An article (Budget Worries Push Governors to Same Mind-Set) in this morning’s New York Times is the latest news showing that despite two years of Democratic control in Washington, the conservatives are still winning on their one big issue.
The dismal fiscal situation in many states is forcing governors, despite their party affiliation, toward a consensus on what medicine is needed going forward.
The prescription? Slash spending. Avoid tax increases. Tear up regulations that might drive away business and jobs. Shrink government, even if that means tackling the thorny issues of public employees and their pensions.
We have an economic recovery that is only working out for the GOP’s chief benefactors. The lack of money in the hands of everyone else has kept government revenues down and make it politically difficult to generate more revenue. Whether by design or just because it is the way things worked out, this must be good news if you are a drown-it-in-the-bathtub conservative.
This is why the Great Compromise of 2010 still stings for me. While some good things passed, the end result is that the powerful and wealthy gained more power and wealth as a result.
I’m reminded of Krugman’s op-ed before last:
The view of the “other side” has changed significantly. It has taken a sharply libertarian turn. I remember being surprised when Robert Eno espoused it. All of a sudden, it seemed.
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p>The former conservative view saw the need for a government safety net that protected “innocents” but did so in a manner that never induced dependency or misaligned incentives. (And yes, that’s still pretty narrow.)
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p>Now the innocents have ceased to include any unfortunate people. Instead they are successful people being “punished” unfairly with taxes.
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p>When the right side of the political spectrum takes that view, raising taxes becomes very difficult. Our country embarks on the gamble of trying to attain prosperity without infrastructure and fiscal soundness without revenue.
There are two ways of looking at it:
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p>1) The banks weren’t following the law, and can’t foreclose, which may mean someone get’s a “free” house. The banks have no one to blame but themselves.
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p>2) The banks shouldn’t have to follow the law, because it would incur costs that would be passed onto the consumer, and no one should get a “free” house. Government, regulation, and the law is at fault. The banks are victims.
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p>I see a great deal of sympathy on the right with #2, which strengthens my pet theory that people on the right, libertarians in particular, are often times nothing more than the useful idiots of big business.
But the facts don’t bear that out.
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p>http://education-portal.com/ar…
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p>The national per pupil average of education spending has just about doubled since the 1992-1993 school year.
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p>Surely that’s because we are skimping.
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p>How much is enough? Is any amount of money thrown at a problem by the government ever too much?
In dollars adjusted for inflation, “Current Expenditure per pupil in fall enrollment”:
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p>2006-07 school year (last year in the data): $10,041
1992-93 school year: 7,664
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p>Even in conservative math that’s not double.
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p>Source (Total and current expenditures per pupil in public elementary and secondary schools: Selected years, 1919-20 through 2006-07, National Center for Education Statistics, US Department of Education.) (Another hint: the numbers you want are in the right hand columns. You’ll also notice that some of the biggest year over year increases are in the Reagan/Bush I years.)
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p>Total Expenditures, which includes capital outlays and debt service, are:
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p>2006-07: 11,674
1992-93: 8,619
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p>Same source
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p>We could use average daily attendance, if you’d prefer, but that’s not going to get you a doubled since 1992 either.
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p>In fact, if you want “more than doubled”, you need to wear bell bottoms, play records on a turntable, and call your mother from a pay phone. The year would be 1973. A helluva good year, and one I remember very fondly. If you want the “doubling” year before that, it’s 1957; a very, very good year I remember not quite so well.
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p>(I don’t know what to make of a “doubling period” getting longer, but I’m thinking it shows rate of growth might be slowing.)
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p>And the cost of private healthcare insurance has gone up how much since 1992? Private school costs?
I wonder how teacher salaries have done, adjusted for inflation?
Average Mass teachers salaries
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p>2004 53,733
2005 54,701
2006 56,366
2007 58,258
2008 64,166
2009 67,577
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p>Run that through a BLS CPI calculator, and it’s apparent that teachers salaries have exceeded CPI
Indicates an average raise of 10% from 2007-2008. That might happen in certain districts (even that seems odd), but across the entire state doesn’t sound right.
Your denominator went down. Your numerator went up, yes, but not as much as your arithmetic claims.
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p>So the newer, younger, cheaper teachers got laid off, and the average went up.
First, someone laments that the state’s “skimping” on education, then someone questions whether teachers’ salaries have kept pace with inflation.
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p>So I point toward a link plainly showing that teachers’ salaries HAVE exceeded inflation. In response, someone questions the data and you question the math: both theories with no substantiation, yet since the objective data conflicts with your gut, you go with the gut.
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p>Ok, then let’s look at total dollars spent and not average teachers’ salary, from the same link as above.
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p>Cash spent:
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p>2004 3,960 mil
2005 4,035 mil
2006 4,171 mil
2007 4,297 mil
2008 4,449 mil
2009 4,614 mil
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p>2004 amounts converted to 2009 cpi dollars is 4,497 million. In fact, the state spent $4,614 million, exceeding inflation. I submit, again, no sign of “skimping” on education.
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p>It’s a good sell, to claim that budgets are being cut to the bone, slashing, skimping on education, etc. The facts don’t support the rhetoric.
You can’t look at absolute dollars to claim that are spending too much on education because education dollars are largely spent per-pupil (though in a stepped way, not linearly, since you have to add new teachers when X number of new students come into the system at various locations and grade levels). That makes education a variable cost, so you have to look at it in terms of a per-student average if you’re going to claim that it is growing too fast.
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p>Ok, let’s do that.
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p>From the same link, here’s the average of 328-329 (depending on year) Mass school districts, spending per student.
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p>2005 $10,823
2006 $11,210
2007 $12,075
2008 $12,682
2009 $13,248
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p>Using the same bls CPI inflator calculator, the $10,823 per student would inflate to $11,889 in 2009, yet Massachusetts spent $13,248 on average.
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p>As with the previous two measures, Massachusetts isn’t skimping on education.
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p>Next.
That’s a better comparison. Here is the percentage increase per year:
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p>2005 to 2006: 3.6%
2006 to 2007: 7.7%
2007 to 2008: 5.0%
2008 to 2009: 4.5%
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p>Here is the inflation rate for the same periods:
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p>2005: 3.85%
2006: 2.85%
2007: 3.24%
2008: 3.39%
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p>So definitely, the cost per student has been rising more than inflation.
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p>I don’t think that many people realize that teachers get at least two, sometimes three different raises per year. One is based on the contract raise amount — this is what gets reported in the newspapers, as in “teachers agreed to a contract that stipulates raises of 1%, 1%, and 2% over the next three years”. People hear that and say “OK, that sounds like what I’m seeing”.
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p>There are two other raises that don’t get reported — the step raises and the channel raises. Think of steps and channels as the columns and rows of a table. The columns represent “years credited” and the rows represent “educational level”.
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p>If a teacher does not attain another educational level, and instead just works another year, they move up a step. Sometimes the steps are very discrete, like one step per year. Other times, often for more senior teachers, they are chunkier — like a step for “over 15 years” and the next one is “over 20 years”. When you move up a step, you get a raise that is in addition to the contractual raise.
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p>If a teacher also attains another educational level (like “Masters + 15 credits”), they get another raise by moving into a different channel. Plus another step raise. Plus the contractual raise. So even though the raise reported in the paper is “1%”, the actual raises paid out are higher. That may be why we see per-pupil spending increasing by a rate faster than inflation — contract raises are based on inflation, but the step raises are around 3%, and the channel raises are 2-3%. It would add up faster if the total “experience” in the district is increasing (i.e. if no one retires, and no new teachers are hired, and some teachers get more education, the salaries could increase by 6-7%)
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p>I was going to try and use Springfield as an example, because both the 2010-11 and 2011-12 schedules are also available, but I can’t figure out how to even interpret the data. I doubt most of the public could figure this out. From what I have heard, though, the salary range in Springfield is near the bottom of the state.
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p>However, that said, that doesn’t mean I agree with you that teachers are overpaid. If you look at that salary schedule, you will see that it is fairly unattractive for someone out of college to become a teacher, at least in Springfield. Assuming Channel V (Masters degree), you start at $39,643 per year. FYI, the “60% of median income” HUD income level to be eligible for low-income housing in Springfield is $32,880 for a single person. Not much room between the two.
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p>Also, keep in mind that there are no “titles” in teaching. You don’t start out as a “junior” teacher, and then get promoted to “teacher”, and then promoted to “senior teacher”, and then to “advanced teacher”, etc., the way you do if you work in the private sector. So that is another reason that there are steps, to recognize that a teacher with 20 years of experience will contribute more than a teacher with 1 year of experience, just like a senior accountant contributes more than a junior accountant.
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p>So how much should teachers be paid? How much should it cost per-pupil? Does the “private sector” give us any clues?
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p>Take a look at the cost of a private non-religious school. They charge pretty high tuition, don’t they? Anywhere between $10k and $30k per year. So are the numbers you posted wildly out of line?
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p>What about the cost of a corporate trainer? The salary range I found there was $38,000 at the low end to $77,000 at the high end. Keep in mind that a corporate trainer isn’t dealing with misbehaving students. Those are also annual salaries, not salaries for 10 months. Also keep in mind that there is no homework to be corrected either if you’re a trainer.
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p>On the other hand, Catholic school teachers often get paid very little, and tuition is lower, maybe in the $7,000 range.
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p>But for you market fundamentalists, would you be more comfortable sending your kid to a school where the teachers earned $25,000 per year or $75,000 per year?
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p>This is a very complex issue, interesting to debate, much too complex for the standard sound-bite quips like “we spend more money on the underperforming districts, so its obvious that spending more money decreases results”.
Good point, thanks.
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p>The issue isn’t that more money isn’t pouring into education, but rather, more money is pouring in, and cities and town are cutting heads and using it to enrich entrenched teachers at the expense of younger lower paid ones. Excellent for pointing out the waste – both of money and man-power.
Seems like a worse option.
Look at Mass state spending.
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p>2004-05 per pupil in Mass: 10,626
2008-09 per pupil in Mass: 13,006
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p>Applying a CPI inflator to the 10,626 implies that $11,714 is required to keep pace with inflation. Mass has exceeded inflation and is spending $13,006.
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p>The question of “doubling” is moot. But based on data from 2004 to now, there’s appears to have been no “skimping”.
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p>
Mass education has, far and away, the best outcomes in the US as measured by the NAEP (a.k.a The Nation’s Report Card).
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p>As measured on the international TIMSS test, if Mass was a separate country our students would test out something like third or fourth in the world.
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p>Partially because of our highly-educated workforce, Mass has a very high standard of living and is currently enjoying the fastest jobs growth rate of any state.
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p>I think we get a fantastic return on our educational investment.
A 3, because your comment completely and irrelevantly avoids the topic at hand.
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p>The issue was this: the editor has opined that there is ‘skimping’ on certain state spending, including education. The quoted article inflames the issues by claiming that we are ‘slashing’.
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p>The DOE numbers show an increase in spending over the past half decade that has outpaced inflation. Neither skimping nor slashing.
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p>The post is patently false or at best unsubstantiated. Your comment shed no light and is cheerleading at best and therefore worthless.
And SAT test scores are virtually unchanged for at least a decade and actually down, on average, since 2005.
As people self-select whether to take them – could be more or fewer students in a given year depending on economy, etc, and this would affect outcome.
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p>NAEP is given to a random selection of students nationwide. Much better measure.
SAT over the past decade shows little improvement, and therefore you ignore it because it doesn’t fit your political position. It is however, one important data point that is significant: how has the increased committment of resources affected college bound students. SATs are important, yet, scores haven’t improved.
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p>Now to the NAEP. You claim “Mass education has, far and away, the best outcomes in the US as measured by the NAEP (a.k.a The Nation’s Report Card).”
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p>That’s true. But, according to the 2009 report, there’s little change since the 2007 report. despite the significant spending.
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p>I think it’s important that educators actually look at the data and not from the perspective of a ideologue such as yourself, with the premise that the state has committed significant resources toward education and has the State received an acceptable return on investment.
are taking the SAT. Many of those students would not have opted to take the SAT in years past but are expected to now based on school culture. In other words, SAT results are artificially affected by large numbers of non-college bound students who take the exam.
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p>Another reason a subset of that population’s scores are lower than expected, too, is that shift away from dense, close reading and analysis in high schools in order to accommodate silly high-stakes tests like MCAS in Massachusetts. I personally know of hundreds of students who score “Advanced” on the MCAS ELA who can barely crack 500 on their SAT because they cannot read dense text well.
if it were true.
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p>But in fact the numbers taking the SAT are actually flat to down. Again from the doe website: (rounded)
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p>05 44000 test takers
06 46000
07 49000
08 47400
09 43500
were consistent with mine. Five years is not the time frame I had in mind, candidly.
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p>National data:
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p>1950 @80,000 test takers
1960 @800,000 test takers
1980 @1.3 m test takers
2009 @1.5 m test takers
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p>The test has also undergone tremendous change over the years and comparison of scores is difficult.
Unless you can establish your mindreading credentials, or can counter my claim that the SATs are not a reliable measure, then:
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p>
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p>is unfounded.
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p>You ‘claim’ SATs are no reliable measure with no support for you position, then point to other data, which you think supports your position, and then ‘claim’ that data is more reliable. Might as well claim that angels are perched on students’ shoulders then ask me to disprove it.
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p>SATs are a measure, NAEP, etc…neither independently superior, but together show no discernable corellation that the heightened spending of this century have caused better student performance in the state.
That self-selecting populations are not a good basis for comparison is a basic statistics issue. For example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…
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p>As to the NAEP scores vs. spending – you may be right although the NAEP does not have a lot of precision, so I’m not sure if your claim is statistically significant.
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p>It can be seen that, in general, higher spending yields better NAEP scores:
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p>http://febp.newamerica.net/k12…
Thanks for the link showing that the SAT isn’t a good basis for comparison. The link mentions SAT, not one time.
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p>And, of course with your second link, big spending doesn’t mean better performance. An example: Rhode Island is 6th in spending and 34th in outcome. Money causes good performance? No, probably heritable IQ more than anything else.
Nor did I say that “big spending means better performance”. I said that, in general, higher spending yields better scores.
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p>I think we have a very different understanding of statistics. One of us need to read up on the subject.
When you’ve brushed up on your stats, then get back to the thread.
we weren’t spending enough on teaching arithmetic.
the more tenured arithmetic teachers were more interested in counting their paychecks than teaching arithmetics.
on the NAEP?
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p>Puzzling evidence.
From the NAEP, 2009:
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p>
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p>Despite the significant spending increases, no difference changes from 2007 math results.
They hate being called Liberals, but they are massively in favor of all individual major Liberal initiatives: Social Security, world-class health care, taxing the wealthy at much higher rates than today, ending the wars, etc.
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p>The problem is the disconnect between people and government – we elect people to do the right thing, then once in office they moon the electorate and become factotums for the military-banker complex. So the people aren’t getting what the people want, and what they vote for.