By comparison to other fundamental places of education, at least. Since I've been teaching in a public school, every year we have had issues with not having enough books. We can't send teachers to educational experiences that would help them teach better. We have schools that are physically falling apart.
Pretty much every university with which I am intimately familiar has undergone unbelievable growth in the last two decades. Shiny new buildings are constantly going up. Buildings that are examples of resource-wasting architecture, with energy-inefficient construction and tons of wasted space. But they are impressive and often beautiful. They also litter their campus with bizarro modern sculptures and other stuff whose educational benefit is debatable. I'm not saying I don't like the stuff, but modern sculptures every block or so, stadiums on campus, spiffy new buildings, and million-dollar coaches whose contract details we can't see (even in a public university) all seem a little bit silly when you look at how underfunded education at other levels is.
Especially when you consider that not everyone goes to university, but most people would benefit directly from a better-funded K-12 educational system.
In Florida, we divide lottery proceeds 50-50 between universities and K-12 education. (The lottery is a whole 'nother scam, but I don't want to go there now.) We also have a system of sholarships for deserving high school students, called "Bright Futures Scholarships" that help any qualified Florida student to attend a Florida public university. Thing is, those scholarships come out of the K-12 side of the lottery earnings, since the students are in high school when they apply for them. So they actually take money from the schools that are struggling to get by, with class-size and employee retention issues, and give it to the university system which has so much money it doesn't seem to know which gaudy undertaking to try next! Gah!
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Interestingly enough, even public universities are relying on by far mostly private funds nowadays (this of course varies by state and university). I think IU's at under 25% public monies currently, for instance.
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
The nice thing about universities is that you usually can see where your money went. It sure doesn't show up in the "quality" of "education", but at least one can look at the pretty buildings...
On the other hand, where does the money go for grade school? Public schools get something like $10,000/year for each student, but teachers are grossly underpaid, there are insufficient books, and teachers have to buy their own supplies. And their buildings aren't all that, either. What the heck, over?
Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
I have no idea what the stats are, but I know the U of U gets tons of private funds. For instance, every thing on campus is named after someone. When the shiny new (and very badly built) music building went up, just about every single room was named after someone (private donor). I'm surprised they didnt name the bathrooms after someone... Someone missed their chance to have their name remembered by every student! Who could forget a bathroom with a name? Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
The Lilburn W. Boggs Memorial Janitor Closet.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Great blanket statement: "Universities are overfunded" GIVE ME A BREAK. You frankly have no idea where the money for "shiny new buildings" comes from, and you would be scandalized by what public university students pay each year in tuition, plus books here in california. I am no expert on state and local budgets but I know that it doesn't work the way most people think it does, very often money is granted a university system for SPECIFIC needs, so its not like they all get together and say "hey we need to be new and shinier," its simply easier to get the taxpayers/lawmakers to finance superficial, and often not superficial changes in architecture.
My school, UC davis, recently managed to build a 63 million dollar performance hall, the passing observer might say: "those uc regents and their shenanigans! wasting our money on beautiful performance halls." Well the hall was paid for in full by an endowment from a local family, and named in their honor, it had NOTHING to do with the public, and it was a generous gift. I would like to see all the "wasted money" you see being spent there in florida, somehow I doubt your a qualified observer, even if you are a public school teacher. If anything we ought to drastically increase the money we spend on all public schools, including and especially k-12, not give people excuses for saying education can bear any more cuts.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
sorry that was irate, but I really think this is just wrong wrong wrong
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
I'm with Orincoro here. Every one of the fancy schmancy buildings on my campus is heavily funded by private donors. Government money goes primarily to research and other potentially useful purposes... the window dressing is paid for by rich alumni and philanthropists. Whether *private citizens* should be using their money to pretty up colleges instead of donating to other causes is another debate entirely.
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
Arguably, universities in Cali are underfunded. It used to be that you could get a second-rate education at a Cal State university for free, but now we have to pay $1400 a semester for it, and about $500 for books on average. Okay, it's still less that $2000, but compared to how it used to be...
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
um, where did I say that this was a public funding issue? I'm talking about conspicuous consumption while our other educational institutions go without. I'm talking about my state's specific practice of raping the k12 budget to send even more money toward the universities.
Also, I refer you to my opening sentence:
quote:By comparison to other fundamental places of education, at least.
As for the blanket statement, it got your attention didn't it?
You frankly have no idea what I know and what I don't know, so quit with the personal BS and just rebut the point. If you can't make an argument without resorting to shouting and baseless personal comments, then your point of view isn't worth much.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Athletic facilities are typically paid for with athelic earnings. That's why the powerhouse schools have the best facilities -- they made that money.
Also, I'm with Orincoro, tuition helps out a ton. And for every campus with shiny new buildings there are several with dilapidated teaching facilities.
Of course, it's still an order of magnitude up from public schools.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I'm talking about conspicuous consumption while our other educational institutions go without.
I'm on our planning and budgeting committee. And here's the problem: most of the flashy stuff at our college, the "Wow! How did they afford THAT!" stuff, is directly donated. Only 15% of our donations go to the general fund, which is used to pay normal expenses and salaries. Around 30% goes to scholarship funds, which help cover tuitions for the needy. And the rest is earmarked by donors -- usually with their names attached prominently in some way -- for "flashy" stuff, whether it's a new building or a shiny sculpture or just a semi-rare Japanese cherry tree.
So when you walk around our campus, it's easy to get the idea that we're made of money. But we're seriously stretching to keep our faculty and staff paid, and are constantly having to juggle the merits of tuition increases against, say, upgrading our computer equipment. Because no-one is interested in donating half a million dollars to buy some Dell desktop PCs, not when they can start construction on a dorm with that money and get it named after themselves.
Posted by Zeugma (Member # 6636) on :
quote:Around 30% goes to scholarship funds, which help cover tuitions for the needy.
Then wouldn't that 30% also go to the general funds, since it funnels into tuition income?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It's more like breaking even - if the student was going to come anyway, they would have paid tuition. The money was donated, but it went to the student.
In other words, the university did not gain materially from the donation, because they have only the funds from the students tuition. If the donation was general instead of scholarship, they would have had the money from tuition AND the donation.
Posted by Zeugma (Member # 6636) on :
Right, I get what you're saying, but the way I see it, the university was just handed $30K (or whatever a year of tuition there costs) of income to use as they like. Whether it came from the student's parents or from the family of Arthur L. VanDelay III, the university is still up $30K. And I'm betting that a lot of wealthy families donate specifically for scholarship funds, so it's entirely possible that this $30K would not have otherwise been donated.
I'm feeling contrary this morning. Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:It's more like breaking even - if the student was going to come anyway, they would have paid tuition. The money was donated, but it went to the student.
But there's no assurance that they would have gone to a FL university without that scholarship.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Icarus I don't know how it is in your area of Florida, but here there are some K-12 Schools that have scads of money (high property tax base) and pretty new schools with all the bells and whistles and programs.. .and then others that are falling apart, ragged books, insufficient facilities, etc.
Our state has been trying to "balance" the funding formula for years to prevent this huge Have/Have Nots appearance in schools across the state. As far as I know, they have not come up with a solution.
And school budgets are so weird anyway -- the state gives you so much money, and you have to spend it by the end of the year, or else you dont' get as much the next year. So there is no incentive to budget, save and long-term plan because the money is always in a state of flux...
FG
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
After reading your post, I also had the impression you were talking about overfunding of universities by the state. I was going to make sure you knew that O'Leary's salary is paid for by alumni and not tax dollars (I assume you're talking about UCF), but I guess you know that.
Are there any prohibitions about donations to public K-12 schools? If I make a sizable donation to a public school, do I get any say in where it goes?
Posted by SenojRetep (Member # 8614) on :
On a related note, I read an interesting book a couple of months back called "Universities in the Marketplace" (my wife dubbed it the most boring book ever, but I enjoyed it). It's an interesting study by a former Harvard president on the ways in which University funding (primarily private funding) opens it up to bias, cheating, and academic irresponsibility.
One point made in the book, just to pick on JT, is that for most universities athletics are at best a gamble and at worst a money pit. Those stadiums often aren't paid for by tickets or booster donations, but are built on an expectation of increased tickets and booster donations because of the improved facilities. It's a debt game that can pay off big if you're Michigan or FSU, but generally ends up hurting the University.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
I don't know if I agree with 'generally' not paying off.
Most major schools around here (the South) sell out every home game (football -- the golden goose). They make a ton on merchandise, concessions, sponsorship, and booze.
Of course, in the mid majors that's probably not the case. But in the major conferences, I doubt if many of them are losing money on athletics.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: Are there any prohibitions about donations to public K-12 schools? If I make a sizable donation to a public school, do I get any say in where it goes?
I believe this will vary from state to state but in our case anyone can make a donation but it has to be approved by the School board and they do not want any money with 'strings' attached to it, or if there are strings the School board wants the authority to divert some of the money to wherever it pleases
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
Given that a large amount of the funding of public and private universities comes from private donors, I'd like to quickly throw out there the idea that it's not acceptable for the government to, in any way, discourage or not allow donations to these universities, even when there are K-12 schools that desperately need the funds. I bring this up because of Icky's statement:
quote:um, where did I say that this was a public funding issue? I'm talking about conspicuous consumption while our other educational institutions go without.
While we may prefer for private donors to contribute funds to the K-12 schools that need them, rather than attempting to get their names on buildings or sculptures, and even think it’s morally wrong for them to be “wasting” funds on splashy architecture, I don’t think it’s the government’s place to step in and legislate that. And because the private donations go towards buildings and sculptures, it's still necessary to have public funds going towards computer labs and faculty scholarships.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote:they do not want any money with 'strings' attached to it, or if there are strings the School board wants the authority to divert some of the money to wherever it pleases
One county I lived in previously would accept donations to build high school stadiums. For budget reasons, stadiums were considered a luxury when building a new school, so they were not included when building a new high school. If the school wanted it, they would have to get almuni, parents, local businesses, etc. to fund it. I don't remember how it turned out, but I think it was stopped for the reason that Farmgirl mentioned - schools in affluent neighborhoods would get enhancements that other schools would not.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Ratcliff Stadium Home of the Odessa Permian Panthers. High school stadium that's the size of a universities, built by private donations. Let's hear it for the Booster Club.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Actually, there was a study done for TitleIX testimony before Congress which showed that even most of the top football schools were losing money on their teams: the most prominent money-loser was FSU, specificly mentioned because they had won the national title in the previous year.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Really?
I'd like to see it, if you have a link. I'll stop saying that if there's evidence to the contrary. It just seems so counterintuitive for all these schools to be spending all this money on athletics if none of them are making a profit.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Jhai, I'm not calling for the government to step in and regulate stuff. I'm just venting.
If I were to call specifically for something, I would call for the state of Florida to fund Bright Futures scholarships from out of the university budget, instead of from K-12 funds. But that would drastically narrow the scope of this thread, wouldn't it?
Zan, I find the dealing that formed a private corporation to pay O'Leary's salary, so that the Sunshine Law could not be invoked, extremely shady, regardless of who's paying it. But then, I have issues with the whole way the rehabilitation of George O'Leary has taken place, and I believe UCF has sold out in a big way.
Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Because no-one is interested in donating half a million dollars to buy some Dell desktop PCs, not when they can start construction on a dorm with that money and get it named after themselves.
We actually bought 24 laptops with donor money for a classroom that is named after the donor. But note, the donors MUCH rather wanted the best furniture and the idea of buying better computers and get cheaper furniture was out of the question.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote:I believe UCF has sold out in a big way
But they're winners now, and that's the only thing that matters, right?
I agree with you about the Bright Futures scholarships. I didn't realize that the money for that came out of the K-12 budget.
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
My dad is the chairman of the special education department at his college. Just this week someone donated a million dollars to the department. Something about being grateful for the hearing aid one of the faculty helped him get. That's pretty darn grateful! I should ask him what the department is going to do with a million dollars.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
That actually reminds me of a situation that took place at my college in Montana.
A girl who went there died in some tragic fashion (I don't mean to belittle it, but I really don't remember how she died, and it was long before I got there), and her parents wanted to show their gratitude to the school and its students for everything they'd given the daughter.
So they donated a million dollars (or right around there) for the construction of a non-denominational chapel (the school didn't have anything right on campus).
The problem was two-fold. One, the site where the chapel would go was school property (school property in this case was state propery). Two, Montana isn't what you would call a religious state. Which isn't to say that there aren't religious people there, I just didn't see near the concentration of them that I was accustomed to in the south.
So some students, faculty, and alumni protested the construction of a religious symbol on state property, and what would've been a beautiful gesture got the rug pulled out from under it. This was winding down when I arrived, and I was shocked at the way everyone had behaved.
I still am, actually.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I took a class on sports managemennt last semester. One of our three major papers was anaylzing whether or not college sports actually contribute money to the university.
The short version: they don't.
-pH
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Oh, and I also don't think universities are overfunded, but I go to a private school that is now ridiculously in debt from paying all its full-time faculty and staff for a semester in which no one's tutition money counted.
Seriously though. Sure, schools have some nice buildings. But honestly, I'm sure they could all use some more money because they probably need to revamp the dorms or work on their wireless network. And it's very hard to get donations for that purpose.
-pH
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I've seen the opposite.
My kids school system just got finished building a new high school, renovating the middle school, and now are adding on to the elementary school.
Meanwhile, at the local university where I attended classes I saw tons of broken desks, no room - communications was in the Humanities dept but the Hum building was so crowded their offices are blocks away.
Buildings were run down and in terrible repair. But, UAB hospital expanded and added a new, state of the art ER room. Most of the money sent to the university winds up in the medical and scientific research programs, Arts and Humanities doesn't get much at all.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: um, where did I say that this was a public funding issue? I'm talking about conspicuous consumption while our other educational institutions go without. I'm talking about my state's specific practice of raping the k12 budget to send even more money toward the universities.
\
You just contridicted yourself, you just said it has to do with public funding
Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
My experience, like Belle's, has always been the opposite.
My high school had massive amounts of construction while I was attending. Part of it was necessary since part of the building, which was the original 40 yo-plus high school, had walls filled with dangerous material. Other building were simply an excuse for something fancy and a way of keeping students from transferring to all the new public schools going up around town. In the last 4 years, there have been 4 new 5A-sized high schools in that town. Each one had just TONS of cutting edge computers and equipment.
Now my university, which is one of the least funded in the state, has been cutting corners for years in order to stay competitive in spite of being in the red. Now a post-Katrina Louisiana government has frozen spending and cut budgets. Many of my professors who are used to teaching advanced undergrad seminars are now being forced to teach English 101 instead because they have to accomodate freshman rather than students trying to graduate. The dorm that I thankfully moved out of this year is practically condemned and needs to be torn down. With no money to do so, our private honors dorm is having to move students across campus to live in a newer, louder, less exclusive apartment complex built last year.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: um, where did I say that this was a public funding issue? I'm talking about conspicuous consumption while our other educational institutions go without. I'm talking about my state's specific practice of raping the k12 budget to send even more money toward the universities.
You just contridicted yourself, you just said it has to do with public funding
No, I did not. I talked about general principles, and then gave a specific example. I am neither making this point excluvively about public funding, nor do I feel the need to exclude a discussion of funding at all.
But thank you for not shouting at me. Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus:
As for the blanket statement, it got your attention didn't it?
I am not trying to provoke you personal Icarus, but this really is the kind of logic that gets you called out in a personal rebuke. Your proud of an attention getting post why? Everyone here has soundly refuted your point, so you have only called attention to your minority view in this case, and I do not believe you have defended it well. IF that's personal BS, you invited it in the earlier post. Sorry.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Everyone here has soundly refuted your point
Are you reading the same thread I am? It looks to me like you've missed his point entirely. I certainly haven't seen it refuted.
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Ratcliff Stadium Home of the Odessa Permian Panthers. High school stadium that's the size of a universities, built by private donations. Let's hear it for the Booster Club.
Isn't it bigger than Robertson Stadium, home of the Houston Cougars? It looks that way...
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw:
quote:Everyone here has soundly refuted your point
Are you reading the same thread I am? It looks to me like you've missed his point entirely. I certainly haven't seen it refuted.
His point as far as I have seen it refuted is that Universities are funneling money from the public into flashy construction work. Many have pointed out that his views of budget issues are misinformed, and not universal, because a great deal of money comes from private donors. He was not making an argument that K-12 needs to be better funded, it was an assumtion made by everyone in the thread, as it is a ubiquitous concern which I do not refute. His logic I can and do question, we have been reading the same thread after all
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
The point, as I took it, was that in at least one state money is being taken from K-12 funding to go to colleges and universities which have other sources of funding including private donors. Whereas k-12 schools rely on state funding for all of their needs, including buildings.
I certainly didn't see "everyone here" refuting that point. In fact, I saw some agreement with it.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I'm not aware that my point has been "soundly refuted" at any point. I guess that's the "declare victory and withdraw" school of debate, huh? Are you friends with whoever wrote those two abortion arguments in those two other threads?
It's pretty standard to phrase your thread title in such a way that it distills your thesis to a bare minimum. People who want to get all the subtlety and nuance, if any, of your point of view, can then decide to read the thread. There they can find out why you are making the statement you are making, and choose to address parts of your logic. I'm sorry if you find this disagreeable, but there just isn't room in one line for a detailed explanation of most people's point of view. Most people don't think in soundbytes.
(I titled this thread as I did because in another thread ricree101 asked me to make a thread in which we could explore the issue without diluting the thread I had posted in. That's the reason why I started this thread, and that's why I started with a broad statement, which I explained in the text of my post, which you appear to have merely skimmed.)
As of this moment, there are 38 replies in this thread not written by me.
Thirteen of these discuss the distinction between public and private funding, and the preference of private donors to donate for "showy" things instead of infrastructure. I think this is an interesting facet of the topic to explore, but I think these posts neither refute nor defend my thesis, but rather explore the issue.
One questions where the money we do pour into K12 schooling goes, and asserts that it doesn't seem to make it to the teacher or the classroom. Actually, I agree, and think this would be a great area to explore further, even if it does lead to a partial refutation of my thesis. (Something I would not concede has happened yet, though, since this topic has not been fully explored.)
One makes a joke. Jokes are always a nice way to lighten up any thread.
One disagrees on the basis of how much it costs to go to school. I don't find this to be conclusive, but it certainly could be grounds for further discussion.
Seven discuss the role of athletic funds.
Three state that in their area, it is K12 schools who seem to have a lot of funding while the universities are falling apart.
Five discuss the feasibility of private donations to public K-12 schools. (I am including Kat's here, though I don't know if I read her intent correctly.)
One disagrees without really providing much evidence or reasoning to the contrary beyond, "They need the money."
Three enter into a meta-discussion of your assertions of the merits of this thread.
Two compare stadium sizes relating to particular high school stadiums and one particular university stadiums.
Five scream like a howler monkee and fling feces in an attempt to shut down discussion. (These are all by you, by the way.) They shout, make personal statements, and assert that this topic has been shot down, but don't really add anything substantive themselves.
(The numbers don't add up to 38 because some of these posts count in multiple categories.
Seriously, now, disagree if you want. But your tone is entirely inappropriate and not one that I have earned.
quote: this really is the kind of logic that gets you called out in a personal rebuke.
The only person who has attempted to "call me out in a personal rebuke" is you. Why are you the arbiter of who deserved to be called out? Are you incapable of debating, and is this why you must shout and "call me out" instead?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I skipped some of this thread, so if this has been said before, someone can correct me.
But I don't think "Universities are over-funded" is a correct blanket statement. Tuition at Oakland University, a public university in Michigan that I attend has gone up 15% a year for the last few years due to budget cuts that result in reduced state funding. I'm studying to be a high school teacher.
What's the point of putting more money into public schools and out of colleges, if college is too expensive for me to go, in order to gain the education I need to become a teacher in the first place?
Edit to add: This isn't just my university, universities all over Michigan for the last few years have faced an average of 8% raises in tuition on top of what you might call the usual rise in costs. It's all from a withdrawel of state funding, as these are all public institutions that I am talking about.
Further, K-12 institutions around here are funded more by the cities they are in for things like text books and construction than by the state level.
[ December 07, 2005, 06:55 PM: Message edited by: Lyrhawn ]
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Considering that tuitions are skyrocketing all over the nation, I don't think the problem is that universities are over-funded. I would say that they're under-funded, but public schools are under-funded much, much more.
That lottery situation sounds pretty crappy. Do the colleges and universities in Florida really need as much money as all the public schools put together?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Considering that tuitions are skyrocketing all over the nation, I don't think the problem is that universities are over-funded. I would say that they're under-funded, but public schools are under-funded much, much more.
I kind of agree, which is why my first sentence within this thread was the specific caveat that I meant specifically by comparison to other levels of education.
Still, I believe large universities, for whatever reason and from whatever source, use money on extravegant things, which is galling when I see lower schools going without.
I think we should question why tuition is skyrocketing when universities are using money in this way.
Posted by etphonehome (Member # 999) on :
Icarus, your original post points to fancy buildings, abundant public artwork, and arguably overfunded athletic departments as the main evidence that universities are overfunded. Many of the subsequent posts that you claim "do not refute your thesis" are explaining that most of these things are often not funded with public money at all, which tends to be true in my experience.
At my university, I do not believe the athletic department gets one dollar of public funding. Their revenue comes directly from ticket sales, alumni donations, licensed team logo merchandise, tv/radio rights, and other miscellaneous sources. So the fact that the head football coach makes a million dollars a year is entirely a function of the fact that the athletic department makes enough money off of the football program to support that kind of salary, and in no way indicates misguided funding priorities on the part of the government. I suppose you can argue that the private funding given to the athletic department is misguided, but that is really a decision to be made by the individual donors.
So yes, I agree it is possible that universities receive more than their fair share of funding when private and public expenditures are considered in aggregate. However, most of the private donations are earmarked for purposes other than the normal operation of the university. Thus, any shift in public funds from post-secondary schools to K-12 schools would have to be offset by a corresponding tuition increase for all university students. Maybe you believe that would be a fair trade-off, but I believe most public schools are at least adequate the way they are, and that university tuition is already higher than most students can afford without picking up unreasonable amounts of debt. To sum it up, more overall funding for education would be a good thing, but I don't think universities should have to give up any of their operating budget to improve K-12 education.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
My university doesn't even have a football team, but we do have top level basketball, soccer and swim teams, among others. The Grizzlies even went to the NCAA basketball championships last year.
Thus, I really don't understand where the money is going and why tuition is skyrocketing at such a rate.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
etphonehome, I think your post is reasonable and balanced. However:
quote:Thus, any shift in public funds from post-secondary schools to K-12 schools would have to be offset by a corresponding tuition increase for all university students.
I actually don't believe I have called for this to happen. I think talking about whether the inequity I perceive can be fixed, or how, are both valid avenues for discussion. Truly. However, you can't rebut me by responding to a course of action I have not recommended.
quote:of the subsequent posts that you claim "do not refute your thesis" . . .
It sounds to me like you may be misinterpreting the intent of my prior post. I am in no way finding fault with the majority of the posters, or trying to dismiss their posts. I am contesting Orincoro's specific assertion that I have been unambiguously proven wrong and that this discussion is closed and that I deserve to be personally insulted, shouted at, and criticized for daring to post this thread.
If you believe that this discussion is closed and that I am not worthy of basic human dignity, then I would ask you why you would bother responding to one such as me.
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
I felt like I needed to add something to this thread, but the best I can come up with is Puppies! Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
In many cities you can find the budget for your school system on the internet. I know my city and many of the surrounding cities in my area allow you to view the budget on the school website. It's not exactly user friendly though.
But I don't see where substantive changes can be made. At Oakland U, upgrades are being made in the infrastructure and that costs money, and tuition costs are on the rise. Even without those changes, costs would still rise and our buildings would start to fall apart. Plus it's hard to keep up with bigger schools that can offer more technologically than we can without making upgrades.
There just isn't enough money to go around. Local K-12 schools can raise funds by proposing increases in property taxes, school bonds, for specific purposes, but these often fail, as people don't want to pay for the schools when they don't have kids attending school there, not realizing the far reaching effects this will have on their community.
Fact of the matter is, both higher and lower institutions needs more involvement from the community, the majority, not just the minority. More transparency so problems can be spotted and waste can be stopped, and regardless of what anyone ways to the contrary, more money.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Icarus, your original post points to fancy buildings, abundant public artwork, and arguably overfunded athletic departments as the main evidence that universities are overfunded. Many of the subsequent posts that you claim "do not refute your thesis" are explaining that most of these things are often not funded with public money at all, which tends to be true in my experience.
Icarus's initial post posits that the resource allocation between colleges and K-12 schools favors colleges, and that this is a suboptimum result.
The thesis says nothing about the source of funding, but about what it is spent on.
Private/public sources don't refute this; they help explain why the disparity exists.
quote:So yes, I agree it is possible that universities receive more than their fair share of funding when private and public expenditures are considered in aggregate. However, most of the private donations are earmarked for purposes other than the normal operation of the university. Thus, any shift in public funds from post-secondary schools to K-12 schools would have to be offset by a corresponding tuition increase for all university students.
Perhaps the fact that the choice is between non-luxury college spending and non-luxury K-12 spending is also part of the reason the dichotomy exists. If your statement is true, it doesn't say that university's don't spend money on things that are less important than K-12 spending. It only explains why this happens.
Congratulations on your well-thought out support of Icarus's thesis.
[ December 08, 2005, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Quoting Icarus
* Five scream like a howler monkee and fling feces in an attempt to shut down discussion. (These are all by you, by the way.) They shout, make personal statements, and assert that this topic has been shot down, but don't really add anything substantive themselves. _____________________________________________________
So much for no personal BS thanks buddy, I won't continue this, I withdraw, no victory speech, we can't continue this at all
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I think we should question why tuition is skyrocketing when universities are using money in this way.
I think a LOT of it comes down to that private/public funding issue, Icky. Even as we build new and flashy buildings, we're struggling to pay salaries without raising tuition. The problem is that big donors want their names on new buildings, NOT on faculty paychecks.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Well I don't think that problem is going away anytime soon. People who want their names on buildings aren't going to start giving money without strings attached.
We need to look at community solutions I think.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Some random thoughts, since a lot of people have brought good food for thought to my inchoate ranting, and to focus all my energy on responding to a antagonistic person while ignoring the good posts of others is to do them and the conversation a disservice:
- A lot is made, especially here in the shadow of UCF, of the fact that the football coach's salary is not paid by the university, but by boosters. First of all, how dishonest is it to claim that the football coach is a consultant working for a private corporation and not actually an employee of the university--particularly when the "private corporation" is ruled by the university. (Or am I to believe that the president of UCF lacks the power to fire George O'Leary?) Further, are these boosters deducting their donations to the coach's salary as a charitable donation in their taxes? If so, and I honestly am not sure, then isn't the distinction disingenuous?
- I have long been of the opinion that there is a lot of money in the K12 system that we are simply not seeing at my level. We seem administratively top-heavy. Our adninistrative complex is the size of a school itself--only there are no students there! Are all of their services really necessary, especially given that each school has its own support staff? Beyond that, my school has a really snazzy football field. Colleges can make the (dubious) claim that football brings in money. There's no way that our football team even comes close to paying for itself. If you write off the initial investment, then you can claim that concessions and tickets bring in a lot of money, but I doubt they will ever make up for the cost of building the facility. (And why do football coaches get paid more than coaches of other teams, including academic teams? I actually got paid nothing whatsoever when I sponsored out FIRST robotics team, and I spent three hours a day at the campus each afternoon for most of the year, and came in on many Saturdays, and transported kids too.) I think it could possibly be argued that FIRST robotics has more academic value than football does. (But I'd settle for even the same funding. )
- I think it's worth talking about the use of property taxes to fund most of K-12 education. I'm starting to be convinced that this is not a good idea, but what would be better?
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
The problem with private donations, is that due to laws they *have* to be used for what they were donated for, even if the donations are tax-deductible. It's what got other non-profits in trouble over the 9/11 funds, and why they were being so careful with the Katrina funds, to the point where they couldn't use specifically "Katrina" funds for "Rita" victims. You should have notice a distinct difference in the ad wording after Rita so they could have a separate pool of money for victims of *both* hurricanes.
For examplel, the U. of Oklahoma has absolutely *lovely* flowers year round. They pull up and replant so often it is rediculous. Someone rich set up a private endowment fund just for the gardens. And that's all the money can be used for. So if they don't use it, it just goes to waste or the interest is reinvested, but even then it can't be used for anything but landscaping. And I'm not even sure if it can be used for the landscapers salaries, it may be restricted to the foliage itself.
You could say that the beautiful surroundings enhance the learning environment of the students... and maybe they do. But in times of budget crunches when tuitions or skyrocketing, the reason why they don't cut back on the landscaping, when it seems like a perpherial expense is because they can't use the money for anything else.
AJ
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Well, first of all, I will point out once again that my personal intention was not to prescribe a specific course of action, but to make a statement and see what discussion ensued. I figured any road we went down (short of telling me I am stoopid) would be an interesting one . . .
Just to explore this part of the issue that we keep talking about . . . when people donate, do they not get any input at all from the universities on what they need? Isn't it kind of silly for the donations to not have any bearing on what the universities need?
Would it be at all possible to reduce the avenues for donation, so that people had to donate something *useful*? Could universities say, these are the things that we need . . . and "we're very grateful for your offer of gold-plated toilet seats for the administration building, but we really don't need this"?
(Especially given that people usually get tax deductions for these donations?)
I am sure that the immediate reaction will be that you can't look a gift horse in the mouth, but couldn't there be some way to channel the donations?
If you donate computers or something similar that is not a building, do you get your name on a wall or something? I mean, I can see that kind of recognition making people really want to leave a physical mark. But if you can get the same kind of recognition for donations that help a school have educational resources, or pay professors, or whatever, wouldn't that help?
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I know they have "donor's circles" and the like. I don't know. Maybe it is vanity that motivates more university donations than charity?
AJ
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: Just to explore this part of the issue that we keep talking about . . . when people donate, do they not get any input at all from the universities on what they need? Isn't it kind of silly for the donations to not have any bearing on what the universities need?
My university at least has had very little luck attracting the sorts of donations that would really help offer a quality education at a good price. They can bring in millions for new buildings just fine though.
I'm really more disappointed that public funding for universities has plummeted as costs get ever higher. The state used to pay over 60% of the cost of education (something like ten years ago.. maybe fifteen), and now it's around 20%.
I felt the same way about k-12 as well. I think it is absolutely critical that we fully fund education as a nation. We're already dropping behind the rest of the developed world in math and science, and it will only get worse unless we put some effort (and money) in. With our manufacturing sector, and now higher level jobs such as tech support, disappearing overseas, what will the next generation do for a living? I think the key is to make them as smart as possible, so that they can invent their own futures. If we don't put every effort in, there is just so much potential that will be wasted.
(Of course my personal beef is that the military gets so much money, when in a perfect world, we would have no standing army, and that money would go to education, but that's another thread.)
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
In even a somewhat better world, to say nothing of perfection, the couple hundred billion dollars being spent on wars in the Middle East would have been spent turning every major public university in the nation into the best, cheapest and most accessible universities in the world.
And with the leftover money, making sure every school in the country had a teacher for every classroom that was well paid, as befits a college graduate, and that every classroom has the tools it needs, and the infrastructure necessary to make our kids the smartest and best educated in the world.
Sadly, conquering vast tracts of sand is more important than that.
This is a problem that needs a well controlled infusion of money to solve. Throwing money at a problem doesn't solve everything, but it's sometimes it is extremely necessary, as in this case. Bush wants to cut grant money for college students, when many are already struggling to pay for school. We're still headed in the wrong direction.
I still think a national sales tax would be a good idea. Exempt purchases of food, and make home and vehicle purchases exempt for those making less than 50K a year. Use half the income for schools in the nation, and the other half to start paying down the debt. We can take back our country financially and scholastically one percent at a time.
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
Ah, the "books, not bombs" fallacy. We spend approximately $10,000/yr on each pupil. Why are our teachers underpaid? Why do they have to buy school supplies for the children themselves? Why, when we spend so much money, is our education system still failing us? Lastly, why do people want us to pour more sand down this rat-hole when we don't have any accounting for where it all went and previous increases have shown no result?
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
Our education system has some deep, deep problems. Throwing money at them has not made them go away in the past, and is not likely to do so in the future.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
tern, at least in the k-12 districts I've been familiar with, there is a very large amount of overhead involved with educating kids that isn't directly related to the education. For example, as per the No Child Left Behind Act, my mother must spend hours drafting extra lesson plans andjustifications for how these lesson plans work toward specific goals. She also has to write additional progress reports for her students, and all of these documents must be read and approved by several other people within her school and district, not to mention whatever happens to them after they're sent in to higher authorities. Richer districts can afford to ignore some of the NCLBA provisions, because its actually cheaper for them to not go through the extra paperwork. However, poor districts that depend on programs like Head Start need that federal money and can't ignore the NCLBA. (Also, Head Start is falling apart due to further funding cuts anyway.)
Throwing money at school districts hasn't always helped, and adding huge amounts of overhead to their expenses through regulation hasn't helped either.
My state spends about $7,000 per student per year, and that is far less than schools got 20 years ago, ajusted for inflation and added administrative expenses. When my former band director began teaching 30 years ago, the school could afford to buy several new instruments every year to loan out to students who couldn't afford their own. They no longer have any chance of doing such a thing, due to budget cuts. There is a serious lack of money in the system, and people are loathe to give it any more because they don't want their taxes to go up. This is why a huge redistribution of budget priorities seems necessary to me.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
I grew up in a fairly rich area, with "good" schools (only a bit overcrowded-- 35 to 45 pupils in a class, but we had mostly decent teachers, barring the high school math teachers, most of whom were, um, pretty lousy-- teachers went on a waiting list to teach in our school district and again to teach in schools in my area of the district unless they knew someone), and we STILL had ten gazillion fundraising events/fund drives/donation drives a year and some outdated materials (although when parents found out that they were outdated, they often donated new ones or got their company to.) Point being, even a rich area had to get private donations to keep up public education-- and the difference was, I lived in a rich enough area that people had the means to raise the donations. Seems to me the state's priorities are a bit out of whack when that happens.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: when people donate, do they not get any input at all from the universities on what they need? Isn't it kind of silly for the donations to not have any bearing on what the universities need?
Yes. And certainly our Development staff feel this frustration. But part of the problem is that rarely is this money USELESS.
I mean, let's say you have a donor willing to give you $5M as a lead gift for a new science building. Now, you don't actually NEED a new science building, but overcrowding is always a problem and technology has marched on a bit and a new science building WOULD be really appreciated by the science faculty -- and would impress students and their families when they come to visit the campus, making it more likely that they'd attend. And you could even give the OLD science building to, say, the Art Department, which has been complaining about the need for a Studio Arts Center for some time.
Now, the thing is, the old science building doesn't meet any of the requirements the Art Department wanted for their Studio Arts Center. It doesn't have wide-open studio spaces, or even heating, or wheelchair ramps, or a room big enough for three industrial kilns. But it's at least a building, albeit a building better suited to be an old science building than a "new" arts building.
So do you risk going to that donor, who was previously a biology major, and saying, "Hey, thanks for the money, but we really need to fund construction on an arts building more than a science building. Any chance that you fondly remember our Art Department?" Or do you tell the Art Department to suck it up and live with the dregs, at least until they can find a donor of their own?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
tern -
quote: This is a problem that needs a well controlled infusion of money to solve
Obviously our education system has failed you, since you don't know how to read.
I even said right in my post that throwing money at a problem doesn't always solve the problem, and in previous posts talked about fiscal responsibility in the schools. Administrative overhead is expensive, repairs are expensive, books are expensive, paying teachers should be more expensive than it already is.
You can't cut your way out of every problems, despite what Republicans want everyone to believe, and you can't tax your way out of it either, despite what Democrats want everyone to believe. You nee a combination of the two. A well directed (is that a better word for you?) infusion of money will help the problem go away, though it won't solve it.
Also, the more and more you want oversight for where all the money is going, the more money you will need to pay for the oversight. All those reports the government puts together cost millions that AREN'T going to buy text books and pay teachers. More beauracracy to try and track money only costs more money in the long run. The people watching the people watching the people who spend money needs to be trimmed and made more efficient.
Again, for K-12 schools that means more community involvement, and less far off number crunchers sucking up money themselves to put together 900 page reports that no one ever reads.
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
TomD represents the issues with university fundraising quite well.
I would only add that:
1. Everybody please donate to your college's annual fund -- even if it is only $30 a year. I realize that the solicitations can be annoying, but the annual fund is one of the areas where a portion of the money that comes in can go to real university needs.
2. "The problem is that big donors want their names on new buildings, NOT on faculty paychecks." This is absolutely true. And Tom's follow up for why the flashy buildings can still have a positive effect on other areas need. However, I do think that you can find donors to help with faculty salaries etc. if you have creative, good development professionals. I think that sometimes they get to caught up in the 'big ask,' flashy stuff as well (for good reason in many cases -- that's what they get raises, bonuses, acclaim for).
3. State support for public universities has dropped by at least 50% in almost all states -- in many states by even more. The universities have ramped up fundraising to compensate, but then that just gives the states more excuses not to fund higher education. Yes there are some universities out there with obscene endowments, but most state schools are struggling -- as are many private liberal arts (i.e. non-research or polytech) institutions. The state often looks at the cost of salaries, benefits, student support services, etc. But one of the biggest areas, imo, where the states have failed is with maintanence. So many institutions (and, yes, it's often even worse in K-12) have to defer maintanence because they need all the money the have coming in to fund the actual educational part of their mission. Of course, every dollar of deferred maintanence means many dollars that have to be spent later.
And that's pretty much impossible to raise funds for. [The best help with faculty salaries campaign that I've seen has cast it as a 'faculty retention and/or recruitment' program. But even that may not be enough to motivate many donors].
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
For your question, "Why do football coaches get paid more than other coaches?"
At the high school level, they often don't get paid more than a regular teacher. At my high school, all the coaching staff got a stipend for coaching of between 500-1000 bucks a year. Which is a joke when you consider the hours put into it.
At the college level, I think it's largely because football brings in more money than any other sport. It has the largest live audience, for one, but I don't think that's all of it. It draws the largest TV audiences (the conference gets some ad time during the games). But the real money comes from merch, concessions, sponsors (both alumni and corporate), and bowl/championship games.
The other thing is that football is such a college tradition that the alumni don't want to give money if the football team stinks. When you're winning, everybody wants to contribute. It's sad, but I think that's how the system works.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I was actually talking about the high school level. The head football coach makes maybe $1000, which is ridiculous. But the head coach of any other sport makes maybe $400. The senior class advisor makes maybe $150. The sponsor of NHS makes maybe $100. An assistant football coach makes maybe $500, while an assistant in any other coach makes, if anything, a couple hundred.
The quiz bowl sponsor, the FIRST robotics sponsors, the math team sponsor, and the programmning team sponsor are all unpaid.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
We ran into a problem with our gifted class for my daughter - we wanted to make a donation to help the gifted teacher set up her classroom - they brought her in and had nowhere to put her so stuck her in a portable building - but were told that no donations could be made to just one teacher or department, we could only donate to the elementary school with no guarantee any money would actually reach the gifted program.
So there's an example where the large general fund donating doesn't help a specific need. I know there are needs all over the school but I wanted to help this teacher - who was a big positive influence on my daughter - but was unable to.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
I agree that that sucks, Ic.
They should all get some extra money, but surely you can see that in most schools the quiz bowl sponsor put in substantially less time than any head coach. Or at least in all the high schools I've been around.
We didn't have robotics (which woulda been sweet) and quiz bowl/math team lasted maybe a month.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Belle, parents often got around that by asking the teacher what was needed and buying it for her/him in my elementary school (sometimes getting together with other parents on it or, in the case of big things like microscopes, getting a parent's company to sponsor it.)
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
quote:in most schools the quiz bowl sponsor put in substantially less time than any head coach. Or at least in all the high schools I've been around.
Not at my HS-- Scholastic Bowl, the Falcon Christian Fellowship, and the water polo teams had the most time outside of school spent on them (and the most community support.)
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
Robotics is a lot of time. In my senior year I was on the team, and the technical members would go right after school and stay until 1 or 2. They would hide if any security guards came by because technically it was illegal for them to be there that late. The advisor was always the first one there and the last one to leave, she spent far more time at school than at home.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
My band teacher never got paid extra, and our Marching band put in just as much time as the football team.
Plus our football team hasn't won a game in like 3 years, whereas our marching band has made it to the state championships several times in the last few years.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
kq, I don't think even that would have worked. They told me I couldn't even buy her books. I would have to donate books to the library instead.
Things may be different now, that was under a different principal who I didn't really hit it off with - she had political aspirations, wanted to be superintendent and I didn't think her main focus was where it should have been. She spent a lot of time campaigning for a future job rather than on the job she had. But that's neither here nor there. Point is, the systems are set up in place and sometimes they don't work the way we want them to. It's frustrating for parents, teachers, and kids alike.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Belle, I didn't say the administration knew about it... Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
I can't believe your band leader didn't get a stipend, Lyr. That stinks.
My guess would be that the other sponsors (or whatever) don't get any or don't get the same stipend because their activities don't bring in as much money as athletics.
I don't think that's just, but I do know a lot of school boards are about the bottom line.
Of course, even the best compensated coaches/sponsors are grossly underpaid. As are all teachers.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:My guess would be that the other sponsors (or whatever) don't get any or don't get the same stipend because their activities don't bring in as much money as athletics.
Well, in FIRST, we didn't bring in any money.
But I don't buy that our football program does either. I mean, they charge something like two dollars a person to watch the games. They sell concessions. But the facility they play in must have cost a fortune, to say nothing of the uniforms, etc. This isn't big time college athletics. I just don't buy that they are a source of revenue at all.
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: tern -
quote: This is a problem that needs a well controlled infusion of money to solve
Obviously our education system has failed you, since you don't know how to read.
I even said right in my post that throwing money at a problem doesn't always solve the problem, and in previous posts talked about fiscal responsibility in the schools. Administrative overhead is expensive, repairs are expensive, books are expensive, paying teachers should be more expensive than it already is.
Hmmm...Instead of insulting me, perhaps you could look at the post above yours and consider that I wasn't just replying to you? Guess it's more fun to be vicious.
I'm afraid that the way things currently are, the idea of a "well controlled infusion of money" is right along with "and then, the terrorist will drop their rifles and we will all sing kumbayaa while dancing around a may-pole together." Previous infusions of money have failed to be well-controlled, what would change? Community involvement? For many years, educators discouraged community involvement (my dad is a teacher, I know of what I speak) and it has built habits in the community that will be hard to break. Without any workable plans to control your infusion of cash, it devolves back into throwing money at the problem.
I think that the best way to start cutting waste and useless regulations is axe the Department of Education, that federal bastion of incompetance, and the NEA (and CTA, in California). Get rid of those roadblocks, and then maybe we'll have a chance. Give locals control over their schools. (Then, maybe you will get your community involvement)
I'm not anti-education. I think that a good education is the difference between success and failure, and that our nation can make no greater investment in the future than our education system. I'd love to give the schools more money, but I just have no faith in the way our current system is set that the money would be used wisely.
My dad is a drama teacher, and I think that it's a shame and a travesty that the art, drama, and music programs are being cut. But with so many functionally illiterate students graduating, I find it hard to have too much sympathy for the icing on the cake. The cake itself is poisoned.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:For many years, educators discouraged community involvement (my dad is a teacher, I know of what I speak) . . .
Hmm . . . I am a teacher and my father and mother were both teachers in this country, and I don't know what you mean.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
One of the problems is finding big-money private donors for K-12 schools. How many people ever cut a check to make a donation to their junior high alma mater? Their grade school?
When was the last time a university had to have a bake sale to fund critical need resources?
Icarus has a point and from his perspective as an educator in a K-12 system, it has great validity. But Jon Boy really got to the crux of the situation in explaining that for non-luxury items, universities are underfunded, but our K-12 system is much more grossly underfunded from our tax coffers.
All private donations aside, from multi-million dollar checks to PTA bake sales, we're just not willing to put more of our tax dollars into the education system.
As a nation, we can go into hock for hundreds of billions of dollars for the mess in Iraq, for something that will have an unpredictable outcome. But we can't move towards any kind of true funding for education programs (No Child Left Behind anyone?) which could, would and will provide more for the security and wealth of our nation in the future.
I want a government, from the local up to the federal, where the person in charge makes a stand on making a real investment in our future. Quit building bridges in Alaska and start building futures for our children.
And let's start at the K-12 level, the system that will affect all of our children. A lot of those kids might grow up to be auto mechanics or dental hygeniests rather than aerospace engineers and dentists, but they are important to.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
Both my parents, my sister and my brother-in-law are, or were, teachers. I don't know what you mean either.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote: For many years, educators discouraged community involvement (my dad is a teacher, I know of what I speak) and it has built habits in the community that will be hard to break.
Give locals control over their schools. (Then, maybe you will get your community involvement)
Those are sort of contradictory statements. You think it will be hard to get the community involved, but your big plan is to kill national level control and hand it to a community that doesn't want it?
And btw, two things. Yes, being vicious is more fun . And secondly, given what I said about the Iraq war and funding for education, your comment about the "books not bombs fallacy" seemed pretty well directed at me, thus, I don't think I was out of line in redirecting my snippiness at you.
I don't think you can have NO government oversight. There needs to be a national level of focus on school system, but the locals should be the ones deciding how best to meet a national standard. The slashing of the administration is more than just at the national level, a lot of it is at the local level. It needs to be streamlined. And you can't count out the role that technology will play in cutting a lot of those administrative costs. Tech advances are going to cut billions out of the cost of healthcare in the decades to come, all from the administrative side, which is where a lot of the cost ballooning is coming from.
And sadly, yes, those upgrades cost more money. As far as I'm concerned, I say organize the national education system like a scholastic military. Each state can elect a chief in charge of education who will be held accountable by a national director of education. This chief will examine the budgets that the state level chiefs submit to the national level and cut waste. Much waste will already be cut by diminising the size of the Education Department, if not cutting it altogether. Educators on a more local level can submit requests for resources to a county chief who has a certain amount of resources at his disposal.
All in all it will come down to accountability. The national director is held accountable for cutting waste, and the state level directors are held accountable for raising the standards of education in their respective states. If a state has a problem, they can't blame the national government, it would be the fall of one of their own, and they can vote him out of office in favor of someone else. And make all the documentation totally accessible to the public. The media will jump at the chance to rip apart a new elected official, and PTAs all over the states will do the work of paid officials by pouring over the date looking for ways to make the money go further. It essentially amounts to volunteer work that saves billions of dollars.
Anyway, it's an idea, and it's more specific than "let's cut the waste" or "let's spend more money."
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
The "books not bombs fallacy" comment was partially directed at you. The "throwing money at a problem to make it go away" wasn't.
Perhaps it only happened in the communities that my dad taught in, but any input from the community about education was largely disregarded. Things may have changed - but it's too little, too late. We actually protested. You know, standing outside the district offices, yelling "heck no, we won't go". Why do you think that the homeschooling movement feels largely disenfranchised? It's not all about religion, but also about the quality of education. I am really kicking around the idea of homeschooling my daughters, but I'm concerned about the possibility of them missing out on the social aspect of public education. You know, insults and fights and cliques and wait, maybe homeschooling is a viable option...
The idea of organizing schools along military lines has some good points to it, although $900 toilets might indicate that the military has a thing with waste.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
lol, hopefully that part of military wastefulness will fall through the cracks. It's just an idea though. The military has its faults, but its organizational structure and accountability is what the school system in this country needs, and I don't necessarily mean teacher accountability, I mean FISCAL accountability. Once people get it through their heads that if they cook the books or waste money they will be fired or won't be elected, at least some of it will go away.
At the very least, PTAs around the country I think would love to dive into the budgets of schools and actually have a voice in what gets spent where. Superindendents shouldn't be lord of school systems, they don't always know what they are doing. Transparency is going to be key in getting the community involved. And if they complain, remind them that better schools mean high property values in many cases. And as wastefulness goes down, it might also mean lower property taxes.
As for homeschooling, it has a lot of merits, but I would worry about the social development as well. Sure, there is a lot of bad stuff to high school, but that stuff also toughens a kid up, and makes them more socially adaptable. You can't homeschool them through college, and they'll need the skills learned in high school to interact with other people their age. Just my 2 cents, I don't have kids, though my cousin is homeschooling her children. Though, that is for religious reasons.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Lyrhawn, there are other ways to get social interaction. Many of the homeschooled kids I've known were among the most comfortable in social interactions-- because their parents made darned sure that they got enough and what they got was healthy, which doesn't always happen in school. (Now, there are also the ones whose parents don't let them socialize outside of church or at all, and that's not healthy. But I'm just saying, there are other ways to socialize your kids.)
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I don't doubt that. It was just my laymens opinion. I don't have kids and haven't done really any research into it. That's just based on the homeschooled kids I know and my own experience in public school.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Lyrhawn I suspect you know a lot more homeschooled people, at least indirectly, than you think you know. There are at least half a dozen of us who post on this forum, and several parents who homeschool as well.
Though I'm not a kid. I'm an adult who was homeschooled.
AJ
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:Well, in FIRST, we didn't bring in any money.
I wasn't sure. Don't want to offend.
quote:But I don't buy that our football program does either. I mean, they charge something like two dollars a person to watch the games. They sell concessions. But the facility they play in must have cost a fortune, to say nothing of the uniforms, etc. This isn't big time college athletics. I just don't buy that they are a source of revenue at all.
Well, yeah, they don't all bring in money. I wholeheartedly agree with you. But some, maybe even most break even or better, I'd guess. Maybe not in Florida, but in Louisiana most high schools sell out their home games (at about 5 bucks a ticket). And since the stadiums are built as part of the school, they don't cost anything (they aren't paid for out of the yearly budget, in other words). If you go to the playoffs, you start to get into pretty big money.
A school in Lafayette hosted 3 playoff games this year, and each one had about 8,000 people (at least) and tickets were 7,8, and 10 bucks respectively. I don't know if they split the gate with the visiting team or what, but that's a substantial chunk of change. Even if the visiting teams got 50% of the gate, that's one hundred thousand dollars in gross revenue -- just from ticket sales. And I can name about 6 other schools within ten miles of my house that are in similar situations nearly every year (obviously when one school has a good year, their rival has a slightly worse year).
So they may not be a big windfall for the school, financially, but even below average schools break even. If you're winning, the implications can be far reaching, too. T-shirts sold everywhere, more exposure for the school and other sports and clubs, and the whole town gets into it.
I'm not saying that the other activities don't deserve a bigger slice of the pie, mind you, because I think they're just as valuable to those participating in them.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:And since the stadiums are built as part of the school, they don't cost anything (they aren't paid for out of the yearly budget, in other words).
Ah, but then we're cooking the books, aren't we? The district is putting money into stadiums, and we don't count that when we say that the football team brings a big profit. But the money going into stadiums is a huge chunk that's not going into a thousand other useful things.
Of course, I'm arguing from ignorance here, because I don't have all the details. It would be very interesting to see a breakdown of the finances, looking across the board at the "hidden" costs of big time high school football.
(But given that even universities do not turn a profit on college football, I kind of doubt that K-12 school districts do either.)
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Does anyone really pretend that K-12 schools make any money on football? Even if they did, the money goes almost totally back into football boosters at most schools, not into the school general fund.
I think high school football should be "pay to play." In Model UN we had to pay for all our conferences and transportation. In band we had to buy or own instruments, pay our own admission fees into competitions and and pay for transportation.
Why do academic based groups have to pay to play but sports groups don't? And of course the first groups to get cut are the arts, which don't take up all the money anyway.
Posted by etphonehome (Member # 999) on :
Actually in my high school there were fees to play sports. These fees varied by sport, with hockey and football costing the most because of all the equipment involved, while things like track and tennis and nordic skiing had lower fees.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
That sounds perfectly fair to me.
Posted by etphonehome (Member # 999) on :
Yeah, I think it is fair for the students who play the sports to pay at least some of the cost. I don't think fees like that are at all uncommon at least around where I'm from (the Minneapolis area). I remember a story in the paper a few years back about athletic fees across the metro area, and I believe most every school had fees of some sort. One school charged as little as $6 per sport, while others charged upwards of $200 for some sports.
I think there's a point where the fee becomes overly burdensome for poorer families especially. The school that charged $200, for example, is a bit excessive in my opinion. Fees of $50-100, depending on the sport, seem a bit more reasonable.
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
I don't know if our high school charged to play, though I sort of expect for uniforms, it's possible. But I know our football team did make money, it was also the main reason a parent made a donation to build the "really over expensive, inefective" atrium. Though in all reality, when you have to connect three floors like they did, glass and terrazo are among the less expensive products that could be used, even if it looks rich.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:(But given that even universities do not turn a profit on college football, I kind of doubt that K-12 school districts do either.)
This seems to be the crux. We have differing views on this statement, and no way to prove it one way or the other.
Lyr, Athletics do bring in money. Model UN does not. Even if sports don't break even, there's a cash flow with it. I ain't sayin it's right, but that's the way it is.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
There's a big difference El JT. Model doesn't have materials cost, atheletics do. There's equipment, which is massively expensive, there's field maintenance, there's travel, there's trainers and coaches. All of that costs way the hell more than any high school around here brings in in revenue.
If the school spent on Model UN what it spent on football, sans revenue, we could have 24k gold placards made instead of using card stock.
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