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California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

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Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#81

Post by apparent »

lostlogin wrote: post #75
oatmeal1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The education system seems one of the only places where vastly improving technology over the past 30 years has not translated to cost savings or improved outcomes.

It turns out that our kids learn better from humans than machines. Ever dealt with a kid who has had too much screen time? It’s fucking awful.

True, a kid who has had too much screen time is not good, just like a kid who has had too much lunch is not good. That doesn't make lunch bad, it just means the kid needs the right amount.

Screens can be helpful for kids (mine have learned a ton from Khan Academy and other online tools), but kids will have different thresholds. Some will only be able to learn a little from screens because they can't work independently. Others can learn a lot. Blanket statements like "kids lean better from humans than machines" are not helpful. They obscure the fact that there is typically one teacher for 25 kids, whereas there might be 25 screens. Even if a screen is only 1/10 as good as a teacher, it could be that learning from a screen is better than learning from a teacher (who is busy with your classmates almost all of the time).

My kid learned more math when she was doing AoPS for 2 yrs than when she was in class listening to lectures she already knew, followed by worksheets she had already mastered. Machines enable much more differentiation.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#82

Post by Joker_vD »

aiiane wrote: post #68
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which of those roles specifically would you say are fluff? Food-services manager (it's all oursourced to Aramark), data-processing specialist, print-center technician, senior clerical assistant, one of registrar or attendance, two of site maintenance, one of the network specialists (probably both–one across the district is plenty), and probably at least one of the counselors and the separate social science & athlet…

Someone still has to coordinate with Aramark. Data-processing specialist and print-center technician both sound like fancy names for secretarial roles. You're honestly saying schools need fewer counselors in what has been generally regarded as the worst generation for child mental health in years?

> Someone still has to coordinate with Aramark.

The deputy principal for the administrative and provisioning work, whatever it's called in English? The superintendent?

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#83

Post by hex4def6 »

apparent wrote: post #79

> "This isn’t a calculation error – it’s revision to better estimate how these payments are made," said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Newsom's Department of Finance. Nice excuse. Reminds me of "it depends what the meaning of 'is' is".

"The memo stated Gov. Newsom's administration made two errors. The first involved double counting CalPERS contribution rates for the upcoming year, which the LAO said was a $1.6 billion miscalculation. The second issue involved incorrect contribution rates when the administration calculated how much money the state would need to contribute to CalPERS in the years ahead. The LAO stated that mistake amounts to about $450 million. "

...

"This isn’t a calculation error – it’s revision to better estimate how these payments are made," said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Newsom's Department of Finance. "We told legislative leaders and the LAO back in February that we would update how we estimate these payments once this issue was identified. We’ve already made that adjustment, and it will be reflected in the revised budget next month."

Can someone please explain to me how double-counting isn't a calculation error? Best attempt wins.

When a political organization has no qualms about putting out a statement like that, it's a sign that they do not respect you.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#84

Post by Joker_vD »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #72
aiiane wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone still has to coordinate with Aramark. Data-processing specialist and print-center technician both sound like fancy names for secretarial roles. You're honestly saying schools need fewer counselors in what has been generally regarded as the worst generation for child mental health in years?

> Someone still has to coordinate with Aramark As a full-time position? Aramark literally ran the lunch counters. I could see it being a district-level position, though it would be better positioned as a general procurement role. > Data-processing specialist and print-center technician both sound like fancy names for secretarial roles I agree. I was suspicious when I didn't see a secretary for each of the assistant p…

> One of the counselors didn't deign to meet with students.

Why would she? That'd distract her from the actually important work of fabricating the reports that make her looking amazingly competent.

My mom is a retired teacher and her main complaint during the last 10-15 years of work was that with all the bullshit paperwork they're required to fill, the teachers literally don't have the time to just plain interact with the students. You want to make an odd, unscheduled extracurricular event? Waste a small pile of paper before organizing it, arguing for how amazing it will be for the students' education, and the an even larger pile of paper afterwards, bluntly telling just how amazing it all worked out and checked some tick boxes the upper management cares about.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#85

Post by sfink »

bayarearefugee wrote: post #61
gruez wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers. It should be staying in line with inflation or even increasing. Only if you assume if per-teacher productivity can't increase.

> Only if you assume if per-teacher productivity can't increase. It can't. The only axis upon which teacher "productivity" could increase is by increasing the size of their classes. Every study and every practical example of doing that ever done shows that it negatively impacts student outcomes. Not because the teacher is failing to be whatever it is you imagine "more productive" to be but because there is a minimum…

Oh, it definitely can, in a way very similar to the way you can dramatically increase doctor's success rates by being selective about who you treat.

Specifically: take the most disruptive students and eat them. (Be stealthy about it, the point is not fear of punishment.) The productivity difference between a classroom that spends 90% of its time on instruction vs 90% of its time on classroom management is massive.

That's why you have to be careful about applying business notions like "productivity" to governmental duties like education and mail and highways. (I dearly wanted to include healthcare or at least hospitals in the list, but I live in the US.) Businesses can and should be selective and take higher risks. For governmental tasks, productivity isn't even well-defined. If you're failing (or eating) 20% of your students but the other 80% are doing amazingly well, is that better or worse than 99% of everyone doing just okay? How about if everyone's test scores go up and practical ability goes to shit? (This is not a hypothetical, not where the kids have figured out how to use ChatGPT even for the tests. Which is a lot of places.)

Teaching is nowhere near Pareto optimal right now, so I'm not arguing in favor of the status quo. I'm just saying you have to be very, very careful when pushing for "productivity".

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#86

Post by oatmeal1 »

nyc_data_geek1 wrote: post #59
gruez wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers. It should be staying in line with inflation or even increasing. Only if you assume if per-teacher productivity can't increase.

This is not creating widgets or lines of code, not creating a product for consumption, this is fostering the development of inquisitive minds, hopefully encouraging them to become critical thinkers and ultimately the next generation of leaders who will push the bounds of human knowledge further than ever before. Why would better tools be expected to do enable teachers to do that for more students at a time? There is…

> Why would better tools be expected to do enable teachers to do that for more students at a time?

Khan Academy showed that one great teacher distributed to millions does that pretty well. It doesn't make sense for every teacher in the country (the worst and the best) to create their own syllabus and teach the same thing over and over again.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#87

Post by toast0 »

gruez wrote: post #70
toast0 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could increase per teacher productivity by running 12 months of school per year, but you would increase costs; and in some parts of California, you would need to rebuild schools with air conditioning to hold classes effectively in the summer. Covid showed distance learning doesn't work for most kids. So you can't eliminate real estate costs or hire educators in low cost areas. Computerized education doesn't seem…

>You could increase per teacher productivity by running 12 months of school per year Productivity is output divided by some input, either labor or money. Working for longer isn't going to magically increase productivity. >Covid showed distance learning doesn't work for most kids. So you can't eliminate real estate costs or hire educators in low cost areas. Computerized education doesn't seem to work, either. Right, I…

> People thought lawyers and doctors couldn't be automated away, then came chatgpt.

Form contracts and will generators and what not was automation for lawyers. Plenty of enter symptoms to get a diagnosis stuff out there for doctors; or the more paletable, enter symptoms for charting, get a suggestion and enter medicines and get alerts about interactions.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#88

Post by apparent »

hex4def6 wrote: post #83
apparent wrote: post #79

> "This isn’t a calculation error – it’s revision to better estimate how these payments are made," said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Newsom's Department of Finance. Nice excuse. Reminds me of "it depends what the meaning of 'is' is".

"The memo stated Gov. Newsom's administration made two errors. The first involved double counting CalPERS contribution rates for the upcoming year, which the LAO said was a $1.6 billion miscalculation. The second issue involved incorrect contribution rates when the administration calculated how much money the state would need to contribute to CalPERS in the years ahead. The LAO stated that mistake amounts to about $4…

Agree completely. You can say "it was this kind of error not that kind of error" but not "it's not an error it's a revision".

They made a revision to fix the error.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#89

Post by PearlRiver »

lostlogin wrote: post #75
oatmeal1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The education system seems one of the only places where vastly improving technology over the past 30 years has not translated to cost savings or improved outcomes.

It turns out that our kids learn better from humans than machines. Ever dealt with a kid who has had too much screen time? It’s fucking awful.

In my country every few years a bunch of people invent some new method to teach kids how to read. Completely ignoring that humans have been doing exactly that for at least 5000 years.

Education is a business.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#90

Post by Rekindle8090 »

lostlogin wrote: post #75
oatmeal1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The education system seems one of the only places where vastly improving technology over the past 30 years has not translated to cost savings or improved outcomes.

It turns out that our kids learn better from humans than machines. Ever dealt with a kid who has had too much screen time? It’s fucking awful.

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