To that end, Kaplan said she was most excited by her designated role as the board?s first Parent Teacher Association representative. The opportunity to be ?a voice for parents,? Kaplan believes, will go a long way to offset the notion that she is simply a left-leaning, knee-jerk dissenter. In fact, Kaplan made it quite clear that her beliefs are far from radical.
?I think I represent the mainstream,? she said. ?Fact is, I happen to serve on a school committee in a town that is consistently praised for having one of the best public school systems in the state. Families are willing to move to Brookline and struggle with the (real estate) costs to send their kids to our public schools. So we must be doing something right.?
My reading of Kaplan’s history on opposing the MCAS graduation requirement is that her position came primarily from her work with Special Ed students, where 40% of those denied a diploma by the MCAS were SPED students. Kaplan worked for a meaningful alternate assessment system that would allow people with disabilities to get the certificate they need to have a chance for meaningful employment.
The fact is, Governor Romney chose simply not to appoint a PTA representative to the Board of Education when the legislature created this position, rather than allowing anyone with an alternate point of view to have a seat on the board.
By making this appointment, Deval Patrick has simply followed the legislature’s lead to put a parent representative, nominated by the state PTA, on the board.
Policy set in a vacuum of like-minded individuals can result in bad policy. If the BoE has ceased to be self-critical, then indeed Ruth’s appointment is a good thing. Although the last quote of the op-ed is a bit disingenuous, given the political machinery (MASC, MASS, MTA, etc.) behind Kaplan.
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For those of us who believe that metrics and accountability for them are required for improvement, this appointment on the heels of the elimination of the EQA is cause for concern.
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Education is the largest public expenditure bar none. I am unimpressed with the governor’s grand statement of expanding taxpayer funded education. Forget the absence of a funding plan. There wasn’t even a goal, let alone a measure of success, aside from making it “free”. Well, nothing is free. So, that’s just BS.
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At the Federal level, that’s not even close to true. At the state level? Numbers please. At the local level, yeah I could believe it. In aggregate? I’d bet that social programs [medicare et al] and military spending [including research and homeland security] far outweigh education spending.
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Got any numbers to back up your claim?
Not even close.
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Now, it may be closer when you add in the local spending, as you say, but keep in mind, they’re getting bled dry by health care costs, too.
Total education spending-2007–is around $9.2 Billion.
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Total state budget is around $19 Billion, total local property taxes are around $9.6 billion. So, education is around 1/3 of total state and local revenue. These numbers are off the top of my head but can’t be far off.
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If education isn’t the biggest use of public money, it’s a close second to health and human services.
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To Charley’s point that ‘[locals] are getting bled dry by health care costs, too’: a large component of health care cost is included in the education (teacher’s salary) component of the budget.
I think K-12 consumes about half of property tax revenue, and more than 3/4ths in some locales. And statewide, health costs are the fastest growing component of ed costs.
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More like a fifth of state funds, including higher ed. At the federal level, where ed policy is being driven nationally, it’s a relatively small line item. The tail is wagging the dog on reform; the few federal dollars that do come to the states come with a lot of bureaucratic strings. For a state like Mass, which has its act relatively together on ed, I suspect we might get as much bang for the buck simply by refusing the federal dollars. Some localities would disagree. The state would certainly need to replace some of the federal special needs programs with state programs; but I think cutting out the federal red tape and constraints could practically offset those costs.
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I think I’m half-way to dweir on community college costs, except that the total price tag is small enough that I don’t really care – about 1% of state K-12 funds.
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Mass’s public college costs are among the highest in the nation, and I think we should make both the community and the 4-year state colleges closer to national averages on costs; and make it free for those that really can’t afford it but who have graduated from Mass public high schools. I suspect community college kids are less mobile than 4-year, so the investment probably would pay for itself in local benefits. But for most who attend, I think it’s more important to put available state funds towards capital spending and program development than to give them a free pass.
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For K-12, I’m not quite as close. I do think we should assure we get what we pay for. But I think that’s largely a local issue, where I think dweir sees it as a state issue with test score accountability as the metric. I think we’re so far from having tests that are able to differentiate cause and effect that we’d be better off taking two steps back, giving localities tools and regulations they can apply, and let them handle 80% of accountability locally.
Most complete data is from FY06 which includes grants and revolving funds.
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Total education spending = $10,976,178,112
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The numbers aren’t in for FY08 obviously, so I can’t compare against the FY08 budget. Using data from C70, NSS and total expenditure as a guide, I come up with an estimate of about $13B for FY08. That would be spending, which is likely lower (by at least some degree) than budgeted dollars. It also doesn’t include early education, higher education, or the school building program.
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I concede that, given the FY08 numbers for HHS, the “bar none” tag should have been “bar one”.
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Given the investment so far in education and accompanying support structures, I am underwhelmed by the results we have obtained thus far.
Medicare and military are federal programs. Education is not. So, the comparison based on federal spending isn’t quite right.
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You may consider looking at total spending as a percentage of GDP. NCES puts education spending at about 7.6%. (Sorry no link to the specific file… destination (XLS) wouldn’t copy to my clipboard… but search their site for “GDP). This is about equal to what is spent on SS and Medicare combined, although the latter is all public spending where the former is not. Both far exceed military spending which comes in at about 4% of GDP.
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The GDP metric isn’t exactly great. Can you think of one better?
I couldn’t find the 7.6% number, so I couldn’t determine: is that total dollar amount solely public money, or does that include private expenditures on education?
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As for military spending — those numbers exclude a whole bunch of spending which I tend to consider military — border control, homeland security, etc. Exactly where the line between military and “law enforcement” should be drawn, I have no idea. Still, if we’re fighting a war on terror, shouldn’t our anti-terror expenditures be counted toward military?
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The GDP metric is fine as long as all three statistics [ed, DOD, SS+Med] use the same GDP denominator.
That’s the main weakness in this measure is that the particulars of what is counted are unknown (at least to me!). Judging from the percentages, it’s got to be more than just federal spending. But beyond that, I’m not sure.
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I agree that it would seem national defense, whether that is happening by the military or local law enforcement should be counted as defense.