A letter to my students • Hacker News Board

Re: A letter to my students

#11

Post by mkr-hn » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:01 AM UTC

KevinMS wrote: post #7

Perfect timing for this http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_us/us_taj_mahal...

"In Los Angeles, officials say the new schools were planned long before the economic pinch and are funded by $20 billion in voter-approved bonds that do not affect the educational budget."

Even in good times that's a lot for a school that will only house 4200 students. That's almost $140k for every student it holds. I wonder how long it's going to take for students going through it to generate enough economic activity to cover it.

Is there an economist in the house?

Re: A letter to my students

#12

Post by mkr-hn » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:03 AM UTC

achompas wrote: post #9

mkr-hn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about economics, so I'm probably missing something obvious. How is revenue linked to how much a government is doing for its people?

Government revenue (usually: taxes) funds the services governments provide for its people. Example: USPS has seen slow/negative net revenue growth, so they're considering cutting Saturday service.

That much I knew. But my thinking was that the amount spent and how was a better indicator. If they bring in $5000 in revenue and buy $5000 in golden toilet seats, it's not being spent well.

But if that $5000 is going to needed books for schools, it's good.

Re: A letter to my students

#13

Post by _delirium » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:04 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #4

There are two ways CA could be doing less for its citizens. They could be raising less money, or spending it more wastefully. The writer seems to assume all the problems he observes are due to the former and none to the latter. The first step in verifying his claims would be to check whether the state's revenues are in fact lower. Are current state revenues lower than revenues in, say, 1960, when adjusted for inflati…

Not an answer, but you should probably adjust by some sort of CA wage index rather than purely inflation, since a lot of things the government pays for have grown more expensive much faster than inflation (like salaries of sysadmins, and land). Looking at revenues as a percentage of state GDP would be one approximation (that would also bake in a correction for population growth).

I do think it's likely they haven't decreased greatly, though--- imo a bigger factor has been that where the money is spent has shifted greatly (less on education, more on cops and prisons, for example).

Re: A letter to my students

#14

Post by Avshalom » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:04 AM UTC

abcxyz wrote: post #2

"You spent your school years with teachers paid less and less, trained worse and worse, loaded up with more and more mindless administrative duties, and given less and less real support from administrators and staff." What evidence does he provide that the decline in quality of education is due to lower budgets? As technology improves we should expect costs to decline. We should expect higher quality for less cost! W…

"As technology improves we should expect costs to decline. We should expect higher quality for less cost! "

Because teachers are technology...?

Also, fun fact here, being "loaded up with more and more mindless administrative duties, and given less and less real support from administrators and staff" is partially due to those lower budgets.

Re: A letter to my students

#15

Post by _delirium » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:05 AM UTC

wheaties wrote: post #3

I think the author is mistaken. You see, what happened in years past is that they "took out a loan" to pay for now with the promise that they'd pay it later. However, later has come and now those that benefited the most can't understand why those that have to pay for it need to tighten their belts. None of us want to stop paying for it but we've learned what they haven't: you have to live within your means. My father…

They didn't take out a loan, though--- the generation of Californians he's talking about (pre-1970s) built a bunch of infrastructure while also balancing the state budget.

Re: A letter to my students

#16

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:05 AM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #8

pg wrote: post #4

There are two ways CA could be doing less for its citizens. They could be raising less money, or spending it more wastefully. The writer seems to assume all the problems he observes are due to the former and none to the latter. The first step in verifying his claims would be to check whether the state's revenues are in fact lower. Are current state revenues lower than revenues in, say, 1960, when adjusted for inflati…

I don't know much about economics, so I'm probably missing something obvious. How is revenue linked to how much a government is doing for its people?

[deleted]

Re: A letter to my students

#17

Post by avdempsey » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:07 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #4

There are two ways CA could be doing less for its citizens. They could be raising less money, or spending it more wastefully. The writer seems to assume all the problems he observes are due to the former and none to the latter. The first step in verifying his claims would be to check whether the state's revenues are in fact lower. Are current state revenues lower than revenues in, say, 1960, when adjusted for inflati…

According to Prop 13 grand-daddy Howard Jarvis, state revenues have indeed increased since Prop 13 passed (1978).

We have a heckavu budget morass in California. Our ballot initiative democracy has _written into the constitution_ both spending minimums (40% of general budget from Prop 98) for education, and tax maximums. It's a massive vote of no confidence to strip our legislatures of the working room to make a budget.

I'm going to agree with the letter here. Somehow, in California in the 60s, we decided as a state to build the world's best civil infrastructure. We (well my grandparents) built this to benefit residents statewide. The terms of debate have changed from what makes the best place to live, to fear or sounds-nice-but-not-right-nowism.

From 2/3s majorities, to social issues, to pensions, we're in a real hole. But a rebuilt civil infrastructure is necessary, decline is obvious.

Re: A letter to my students

#18

Post by _delirium » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:07 AM UTC

abcxyz wrote: post #10

achompas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence does he provide that the decline in quality of education is due to lower budgets? Academic positions, like any other job, operate within a competitive labor market. Lower budgets mean less money to attract top talent. Cheaper iMacs can't change that.

Certainly. But technology can reduce the amount of labor used. For example, better OCR means typists can do something more valuable. There hasn't been much experimentation in teaching such as using video instructions and that is in part because of a lack of competition. Normally we would expect the marginal productivity of labor to increase with technology level.

> There hasn't been much experimentation in teaching such as using video instructions and that is in part because of a lack of competition.

Higher education does have competition (thousands of universities, both public and private), but technology hasn't brought the costs down there either.

Re: A letter to my students

#19

Post by zeteo » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:11 AM UTC

That song he links to at the end is quite awesome. I guess this is the original version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP7ggY2cNcs

Re: A letter to my students

#20

Post by pmb » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:11 AM UTC

abcxyz wrote: post #2

"You spent your school years with teachers paid less and less, trained worse and worse, loaded up with more and more mindless administrative duties, and given less and less real support from administrators and staff." What evidence does he provide that the decline in quality of education is due to lower budgets? As technology improves we should expect costs to decline. We should expect higher quality for less cost! W…

"As technology improves, we should expect higher quality teachers for less cost" --- if and only if we know how to use technology to increase instruction quality. I contend that we have almost no idea about that.

He is right to blame all of California's ills on tax cuts. They and Oregon have had the worst abuses of the proposition system of all the states. Both used to be prosperous with balanced budgets, but had sneaky time-bomb anti-tax measures voted in, which prevented them from raising revenues even as home prices went up (which should increase the amount of tax owed on a property, but didn't) and inflation made existing fixed dollar amounts worth less and less.

The example I know best is Oregon, where a guy named Bill Sizemore (currently indicted for tax evasion) organized and ran a successful campaign for a measure that required a super-majority of registered voters to vote yes in order to pass any tax increase in a non-presidential election year. Thus, not going to the polls counts as a "no" rather than a "I don't care". Another Oregon measure required that the taxed value of a property could rise by no more than 3% per year. Thus, when I owned a house in Oregon, I was only taxed on two thirds of its value (this is slightly pre-bubble, too - now it is much worse!).

Anyhow, lots of this sneaky stuff has led to the states being almost totally broke, and their respective education systems, which were once the best in the nation, are now circling the bowl. Higher ed is holding up better than K-12.