Week 12 OD article-Throwing money down a rathole. Again.

http://www.uticaod.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060402/NEWS/604020303/1001


It 's spring, and that means two things. One, that the state government is working on the state budget (will they or won't they pass it on time, history says no) and second, that school districts across the state will be whining piteously about the 'pittance' they got last year from Albany, and trying to strong arm more for the coming school year. Tax rates for the county are projected to go up as little as 3% on up to as much as 40%!!What are we getting for this money?

According to a March 6 article in the Buffalo Business First online Buffalobiz Journal in which the top 5 best education performing states are compared to the bottom 5, "The top five states, according to the council, are first-ranked Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Montana and Vermont. States at the bottom of the list were Alabama, Louisiana, New Mexico, Mississippi and the District of Columbia, at 51.
A press release issued by the American Legislative Exchange Council, an association of roughly 2,400 state legislators, says the Report Card "strengthens the growing consensus that the well-documented increases in spending on education have not done enough to improve student achievement."
The state's [ Note by me: New York State's ]average spending per public-school student of $13,561 compares to a national average of $9,136, reflecting a 7.6-percent increase since 2002, according to the Report Card. "http://buffalo.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2006/03/06/daily2.html?surround=lfn

Washington DC schools in 2003-2004 ( the most recent data I could find) spent between $11, 000 and $12,000 per pupil per year, yet it ranks dead last in educational performance. New York is one of the top spenders at $13,561 per pupil, and if you read the above paragraph we aren't even in the top five for results. They want to get more money, though they aren't getting good results so far, even though NY spends more than most states? If they took that $13K, and used , say, $10K of it, to send every student in the state to an expensive private school, all the students would be more likely to get an excellent education, and we'd save $3000 per student!!!! More money thrown down the rathole of public education will not improve test scores. The problem may even be that there is too much money floating around the public education system.

Predictably, parents with children in the school system are in favor of raising taxes to whatever level it takes. The Utica Observer Dispatch said :
"Utica resident Margaret Phillips, whose daughter will be a sixth-grader at Donovan Middle School next year, said she's willing to overlook increases in school taxes if it means a better education for her children.
"I don't really care how much my school tax bill is because that's contributing to my children's education," Phillips said. "I really don't feel they spend too much at all. As far as I'm concerned, they can require us to pay a higher tax bill."
Just what we need, give the same schools who can't teach our children now (even though New York spends more than most states on education spending) and give them a blank check to spend more? Sheeesh, do these people realize how looney they sound? And I wonder how many of these people will feel the same way when they no longer have children in the public schools but have to suffer other fools who want school taxes raised to whatever level some bureaucrats think is sufficient? Huge amounts of money have not solved this problem so far, and throwing even more money at it isn't likely to solve it either. Giving schools ever increasing amounts of money would just be throwing money down a rathole. Again.