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In the US we spend on average over 10,000 dollars per student. The average teacher salary is 50,000. The average class size is about 25. After the teacher's salary is taken out that leaves you with 200,000 per class. They obviously aren't spending that on books or technology with how outdated they are in every school I've seen so where's all this money going?
(These figures are per year)
My guess is insurance companies.
State bureaucrats and federal bureaucrats.
Lol why should I care? As long as you're putting money into the thing, that's as far as my interests or responsibilities go.
What exactly is this 10,000 dollars per student paying for? Are you accounting for cafeteria food, sports and physical education, renovations, music programs, etc?
You can't assume it's getting scraped off the top without evidence.
(In the states at least) A whole lot of money is being wasted somewhere along the line because we have sub par facilities and books and teachers don't get paid enough. Personally I get pissed off when my money is forcibly taken from me and then used to line the pockets of bureaucrats.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
In a school with 1 class each from grades 1-6 that would be an extra 1.2 million dollars. Do the schools where you live look like they spend even a third that much on renovations each year? They don't in my area. I really doubt they spend more than 100,000 each on any of the other things you mentioned. You don't think anything fishy is going on? Either way that's a lot of money being spent on really poor results. We have about 70% high school graduation rate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
American schools are like businesses. As long as people are willing to pay they'll ask more. The better the reputation, the more tuition they can afford to ask.
It was parody. :VQuote:
Originally Posted by StonedApe
Nobody forces you to buy from certain businesses.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meeps
ahahaha :facepalm:, it's been a long day...Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
It shouldn't be going to cafeteria food and physical education, seeing as students have to pay for the food and there is nothing in PE that costs more than a five dollars per student.
I have been thinking the same thing. For quite a while, but moreso recently because I have to pay $9000 this year for a one year course.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if the salary of the owner of a school was over a million dollars a year. That's where it's going.
That's how it is at the university I was going to. Not quite that much, but the president makes over 500,000 after his bonus. He's been asked by students and faculty to donate it back to the school since we were having funding issues but has refused. On top of this he's a giant douche who pretends to like the arts despite knowing nothing about any of them and cutting our funding regularly.
Bureaucrats, insurance companies, and banks.
I get the first 2 but how do banks get in there?
What do you mean? No one forces you to go to uni either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
To the wrong places.
LOL that is pretty much an exact description of the principle of my high school. Except he made a million dollars a year.Quote:
Originally Posted by StonedApe
In Australia, even private schools get government funding as well. About 3 million a year IIRC.
So all up, and being conservative, at least 5 million dollars in the one school goes to....?
What exactly do these insurance companies do?
Take all your money and do everything in their power to not give any back to you when you need it.
Good deal huh?
Protect them when they do something stupid and get sued by parents.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Eagle
I was referring to schools as in 18 and under, whatever you call them. The things you're forced to pay for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meeps
You cannot blame the graduation rate on the funding. There are too many elements in play including a general disillusionment with the school system that has been brewing for years now.Quote:
Originally Posted by StonedApe
Honestly though, I can't account for all the spending you're referring to but I also need to see something that explains the spending so I can see the unaccounted for money. It goes somewhere and that somewhere is recorded. Public funding is not laundered so easily.
Your post would have had more than zero value if you'd provided some data.Quote:
Originally Posted by ninja9578
Haliburton disagrees with you.
This is a sad day but I'm forced to agree with Xei. Please substantiate claims before implying our education system is laundering money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I didn't. I said that we are spending $10,000 per student and 30% aren't even making it through high school. I think the results are pretty atrocious when you consider the kind of resources that 10,000 a year affords you. That's $120,000 per student. You can do a lot with that much money and what we have is simply pathetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
I'm not even saying it's laundered, though that's definitely a possibility. I'm thinking it's likely spent in the usual crony capitalist way. Public money being given to favorite companies that really aren't providing the kind of value they're being payed for. But it also seems pretty unlikely that someone somewhere isn't abusing the system and leeching money out of it.Quote:
Honestly though, I can't account for all the spending you're referring to but I also need to see something that explains the spending so I can see the unaccounted for money. It goes somewhere and that somewhere is recorded. Public funding is not laundered so easily.
Right but again this is not a funding issue so don't put it on funding like we would fix education by throwing more money at it. (I know you weren't saying that but your point about graduation implies its a financial issue so you have to clarify that). Our education system is terribly biased and backwards, this is revealed by the very fact that something like graduation exists in the first place.
Nextly, I understand how private companies often receive no bid contracts and bypass natural competition. But which ones? Don't be Glenn Beck, don't just insinuate people are doing bad things without explaining what that is or who's doing it. It's not exactly news that our public funding is grabbed up by profit driven companies. The hundred dollar hammer rumor has been around since the 80s.
I do think there should be going more funding into it. The American citizen should pay higher taxes into the educational system, depending on someone's wealth, so the tuition fee can go down a lot. That way people who don't have the financial capacities to go to the university will be able to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
You're missing the point that there is already more than enough money going in to it.
But it's obviously not actually going anywhere productive.
Although I do think all education should be paid for by taxes.
Schools have projects that occasionally cost millions and millions of dollars. New sports arenas, expansion. Both require more money than the school has at any given time. Sometimes the government gives grants for them, sometimes they take loans from the banks.Quote:
Originally Posted by StonedApe
No there's not enough money pumped in by the government. By people, yes, but the system should be regulated by the government, otherwise we have the nefast consequences that we see now, basically schools turning into businesses asking a ridiculous amount of money. I think they should socialize education, just like Obama did with health care.Quote:
Originally Posted by tommo
I mean, how can you be surprised that they're asking so much money if you're basically dealing with a business? If you're buying a product, like, for example a Lee Cooper jeans, the largest percentage of the price you're giving for it isn't about the fabric or the labor.. it's just going to the brand. Companies will always try to make as much money as they possibly can. Just basic economic principle.
If all schools were socialized, would they be on the same standardized curriculum? Because I don't think our schools need any more indoctrination and reinforcement of what a bureaucracy believes they should know... we have far too much already. Parents need to be directly involved in their children's education both financially (with locally-funded schools) and personally.
I find that most independent schools are like this. Here in the UK some independent schools (Eton, Harrow etc) are on the verge of hitting over £25,000 a year - and thats just on tuition fee.
Private Education is susceptible to the same kind of mass produced indoctrination meant to create a complacent working class. This is not the state's fault, if there wasn't such pressure to mass produce education from the private sector then more creative based teaching methods could thrive.Quote:
Originally Posted by ThePreserver
It's a tricky concept because obviously the government isn't going to throw money at schools that cant uphold some sort of standard and these standards are currently what confines our teachers to teach the test rather than empower the student. But they wouldn't disappear if public schools disappeared, it would only get worse because the private sector doesn't want an empowered middle class. They want a complacent middle class.
My issue is with that much money going into it and so little coming out of it, I thought that was clear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
I wasn't insinuating that, I was merely pointing out that a lot of money goes into schools and yet they are total shit. I started this thread because I don't know where the money is going and am curious, again I thought I made that clear in the OP. That's why I asked questions rather than making statements.Quote:
Nextly, I understand how private companies often receive no bid contracts and bypass natural competition. But which ones? Don't be Glenn Beck, don't just insinuate people are doing bad things without explaining what that is or who's doing it. It's not exactly news that our public funding is grabbed up by profit driven companies. The hundred dollar hammer rumor has been around since the 80s.
We're not talking about University here, or at least I'm not. I was mainly talking about public schools where there is no fee at all. Except the taxes you pay, which is total bullshit in my opinion. But we can talk about that in a different thread, I don't wanna get too off topic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meeps
To stay on topic, you don't think that $10,000 is enough money to provide someone with an education for a year(not even, only 9 months really)?
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Somebody's getting paid a hell of a lot of money and it's not the teachers. That really needs to be switched around. Administrators are far less important than teachers are.Quote:
Originally Posted by ThePieMan
Do you think that the government doesn't want this kind of indoctrination and complacency as well? For it's own purposes, not having anything to do with business?Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
I don't think you know what you're talking about here... Eton is one of the top private schools in the UK. They have a student teacher ratio of 10:1, so even if everything went to teachers that'd be a salary of £250,000 per year, which I wouldn't be particularly surprised by. In any case it's a small private organisation paid for directly by its customers; they're not going to be apathetic if it all went to pointless bureaucrats, are they?Quote:
Originally Posted by StonedApe
I apologize, I suppose I misread your tone. To be fair, Glenn Beck would use the same excuse. He's not making allegations, he's just raising questions. There is probably a lot of companies profiting from schools the same way companies profit from prison and military and every other public institution. The companies selling the school their cafeteria food are not public utilities and we assume the school will do its best to hunt the best bargain but the result is the opposite, they're bribed or extorted into bleeding our funds dry with outrageously overpriced shit so somebody can make an extra buck. But this is not just a problem with school, this is the problem with government and in fact schools are probably less affected by this because the people spending the budget are more invested in the community.Quote:
Originally Posted by StonedApe
That's why I find your OP troubling because it implies that every school spends exactly 10,000 per child and then they smuggle the rest away. The truth is every dime they get is averaged out per child (the school is there for children in the first place) but the children are getting majorly ripped off by the purchases being made.
I really don't know much about UK schools other than that they aren't as shitty as US schools. I was talking about US schools when I made that comment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I got that number from the government actually. That is how much they spend per student(actually it's a more than that), though obviously they don't spend that much on each student, it's averaged out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66
My point is more that I don't think these students are getting $10,000 worth of education each year. I recently heard Ron Paul comment on how many home schooled kids get a better education with $500 a year. Obviously its a different environment and they don't get everything that you get from a normal school but it's pretty obvious that the schools could be doing much better considering how much money they get.
Well, the comment you were responding to was about the British system. Eton isn't remotely representative of UK schools in general.Quote:
Originally Posted by StonedApe
Right well funding is an issue but it's not purely an education issue, it's a problem with our government as a whole. Individuals will protect themselves at the expense of the whole.
To me the way to solve education is not attack it by making sure they use all their money. Yeah, it's grievous that money is getting wasted but that's something we need to approach in a more general way, changing our system of government to protect people from their legislature's self-interests.
To fix the problem of education, first of all it cannot be mandatory and secondly it cannot be standardized. This makes funding even less accountable than it it is currently but it's necessary to evolve our education system from a workforce factory into a means to empower individuals and communities. Like you said people get better education in home schools. I disagree with this because I think a social environment provides a type of learning on its own and home-schooled kids miss out on that peer to peer learning so they always seem sort of awkward. But my point is we can come up with a better education system if remove standards and obligations so students and teachers are free to obtain the knowledge they want to pursue their dreams. However, we cannot do this by ending the public education system and making people rely on private schools. We need to build a ladder and the people on the top of the ladder need to aid in its completion but they tend not to unless they're obligated. It's a conundrum in evolution, those with power don't need to worry about the ways in which we can improve society. In fact its detrimental to them because it means more competition.
I wasn't endorsing private schooling, either :P I think parents need to be as actively involved in their children's education as possible, ensuring their school is educating them properly, regardless of whether it is public, private, or homeschooling.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
There should be some sorta school plan but no not Russia style of course :D What's wrong with a standardized curriculum? It just means they'll tell the history teacher for example this year you'll be teaching about the medieval age (history) and the next the modern age, etc. It's not that they say:"and you'll be saying that we saved Europe from these vicious communists and blablabla..."Quote:
Originally Posted by ThePreserver
I hear they don't even teach proper biology in America due to the interference of religious beliefs well... I think that's worse.
Why though? Parents are indoctrinating their kids anyway whenever they're not in school... It's probably better for them when they get some other views too to counter their parents beliefs.Quote:
Originally Posted by ThePreserver
Back on topic: I found an article but can't put the link here due to that silly 7 days rule :D It's from wsj and called "public schools increase fees charged to students."
That's why the UK has a 1 in 5 illiteracy rate and ranked lower on the HDI than other MEDCs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
I don't care, I'm more interested in creating a system where anyone of any economic level can empower themselves with knowledge rather than complete a workload to prove their competency in the workforce. Besides the UK still has standards. Last I checked you still have to pass a test or two and get ranked by grade.Quote:
Originally Posted by ThePieMan
And where would they get this knowledge from?Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
I don't really think opportunity for knowledge is the issue so much. In my opinion the problem stems from the use of force just like 99% of our problems. If you are within biking distance of a library you can "empower yourself with knowledge". The problem is that people don't want knowledge. And why don't they want knowledge? Because of the way our culture attempts to impart it on them; through force. This turns them off to learning at a very early and crucial age and has a drastic effect on their relationship to their schoolwork for the rest of their lives. It's why so many people procrastinate. We need to create a system where there are incentives for learning starting at the age of 4-5 so that kids will want to learn, they will want to go to school. This can be done regardless of the amount of funding you have so long as you have some money; even $500 per student would be enough though obviously more than that would be ideal.
I was watching a documentary recently and apparently the Finnish, I think it was, start learning much later than most other Western countries, yet they are still more knowledgeable and score higher on tests than other Western countries.
I think you may be on to something there, that it turns us off from learning, when it's forced on us at an early age. Especially all these "educational games" that you can buy for 2 year olds.
No wonder they hate learning, they never got to play.
Culture is a primary determinant of educational success. I reckon the Finnish culture communicates the merits and significance of education far better than the British one.Quote:
Originally Posted by tommo
And the whole thing snowballs. Because then you have the majority of kids not really liking school(and who can blame them) which then rubs off on other kids. Kids who are actually interested in learning get made fun of and feel left out from the group. Not always but this happens a lot.
A Problem we faced here in Australia A few months back where the government threw a Shit tonne of Money at schools as part of an education plan and business' just went and milked as much money as possible from the plan. A lot of the money spent building new buildings for schools, and everything went wrong.
One school paid $AUS250,000 for a building PLAN, not even the building itself, and then when the building was complete it didn't even cater for the needs of the school.
Maybe the same thing could be happening in the US on a less noted scale?
Tommo could Probably tell you more about the education plan screw up
Actually, I can't lol
$250,000 for plans? Where did this happen?
The only school I know of what they used the money for is my primary school.
And it was very beneficial, they expanded the library and built a computer lab.
This was happening all over NSW. One school got a school assembly hall to small for the school. Some schools were getting buildings they didn't want. Companies were way overpricing the work they were doing etcQuote:
Originally Posted by tommo
My local school district releases a budget statement annually, perhaps you should look into finding one for your school. Imo, we need to regulate the public school system more, and give it more funding. Education is essential, and it shouldn't be an area that we cut back on to save money. The governor of my state recently imposed massive cuts on public school funding, and now my highschool has cut the french program, all shop classes, all the CAD classes, and canceled many extra-curricular activites.
Why should other people pay for your 'extra curricular activities'?
Why should other people pay for whatever you think people should pay for?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
they don't, they are not funded by the school with the acceptance of sports programs (because sports deserves more educational funding than drama or band). but the school is refusing to even allow people to use the building after hours, and like 8 teachers got laid off (its a small school so that is a large number). And although it may seems frivolous to you to fund art programs and music programs in public schools, without them I think there would be a much higher rate of delinquency among minors.
it is no wonder America has such a terrible school system with people thinking like that. http://nationalpriorities.org/media/...ing_fy2012.png
I mean honestly, tell me how its right that we spend over 14 times as much money on military expenses annually than education? does no one but me think we have our priorities backwards?
You can't compare different categories of spending on a dollar-by-dollar basis. For example, take a household. Say you spend $2000/month on mortgage payments but only $400/month on food. Does this mean you value your house 5 times more than you value food? Of course not, one doesn't follow from the other. Similarly, military spending can't be compared to anything else because wars, or even pure defense, is bloody expensive. In fact, pure defense is the most expensive of all, because you must constantly pay for soldiers and weapons that are never even used.Quote:
Originally Posted by randosity
If you have a moral problem with what your government spends money on, then state it on moral terms. Don't be a coward and hide behind numbers.
With as little scathing sarcasm as possible: You must be THE only person who thinks our militarism is out of hand. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by randosity
I still believe school funding should come locally, from the district only as a tax levy. If parents wish to support their children's schooling, they pay a property tax on it. If not, well that is their choice. That's how it works where I live, and it works well enough I presume. It's no one's responsibility to educate a student other than the student, the parent, and the teacher. Bureaucrats and politicians have no place in education.
I just found out that the aus government is making us pay an extra ~250-300 dollars a year to the university to pay for them to make improvements to their campuses and "helping students with programs" etc.
Isn't that exactly what school fees are for!??!????
Seriously wtf? How the shit do they even come up with this fucking bullshit?
Because they rely on the fact that most people haven't heard of it... :PQuote:
Originally Posted by tommo
I'm changing my attitude more and more in regard to this issue. I decided all monopoly is bad because the real accountability is only demonstrated in participation. Even if an institution is accountable to voters, the PR machines will always be hard at work to make sure voters act against their interests.
So I would like to see a voucher system with no standards of entrance. By this I mean you cannot exclude a student based on test scores. This was the main problem I found with the voucher argument, I thought it was more like scholarships and I think scholarships are just a form of prejudice. But if someone can take the money that is supposed to be spent per student and use that money in any school system which meets civil rights and other requirements, it would be much healthier for our education system.
The fact is that 10% of our education fund goes to the teacher's salary when it ought to be around 50%-60% (since teachers buy their own supplies anyways). All this money disappearing into the salaries of the administration is caused because the people are not allowed to choose where their tax dollars are spent. I still believe everyone should be required to pay for public education but I believe no one should ever be forced to use one institution over another. Like a Charter school, students who choose to opt out of the district's main public school ought to also be able to opt their tax dollars out and spend those tax dollars on the actual institution they choose.