Mangled Thoughts

Posted by D
Certainly in Victoria, three major claims have been strung together to buttress big fat almighty god govt., to which is added a more recent one already debunked, govt. spending on schools and `health’ is investment.:

1) Only govt consumtpion can ensure children receive a schooling when the facts are, before govts. muscled in, by the late 19th century, 80-90 ppercent of children in Britain andd U.S. were not only being schooled but to exacting standards and rigour than today.

2) children can’t succeed until the usual mantra is realised of `social justice’ `egalitarainism’ and so forth, a mantra which preserves dumbed down things produced en masse by the monster zoos called titcharse colleges

3) another reason children in govt schools fails, govts. have to pump more money into them; and, obviously, for teachers to overcome their glaring defects as scholars and then teachers, they must be paid very large incomes like Bracksie Wacksie is now stealing out of real taxpayers pockets viz the 12% pay rise which is thus a tad understated of what the real burden will be.

The following article puts paid to claim 3

That’s not really a surprise. “Over the range of spending commonly observed among school systems in the United States, the effect on student achievement is often swamped by how wisely the money is spent, by bureaucratic and contract rigidities, and by a host of important policies and decisions that have nothing at all to do with money. The fact is that most research finds, after controlling for demographic factors, no consistent causal relationship between expenditures and achievement over the current range of spending levels.”

In New York, which ranks at the top nationwide in school spending, the Commission for Education Reform recommended a 17 to 39 percent increase in spending to settle the funding equity suit. The commission relied on the School Evaluation Services unit of Standard & Poor’s, which based its estimate on spending at “successful” schools, with extra money added to serve low-income, disabled and non-English-speaking students. The spending gap was estimated at $2.45 billion to $5.57 billion. Analysts warned that “there is no guarantee that the replication of higher spending . . . will replicate higher achievement . . . across the state.”

Simply adding more money to a dysfunctional system produces higher-priced dysfunction.

The classic example is the District of Columbia school system, which ranks with the top states in spending and at the bottom in performance. D.C.’s public system spends about $11,000 per student. Yet, according to the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only seven percent of D.C. fourth graders are proficient or better in math, 10 percent in reading; 6 percent of eighth graders are proficient in math, 10 percent in reading. A majority of students test below the basic level in reading and math. Money doesn’t buy literacy.

An irony is to be observed: socialistos including the clergy continually slander libertarians as greedy, uncaring, selfish materialists. Well, in view of such interesting findings, let the socialistos work for less, even no money .

Oz teachers colleges turn out thousands of the vertically challenged who can never come to grips with why so many parents are fed up to the gills and zoos called schools. N.Z. pundit’s anecdote underscores, since it is writ many times over in Oz, why throwing more monet at schhols extorted from real taxpayers won’t change a thing:

Utter Horseshit

The local schools are holding a ‘Social Sciences Fair’ and for some, inexplicable reason, my daughter’s school, which remains my last hope for her to receive a decent education, has entered their students in the damned thing.

Teachers love social studies and suchlike because they’re easy to teach. No actual knowledge required.

Anyway this is the project.

“Research the story or stories of any Otago person or group of people, living or dead, whose life or lives effectively mirror Otago’s regional identity”.