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| BidenÂ’s Fourth-Grade Economics - Steyn |
| 2011-10-23 |
| Since 1970, public-school employment has increased ten times faster than public-school enrollment. In 2008, the United States spent more per student on K–12 education than any other developed nation except Switzerland — and at least the Swiss have something to show for it. In 2008, York City School District spent $12,691 per pupil — or about a third more than the Swiss. Slovakia’s total per-student cost is less than York City’s current per-student deficit — and the Slovak kids beat the United States at mathematics, which may explain why their budget arithmetic still has a passing acquaintanceship with reality. As in so many other areas of American life, the problem is not the lack of money but the fact that so much of the money is utterly wasted. But that’s no reason not to waste even more! So the president spent last week touring around in his weaponized Canadian bus telling Americans that Republicans were blocking plans to “put teachers back in the classroom.” Well, where are they now? Not every schoolmarm is down at the Occupy Wall Street drum circle, is she? No, indeed. And in that respect York City is a most instructive example: Five years ago (the most recent breakdown I have), the district had 440 teachers but 295 administrative and support staff. If you’re thinking that sounds a little out of whack, that just shows what a dummy you are: For every three teachers we “put back in the classroom,” we need to hire two bureaucrats to put back in the bureaucracy to fill in the paperwork to access the federal funds to put teachers back in the classroom. One day it will be three educrats for every two teachers, and the system will operate even more effectively. It’s just about possible to foresee, say, Iceland or Ireland getting its spending under control. But, when a nation of 300 million people presumes to determine grade-school hiring and almost everything else through an ever more centralized bureaucracy, you’re setting yourself up for waste on a scale unknown to history. For example, under the Obama “stimulus,” U.S. taxpayers gave a $529 million loan guarantee to the company Fisker to build their Karma electric car. At a factory in Finland. If you’re wondering how giving half a billion dollars to a Finnish factory stimulates the U.S. economy, well, what’s a lousy half-bil in a multi-trillion-dollar sinkhole? Besides, in the 2009 global rankings, Finnish schoolkids placed sixth in math, third in reading, and second in science, while suffering under the burden of a per-student budget half that of York City. By comparison, America placed 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math. So the good news is that, by using U.S.-government money to fund a factory in Finland, Fisker may be able to hire workers smart enough to figure out how to build an unwanted electric car that doesn’t lose its entire U.S.-taxpayer investment. In a sane world, Joe Biden’s remarks would be greeted by derisive laughter, even by fourth graders. Certainly by Finnish fourth graders. |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #10 What PISSES ME OFF is that all that debt didn't buy is a freaking thing. NOT ONE FU*KING THING! Its not only spending your paycheck but selling your kids and grandkids into slavery so you can blow it all on booze and hookers (and ripple and not even good hookers either...) |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-10-23 23:55 |
| #9 JohnQC, with numbers like that, Ima kinda thinkin the people who lent Washington all that money are even more screwed than us. |
| Posted by: RandomJD 2011-10-23 19:24 |
| #8 Officially, Washington has to return 15,000,000,000,000 dollars just to get back to having nothing at allÂ…to balance the budget of the United States on the backs of millionaires you would have to increase the taxes of those earning more than 1 million a year by 6 million a year. Steyn has such a way with words. We have been so screwed by Washington. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2011-10-23 19:02 |
| #7 I wonder our our Congress Critters would do in math? No, I don't wonder--our economy is in a shambles. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2011-10-23 18:16 |
| #6 Simply STOP subsidising Teaching. Government should make sure Parents are providing an education for their own children, but the State should end harmful subsidies (as well as cut the harmful taxation to fund it). |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-10-23 15:09 |
| #5 Los Angeles Unified School District already has more administrators than teachers. Every federal funding program for education contains unfunded mandates for reports and special programs which also require dedicated staff to fill out...so you have administrators twiddling their thumbs for ten months a year to fill out one report required to say the district is fullfilling the requirement of an unfunded mandate. For funds, the problem is worse, quarterly reports and semiannual reports sent to Dept of Ed that go unread, and then go to Congress where they are not read...but require dedicated school administrators to monitor the program. Funding requirements and the Dept of Ed are strangling education in the US and siphoning off huge amounts of money and manpower from teaching. I don't know why Congress always puts these reporting requirements in every funding for education...that might explain why so much of the stimulus money for education has gone unspent...all of the reporting. It's odd, there is more reporting requirements for the 40B of educational stimulus funds than there is/was for th 1.4T of financial stimulus funds... |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2011-10-23 13:26 |
| #4 Most nations also have a process whereby those that aren't going on to college are sent to a trade school where they can learn what they want to do and not clutter up the class rooms wasting their time. Granted this applies to high school but still, it skews a lot of numbers because the US insists on forcing kids to stay in school until 18 and only then moving on to learn their trade. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2011-10-23 11:08 |
| #3 Besides, in the 2009 global rankings, Finnish schoolkids placed sixth in math, third in reading, and second in science, while suffering under the burden of a per-student budget half that of York City. Of course they also suffered under Finnish parents who probably had expectations of performance and valued education. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-10-23 09:53 |
| #2 My wife is a teacher here in a nice suburb of Boston. Her response? "Well of course. WE'VE doubled our admin in the last 7 years." |
| Posted by: AlanC 2011-10-23 09:21 |
| #1 I sent this to my sister, who spent 30 years of her career in teaching (and ten years trying to do anything else). I expect you'll hear the explosion when she reads it. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2011-10-23 08:40 |