like I said, I have not seen any numbers. If you can come up with something addressing this I would be more than happy to acknowledge it.
I provided you with that link already.

That said, even if private school is more expensive (which I do not think it is), I have a theory as to the reason. Public school is considered to be free and for all intents and purposes is "free" from a net income point of view. Moreover, the price of public school per student per family is difficult to determine since the taxes appropriated are from such a progressive basis that no family would be identical. That said, private school must logically compete primarily for those students who are from specific backgrounds: religious ideologies, affluent society, specialized programming, etc. I would think that the largest groups of private schools belong to the religious and affluent classes. Typically religious schools are subsidized by the various churches which allows higher per student expenditures than would normally be possible and obviously the affluent are able to afford - and even demand - higher tuition rates to keep out the riffraff. I have no evidence of this but it seems logical and plausible to me.
I am not sure what your point is here.




My apologies. I cut and paste into Word without formatting so I must have missed the fact that this was from a quote. You are continually suggesting that private school is more expensive than public school so it must not have been that far from the mark.
You are assuming too much. What I believe is that having public schools is good as long as there are other options as well. Home schooling and independent schools are signs of a free society. Im not really going to promote establishment of religious schools or alternative (Leftist) private schools since, I believe it is morally wrong to brainwash children. But apparently people are free to send their children to private schools for that very thing.


Yes. Why is this a bad idea? You don't have to pay for any other purchases of other people so why should it be any different in the public sector? Fire departments are poor examples since they operate on the theory of distributive risk in the same manner as any sort of insurance policy. Police and national defense are also within this realm. They are good examples in the sense that they have no method available to ensure efficiency of operation.
Uneducated people is an disruptive risk, just look at any third world country. I agree though that the public school system needs to be better regulated. Test scores are a very bad way of employing quality control. I know that achievement tests are not taken seriously by the children that take them since they are told that the tests have no bearing on their personal grades. And obviously better standards need to be developed for all school system in the US including private and especially home schooling.

I would completely support private maintenance of roads. Senior centers are private in my area so it must be a local thing for you. I don't believe there should be different tax treatment of any individual or company or organization. It would be a good thing if a bunch of governments closed down due to bankruptcy. We would certainly have fewer wars anyhow.
The only large scale examples of private road maintenance are toll roads. And some are owned by foreign interests. No one should be required to pay for movement in the US.



ok



They charge what the market deems is a good value for their money.
Like any good business the entire point of a private schools existence is for profit. And if the school is not market driven then their point is message driven. Hence why churches subsidize private schools.

An educated nation is a profitable nation. Educating children IMO is a matter of national security. It promises that future generations do not fall for things like Leftist propaganda or theological push for an theocracy. Private schools should be heavily regulated to assure that they are not being fed lies as reality. Public schools should also be heavily regulated for the same reasons. You also have to remember that many public schools are the result of support by private citizens. Of course there are many bad examples in the public school system. But the point of public schools is to assure that every citizen receives an education. Education is by no means free. Hell nothing in this reality is free. No one really gets a free ride. But I have no faith in private industry promising an equal opportunity of children to learn what they need to be good contributors to society. Which is the reason why I support a public school system. To assure that all Americans receive an basic education. In a perfect world private industry could fulfill that requirement but this is not a perfect world. BTW public schools are just apart of social infrastructure not Socialism.
 
Hiigh School should continue until 25 years of age.
**** that! High-school should be replaced with vo-tech or collage prep, depending on how you score on a test which should be given to you in 8th grade.
 
**** that! High-school should be replaced with vo-tech or collage prep, depending on how you score on a test which should be given to you in 8th grade.

I think that in most places it is already such. Some students start taking college prep classes, others take a couple of classes at the high school and are then bused off to the "vo". Of course come colelge prep students end up never going to college and so "vo" students never become a welder or mechanic (or whatever their vocational training was).
 
FreedomFromAll said:
I provided you with that link already.

No you didn’t. The only link that even claimed to make the comparison suggested that public school is free, which it obviously is not.

FreedomFromAll said:
I am not sure what your point is here.

My point is that you don’t find private businesses competing with public services which are offered for “free” unless they distinguish themselves in a significant manner because nobody is willing to pay for something they get free of charge. In other words, the vast majority of private schools cater to the more affluent in society because they have the ability to demand a better result; thus private tuitions in the current dynamic are higher than their public counterparts. Or put in an alternative example, the public school system produces VW bugs and the private system produces Aston Martins. They compete in the same industry but in two totally separate markets because the private sector cannot compete with free.

FreedomFromAll said:
Uneducated people is an disruptive risk, just look at any third world country. … And obviously better standards need to be developed for all school system in the US including private and especially home schooling.

I’m not so sure you can blame disruptions in third world nations on a lack of education considering the enormous number of additional factors involved. We can sit here all day long spouting off intellectual giants who never completed formal education. Education is what each individual makes of it. Standards are excuses for minimal achievement. I am completely against forced standards.

FreedomFromAll said:
No one should be required to pay for movement in the US.

Too late. Everyone pays taxes which goes to support roads.

FreedomFromAll said:
Like any good business the entire point of a private schools existence is for profit. And if the school is not market driven then their point is message driven. Hence why churches subsidize private schools.

Oh give me a break. Please tell me a single commodity available on the free market which is only available in low-qualities? The profit motive ensures high quality and low prices when competition is allowed.

FreedomFromAll said:
Private schools should be heavily regulated to assure that they are not being fed lies as reality. Public schools should also be heavily regulated for the same reasons.

Who regulates the regulators? You missed the whole point of free competition: quality. Quality in education is truth. The truth will never be freely available so long as the government provides education.

FreedomFromAll said:
BTW public schools are just apart of social infrastructure not Socialism.

I’m not sure of the relevance of this comment but in any case you are incorrect. Socialism is the public ownership of the means of production. The means of production in education is the school system. The public school system is not owned privately, it is owned collectively. Thus, socialist. There is a great book which details the history of education in America (which I cannot recall the title of) which shows in great detail how the American system originated in Prussia as a way of indoctrinating the populations for the socialist dogma. I’ll see if I can dig it up.
 
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