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Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

philip.greenspun.com

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Re: Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

#51

Post by mk »

Prrometheus wrote: post #37
mk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US may spend a lot of money on education, but there is an underlying problem that isn't addressed in either your comment or Phil Greenspun's argument. K-12 education is primarily funded through property tax. This results in wealthy communities having great schools with tons of resources and poor communities that are using decades old resources and schools that are falling apart. So maybe you are correct in saying…

DC is regularly one of the top 3 school districts in the country in terms of per pupil spending. I don't think you would want to send your children there. There are fundamental incentive problems with public monopolies. When you have a group of dedicated, wealthy, involved parents, these negative incentives can be overcome. However, the system fails your average person, and it surely fails those who need the most hel…

I'm not really familiar with the DC school district, but LA Unified gets a bad rap for being an awful school district. If you take it on a whole maybe it is, but the wealthy neighborhoods produce very good schools because they are outspending neighborhoods in say South Central Los Angeles or East Los Angeles. Do you think that this is solely because in the richer neighborhoods the parents have more time to spend assisting the students or in the classroom? Also it would be interesting to know how much more the richer schools receive in funding than the poorer schools. It seems like they are getting a two fold advantage. They have more funding available and parents who have more time and/or more involved.

Edit: just to clarify I didn't want to come across as calling you a right-wing Nazi baby killer and hope that I didn't in the original post.

Re: Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

#52

Post by tptacek »

sokoloff wrote: post #50
tptacek wrote: post #10

Here's a choice quote, just so you know where he's coming from philosophically: "If the product kills someone with a salary of $50,000 per year and 20 working years remaining, that is approximately $1 million in liability. [...] Punitive damages must be eliminated." Somehow, I'm just having a hard time believing that the challenges we face are due to businesses not investing because they're afraid of transit union st…

You need to recognize that he's coming from an aviation background, where multi-million dollar awards against parts manufacturers for pilot-judgment accidents were routine, and in fact did chase businesses (both manufacturers and service centers) out of the business as they couldn't afford liability insurance.

Isn't extremely high liability insurance costs a structural part of the aviation industry? I'm sure many of the same forces drive companies away from the nuclear power industry.

Regardless, I can hold both thoughts in my head at the same time: that we need punitive damages to ensure that companies don't factor in predictable loss-of-life liability into their business plans, as they do with many other liabilities, and that we need to consider whether punitive damages are out of control. Greenspun apparently can't.

Re: Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

#53

Post by Prrometheus »

tptacek wrote: post #47
Prrometheus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DC is regularly one of the top 3 school districts in the country in terms of per pupil spending. I don't think you would want to send your children there. There are fundamental incentive problems with public monopolies. When you have a group of dedicated, wealthy, involved parents, these negative incentives can be overcome. However, the system fails your average person, and it surely fails those who need the most hel…

DC spends more on administrative costs and less in the actual classroom than most other school districts. The fact that DC's money is misspent does not automatically mean that the problem isn't money. And sure, one good way to raise money for the DC school system would be to streamline their administration.

I agree that DC public schools misspends its money. But I am not very interested in how can we fix the problem in just this particular time and place. I am more concerned about what incentives of the system cause this problem, and what new incentives would keep this problem from recurring in other times and places.

It is easier to look at a particular district and point out what they are doing wrong (cronyism, graft, etc.) than to build universal policy that improves the system as a whole. "There are a thousand people cutting branches for every one striking at the root", and all that.

Re: Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

#54

Post by tptacek »

Prrometheus wrote: post #53
tptacek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DC spends more on administrative costs and less in the actual classroom than most other school districts. The fact that DC's money is misspent does not automatically mean that the problem isn't money. And sure, one good way to raise money for the DC school system would be to streamline their administration.

I agree that DC public schools misspends its money. But I am not very interested in how can we fix the problem in just this particular time and place. I am more concerned about what incentives of the system cause this problem, and what new incentives would keep this problem from recurring in other times and places. It is easier to look at a particular district and point out what they are doing wrong (cronyism, graft,…

So, that makes sense, but your original argument appeared to be something to the effect of, "money isn't the solution; we've tried money, for instance in DC, and it hasn't worked". That argument is wrong. It's akin to saying, "penicillin isn't the answer to infection; we've tried it, for instance by putting it on an altar and praying to it, and it hasn't worked".

I'm not engaging with the rest of your argument.

Re: Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

#55

Post by Prrometheus »

mk wrote: post #51
Prrometheus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DC is regularly one of the top 3 school districts in the country in terms of per pupil spending. I don't think you would want to send your children there. There are fundamental incentive problems with public monopolies. When you have a group of dedicated, wealthy, involved parents, these negative incentives can be overcome. However, the system fails your average person, and it surely fails those who need the most hel…

I'm not really familiar with the DC school district, but LA Unified gets a bad rap for being an awful school district. If you take it on a whole maybe it is, but the wealthy neighborhoods produce very good schools because they are outspending neighborhoods in say South Central Los Angeles or East Los Angeles. Do you think that this is solely because in the richer neighborhoods the parents have more time to spend assi…

>"Edit: just to clarify I didn't want to come across as calling you a right-wing Nazi baby killer and hope that I didn't in the original post."

Just to clarify, I wasn't saying that you did. I was just commenting on my frustration with the general state of public debate in the United States. People who support market-based policies are generally vilified right now. I think it is just a hangover from the Bush presidency, since he is widely disliked and supports market policy in his speeches. Debate will probably become more reasonable when he is gone.

Re: Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

#56

Post by Prrometheus »

tptacek wrote: post #54
Prrometheus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that DC public schools misspends its money. But I am not very interested in how can we fix the problem in just this particular time and place. I am more concerned about what incentives of the system cause this problem, and what new incentives would keep this problem from recurring in other times and places. It is easier to look at a particular district and point out what they are doing wrong (cronyism, graft,…

So, that makes sense, but your original argument appeared to be something to the effect of, "money isn't the solution; we've tried money, for instance in DC, and it hasn't worked". That argument is wrong. It's akin to saying, "penicillin isn't the answer to infection; we've tried it, for instance by putting it on an altar and praying to it, and it hasn't worked". I'm not engaging with the rest of your argument.

The evidence that I've seen suggests the correlation between school spending and educational achievement is weak. There may be specific districts that we can target as being underfunded, and money might help those districts. But untargeted increases in education spending seem unlikely to help. After all, there are very well funded districts in the United States that are horrible.

That would be my main argument. Then I wandered a bit.

Re: Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

#57

Post by mk »

Prrometheus wrote: post #53
tptacek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DC spends more on administrative costs and less in the actual classroom than most other school districts. The fact that DC's money is misspent does not automatically mean that the problem isn't money. And sure, one good way to raise money for the DC school system would be to streamline their administration.

I agree that DC public schools misspends its money. But I am not very interested in how can we fix the problem in just this particular time and place. I am more concerned about what incentives of the system cause this problem, and what new incentives would keep this problem from recurring in other times and places. It is easier to look at a particular district and point out what they are doing wrong (cronyism, graft,…

I can completely agree with you here. A more universal policy that improves the system is better than pointing out particular problems of a particular district. I think ultimately though property tax is the wrong way to fund the school system and that needs to change.

Re: Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

#60

Post by tptacek »

Prrometheus wrote: post #56
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, that makes sense, but your original argument appeared to be something to the effect of, "money isn't the solution; we've tried money, for instance in DC, and it hasn't worked". That argument is wrong. It's akin to saying, "penicillin isn't the answer to infection; we've tried it, for instance by putting it on an altar and praying to it, and it hasn't worked". I'm not engaging with the rest of your argument.

The evidence that I've seen suggests the correlation between school spending and educational achievement is weak. There may be specific districts that we can target as being underfunded, and money might help those districts. But untargeted increases in education spending seem unlikely to help. After all, there are very well funded districts in the United States that are horrible. That would be my main argument. Then…

I guess I'm asking for evidence of school districts that are both well-funded and well-managed, using (for instance) the Charity Navigator definition of well-managed (admin and fundraising costs kept to under N% of program expenditures). If there are a bunch of them, maybe I'd give more weight to your argument.

For the time being, I just think about the fact that teachers in these supposedly-overfunded school districts are teaching overcrowded classes in doublewide trailers and spending their own money on books and classroom supplies. And then I think your argument is awfully abstract, counterintuitive, and unpersuasive.

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