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US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

reuters.com

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Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#141

Post by satyrnein »

MattGaiser wrote: post #109
makeitrein wrote: post #58

Just watched Bryan Caplan give a talk about how the majority of our education system's resources are spent towards a "signaling arms race". What once required a high school diploma requires an undergraduate degree. What once required an undergraduate degree requires graduate school. Most of your time spend in school is learning skills that the labor market cares little for. Not wholly convinced by his conclusion that…

I see it as less about signaling and more about proof. A long time ago, a high school diploma was rigorous enough that people actually failed. A significant number of people did not earn one. Now, I don't even know of a friend of a friend who has failed to earn one, even if they just kept on retaking the courses at relatively easy schools until they passed. It isn't clear to me what holding a high school diploma indi…

This is what the "signaling arms race" refers to.

The other model, human capital theory, says that a high school diploma proves that the student has acquired specific skills (algebra, European history, etc) and therefore built up human capital. Signaling theory says the specific skills are not the point.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#142

Post by tyoma »

verst wrote: post #135
tyoma wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several states already follow effectively this model. California is one of them: the state ensures each school district is funded based on enrollment, with some correction for poverty and English learners. Oregon is another state where schools are largely state funded. Hawaii has one school district for the whole state. Illinois and a few other states have a robin-hood like system where money is redistributed to poor…

Then how is it San Francisco public schools are vastly underfunded? Teachers can't live anywhere near their school districts and get by on a single job. 20% of school budget comes from property taxes in California. I wonder how much it is in San Francisco.

I don’t know if any school district in the country pays enough for a teacher to live in San Francisco.

District finances are typically open and searchable, i am sure you can find out exactly how much the state pays and how San Francisco’s per pupil funding compares to other districts in California.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#143

Post by clairity »

mhh__ wrote: post #55
tyree731 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Educational investments shouldn’t be dictated by transient economic conditions. Could someone not make the same argument about the national defense? Education is funded largely by local taxes, and local tax revenues are being gutted, so there isn't much that can be done here without nationalizing public education.

> Could someone not make the same argument about the national defense? > national defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_... I'm not as against military spending as some people, but almost 800 billion dollars is too much

it's about a trillion if you consider hidden expenditures that are tied to the military.

it's 10X bigger than it needs to be. spend the other $900B on infrastructure of all sorts, including healthcare and emergency readiness. the new, new deal.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#145

Post by rayiner »

Jaepa wrote: post #101
RhysU wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National Defense is a luxury good until it isn't. Moreover, it is not something that can be purchased on short notice.

The US has the largest military budget in the world. If you combine the military spending of positions 2 - 11, the US still spends 6.4 billion dollars more. And of the those 10 other countries 8 are friendly and 6 are allies.

This calculation has two errors. First, it assumes that China and Russia’s spending is what they publicly disclose, which is highly unlikely. Second, it fails to account for differences in cost. China can build subway for $250 million per km. The US is four to eight times that. The Chinese built their 5th generation fighter for a program cost of $4.5 billion. Ours is better, but it cost ten times that. That reflects vastly higher labor costs, etc. China’s defense budget on paper is $175 billion in nominal dollars. If they get twice as much per nominal dollar (which is just the difference in ordinary purchasing power), they’re at half our defense budget. If they get four times more for their money (the difference in capital projects like building rail) they’re at parity.

And of course, you don’t want parity with your enemy. You want an overwhelming advantage.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#146

Post by mhh__ »

clairity wrote: post #143
mhh__ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could someone not make the same argument about the national defense? > national defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_... I'm not as against military spending as some people, but almost 800 billion dollars is too much

it's about a trillion if you consider hidden expenditures that are tied to the military. it's 10X bigger than it needs to be. spend the other $900B on infrastructure of all sorts, including healthcare and emergency readiness. the new, new deal.

I assume it's more if you include the "dark" aspects (unless you're including those too) like NRO missions and CIA ops

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#147

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

verst wrote: post #126
dorchadas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a teacher myself, and I think this is very much needed. Right now, good neighborhoods just get better schools, while bad neighborhoods get worse. It's a horribly vicious circle, and shows even in areas where there's only one school (my county, the 5th biggest in the state, only has 25k people and one high school) if there's a huge amount of poverty (something like 65% of our students are on free or reduced lunch;…

I grew up in Germany and went to public schools there. I just recently became a homeowner in Seattle. I have no ties to the local schools here and would much prefer everyone got equal opportunities and education. I'd like to see people succeed in this society on merit, not privilege - this starts with education. Germany uses a decentralized system where the federal government and state government allocate budget to s…

While that was then, now it is trendy (with a sharp rise since about 2015/2016) to send the kids to private schools if one can afford it. Hilariously even by politicians who favor the Gesamtschule/Stadtteilschule/Ganztagsschule concept in public.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#148

Post by kjksf »

culturestate wrote: post #115
jeffbee wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ONE TIME that US national defense actually worked it was very much purchased on short notice.

Unfortunately, "there are two oceans between us and any potential aggressors" is no longer a viable defensive posture. If you're gonna be drawn into a war today it's unlikely to come with years of lead time.

Here's what would happen if any nation would be stupid enough to send a single missile into US soil: a button is pressed and a nuke 1000x stronger than Hiroshima is sent. The end of "war".

U.S. has been involved in quite a number of wars in the last century. Always as an aggressor, never as a defendant.

Let's not entertain the fantasy that a military budget of $732 billion, the size of 10 next biggest budgets combined, exists to defend US soil from invasion.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#149

Post by vkou »

culturestate wrote: post #115
jeffbee wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ONE TIME that US national defense actually worked it was very much purchased on short notice.

Unfortunately, "there are two oceans between us and any potential aggressors" is no longer a viable defensive posture. If you're gonna be drawn into a war today it's unlikely to come with years of lead time.

Logistics in 2020 aren't much easier than they were in 1920, or in 1820.

And the lead time for ICBMs to kill ~ a billion people has been ~40 minutes for the past 40 years.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#150

Post by tryptophan »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #92
jwilber wrote: post #67

Could also do with cutting police funding. A local city in WA spends 53% of their budget on police[0]. Imagine if just a fraction of that went to education? I’d love to see solid studies on the efficacy/use of police budgeting. At a cursory glance, it’s an easy dataset with which to mislead: is crime going down because budgets are going up? Probably not. But without a solid study, we can’t say for sure. Still, I thin…

But a lot of money is wasted in education, as well. There are incompetent teachers with too much seniority to fire, for example, who are at the top of the pay scale, and with nice pensions waiting for them when they do retire. Many competent ones as well, but it's a big enough problem that basically every teacher I've ever met can tell you stories.

My mother is a teacher, and the stories she tells me make me really doubt our public education system.

Administrators only care about 'passing' students so that they can 'graduate'. Helping students during standardized exams? Happens. Passing students with a 14% score in the class so they can graduate? Was forced to do that. Teachers that don't teach, but try to be 'cool' and play phone games with the kids? Ok. Admins implementing shitty policies because they read a paper by some idiot phD? Yup. Tons of busywork for teachers, designed to wear them out and get them to just play along with the 'pass everyone' game? A stack of that.

And this is supposedly the best school in the county...many houses in the $mills$ nearby.

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