Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1636.7 | 4.5 | 0.28% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2749.8 | 7.2 | 0.26% |
| Oil (WTI) | 109.1 | -1.0 | -0.92% |
| LIBOR | 0.261 | 0.001 | 0.27% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 81.96 | 0.532 | 0.65% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.82% | 0.05% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 103.7 | -0.1 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 102.8 | -0.3 | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 200.7 | -0.2 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.47 |
Markets are higher this morning after some initial jobless claims came in at 331k and the second estimate for 2Q GDP came in higher than expected. The initial pass at 2Q GDP was 2.2%, while this estimate was 2.5%. We will have a final revision next month.
Between the Syria situation and the emerging markets meltdown you would expect the 10 year to strengthen and it isn’t happening. This speaks to the bearish sentiment surrounding the US bond market. Of course this could change if a big player gets in trouble with Indian exposure or we get into a shooting war in the Middle East and oil soars. But so far, the 10 year isn’t rallying under circumstances where it should. Punch line: if you are floating, you are drawing an inside straight.
Something that I haven’t dwelled on, but could become an issue – the debt ceiling fight. I don’t see a government shutdown in the cards, but the WH wants a clean, no-strings-attached hike in the debt ceiling (which is a rare event and a pretty big demand) and the Republicans want to de-fund obamacare. So, expect a lot of posturing going into October, which is when the government needs to borrow more money.
CoreLogic is reporting that there were 49,000 completed foreclosures in July, down 25% year-over-year. This is still elevated compared to pre-crisis levels, where a 21,000 pace was the norm. We are seeing the remaining shadow inventory concentrated in the judicial states, which explains why prices are rallying in the West and going nowhere in the Northeast.
FHFA is reporting that mortgage interest rates rose 45 basis points in July. These are based on lock data, which is somewhat stale, so the end of July data reflects locks made in mid-to-late June. During this time, the 10 year yield increased about 52 basis points, so it looks like spreads are compressing a bit.
Is it going to be Summers or Yellen? That is the question many market participants are asking. Summers is rumored to be the favorite and is seen as more hawkish than Yellen. As we approach the end of the year, bond investors will probably do well to read the Washington Post as well as the Wall Street Journal. Expect the bond market to become a bit twitchy and begin to react to the latest headlines in this horse race.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
the WH wants a clean, no-strings-attached hike in the debt ceiling (which is a rare event and a pretty big demand)
I think that depends on your historic window. At one time raising the debt ceiling was rubberstamped like approving post-office names. I do remember one Senator from Illinois making a fuss once, though. Karma is one thing but the endless hostage taking has gone too far. Legitimate countries pay their bills.
LikeLike
i’m supposed to close by tomorrow on a refi. the lock expires. they say they can extend it for a fee, but i’m not inclined to do that. they were frankly shocked i think when I said “do you want to close this deal or not.”
there was a gap in the LTV requirements of less than 10k, and their underwriters are freaking out. I said “we’ve got perfect credit and are as sure a bet as you’ll get. figure out our we’ll walk.” I don’t think they’re used to that.
LikeLike
Obama already negotiated on a debt ceiling hike after he said he would not. Name one thing that he hasn’t gone back on.
I hope we default. The harder it is to borrow money the less we’ll borrow. Maybe you’ll get your wish and taxes will go up even more.
LikeLike
This is different cause now I’m in charge.
LikeLike
“I hope we default. ”
That’s not going to happen regardless. There’s enough revenue coming in to service debt and interest.
If the debt ceiling is breached, entitlement checks won’t go out and Republicans will cave in 30 days and then possibly loose the mid-terms.
LikeLike
“I do remember one Senator from Illinois making a fuss once, though.”
Then those crazy Tea Party types got elected and they didn’t know they whole thing was supposed to be a cynical Kabuki dance. They actually took the rhetoric seriously.
LikeLike
“the second estimate for 2Q GDP came in higher than expected. The initial pass at 2Q GDP was 2.2%, while this estimate was 2.5%.”
So much for the sequester.
LikeLike
test
LikeLike
That’s not going to happen regardless. There’s enough revenue coming in to service debt and interest.
Sigh.
And now the famous ATiM “parsing”
Beetlejuice!
LikeLike
Obama’s a hater.
http://mobile.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/private_school_vs_public_school_only_bad_people_send_their_kids_to_private.html?original_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2Fhf7CuHlpKj
Jejune!
LikeLike
I think Amy Carter was the last (and perhaps first) president’s kid to go to a public DC school. Dubya’s were already in college. Bartunde Thurston’s book How To Be Black has a good insider’s look at the social atmosphere of Friend’s School.
LikeLike
” But it seems to me that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve”
Gawker was on about that awhile back. I think the premise if flawed. It assumes the administration cares what parents have to say.
LikeLike
Private schools are a form of conspicuous consumption mostly for signaling status. My boss lives in the best school district in the state and she sends her kids to a private school.
We can talk about how white flight to segregation academies destroyed most urban school districts but that horse has left the barn.
LikeLike
Just because it’s “the best” doesn’t mean it’s high quality.
Fairfax County supposedly is one of the best in the nation.
yeah, i’m thrilled that i’m seriously considering spending 25k next year on kindergarten. It’s either that, or send him to a school where 50% of the kids don’t speak English.
LikeLike
Just because it’s “the best” doesn’t mean it’s high quality.
Our county is chock-full of Koreans who immigrate solely for the schools.
It’s either that, or send him to a school where 50% of the kids don’t speak English.
My wife teaches those kids. It really depends on what sort of job the parents have. Immigrant kids of NIH workers do real well in school. It’s tough to teach kids in any language when their parents are illiterate too.
LikeLike
“And now the famous ATiM “parsing””
It’s important parsing. The term “default” is being coopted to advance an agenda, regardless of what it actually means.
LikeLike
“Private schools are a form of conspicuous consumption mostly for signaling status.”
That must be why Obama and other Democrats who support public schools send their kids to private schools.
LikeLike
” It’s tough to teach kids in any language when their parents are illiterate too.”
I bet i is. thankless too. still doesn’t mean i want to deal with it.
also, our neighborhood school closes way before I could pick him up and the wait list for after school care is already at 50+ kids. for Fall 2014. logistically, this is going to be a nightmare.
or, i can sent him to a place where 5 year olds were diagramming sentences on their ipads. and writing in cursive.
LikeLike
or, i can sent him to a place where 5 year olds were diagramming sentences on their ipads. and writing in cursive.
What, you want your kid to succeed? What the hell is wrong with you.
I’m a product of very limited mental raw materials, and came out of the best public school district in AZ (at the time.) I would not, and did not, send my kids to public school. It is a disservice to the child.
LikeLike
Outrageous!
http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/irs-official-who-scrutinized-conservative-groups-facing-harassment-attorney-says/2013/08/28/50577962-0ff6-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop
Try harder! She hasn’t fled the country yet!
LikeLike
I’m not a parent, so I don’t have a dog in this fight.
But I strongly suspect that the school has less to do with how the kid turns out educationally than the parents. Having a close friend who’s youngest is the same age as your boy, NoVA, I’m also well aware of the issues of what to do when school isn’t in session; Chris and his wife picked the (public) elementary school that their two girls are in this fall specifically for the after-school program they have. It isn’t easy juggling it all.
LikeLike
writing in cursive
A skill that will be required for writing all of those lovely thank you notes to people who loaned them their 42-foot yacht for a weekend sail.
LikeLike
For you Nova. I’m sure you’ll find the argument persuasive.
“If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person
A manifesto.
By Allison Benedikt
Posted Thursday, Aug. 29, 2013, at 5:50 AM”
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/private_school_vs_public_school_only_bad_people_send_their_kids_to_private.html
LikeLike
Michi, there’s a font for that.
LikeLike
Yes, I know
Although it appears WordPress doesn’t support it, dang it!
LikeLike
Edwardian Script ITC. . .
LikeLike
Do people still hand write thank you notes? I do, and we’re requring it of my son. but i wonder if it’s a dying art/custom.
If it makes be a bad person, that just fits my persona.
LikeLike
I do.
LikeLike
““If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person
A manifesto.
By Allison Benedikt”
Cripes. Do people actually think this way?
LikeLike
OT: Worth a read.
“Jerry Brown’s Tough-Love California Miracle
The 75-year-old governor rescued the Golden State from financial ruin – and is reshaping a national progressive agenda
By Tim Dickinson
August 29, 2013 7:00 AM ET
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/jerry-browns-tough-love-miracle-20130829
It would shake things up if he ran for President in 2016.
LikeLike
JNC – Jerry Brown is sui generis, I am afraid. He really is a fiscal conservative, a law and order conservative, and a social liberal who is unafraid to say “we don’t have enough money to do your idea, however marvelous”.
I wish he could be replicated. He is really too old to be POTUS and the nation doesn’t have the same desperate feel among voters that CA had. That desperation allowed Brown room to operate in Sacramento he would not have in DC.
LikeLike
Y’all were talking about this the other day, right?
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/778828-oberlin-college-police-report.html
LikeLike
Snowden fallout
http://tinyurl.com/ng2gbco
[mark, link is bad .. NoVa] try this –
http://tinyurl.com/qd6vkpf
LikeLike
Brent, I don’t think it was meant as parody. It’s simply taking the premise of private school undermining public schools and assigning personal responsibility to it.
LikeLike
yes they do.
http://gawker.com/5943005/theres-a-simple-solution-to-the-public-schools-crisis
from the comments — the author adds:
“I want the best for my children, but I don’t particularly want them to have a better opportunity at succeeding in life because they were fortunate enough to have been born into a stable, wealthy family. I’d rather have them grow up in a country that values, and confers educational opportunities to, all children without regard to their parents’ bank accounts”
what he’s actually saying is “I don’t want the best. I’d rather play make believe because I feel guilty otherwise. and if it means condemning my kids to assuage that guilt, so be it.”
LikeLike
Tweet of the Day!
@BrettLoGiurato: WH press sec blasting anonymous sources. Reporter: “You guys talk to us anonymously all the time, and expect us to believe it’s credible.”
LikeLike
Cripes. Do people actually think this way?
It’s an extreme position but they have a point. I think that if you are an achievement-minded person living in an area with truly horrendous public schools you owe it to your kid to give them the best education that they can get and that may mean a private school. Here in Baltimore any time anyone mentions cheap houses in the city, I say that they need to factor in the cost of a private school.
Contrariwise,if you live in an area with good public schools, you are throwing your money away at a private school. And most people underestimate the quality of their local public schools and overestimate the benefit of a private school. In some cases it can be a detriment. There is a certain economic-psychological paradigm at work there where one has to rationalize paying a premium for a ‘free’ good based on brand appeal.
LikeLike
yello:
It’s an extreme position but they have a point.
I don’t think so. Your point seems to be that opting out of a bad public school is acceptable, but opting out of a good public school is economically stupid. The point of the article was that one should not opt out of even bad public schools, because doing so prevents them from becoming good.
LikeLike
more reaction to the slate “nova is an asshole” article
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/29/slate-only-bad-people-wont-sacrifice-their-children-on-altar-of-public-education-or-something/
LikeLike
Regarding Jerry Brown, some things never change:
LikeLike
How could it be a detriment?
LikeLike
How could it be a detriment?
Particularly if the public HS has good lab sciences as several do in Austin, no private school comes close. My youngest went to a science magnet, of course, and she had great labs, PhD teachers [not educators], and her choice of scitech internships. She worked as an engineering intern at BAE and while she mainly made circuit testers and tested circuits and write lab reports she also got to fire a 50 cal machine gun at a NATO helicopter black box to test its survivability in combat and write up her results.
However, the article is generally speaking either inane or insane.
LikeLike
From your link Nova
Those who use private schools are still paying the taxes for the public ones in addition to the private tuition, they just aren’t using the service.
What will happen in this instance is the growth of private boarding schools abroad.
LikeLike
“markinaustin, on August 29, 2013 at 1:35 pm said:
…
I wish he could be replicated. He is really too old to be POTUS and the nation doesn’t have the same desperate feel among voters that CA had. That desperation allowed Brown room to operate in Sacramento he would not have in DC.”
It wasn’t just desperation that allowed Brown the room to operate, but also the order in which he did things, namely:
1. Cut spending
2. Pension reform
and only then
3. Raise taxes
LikeLike
True, JNC, his political wisdom to slash first tax second was necessary to take advantage of the desperation.
LikeLike
“Those who use private schools are still paying the taxes for the public ones in addition to the private tuition, they just aren’t using the service.”
one would think this is an ideal situation for the public system. collect the premiums and never pay a claim.
LikeLike
nova:
one would think this is an ideal situation for the public system. collect the premiums and never pay a claim.
Exactly. I remember a similarly bizarre phenomenon when I lived in England. They wanted to place an extra tax on anyone who had private health insurance and thus was able to opt out of the NHS (and its long wait times). What a great idea….the NHS doesn’t have enough resources to handle the load its already got, but the solution is to encourage more people to use it by punishing those who don’t. Insanity.
LikeLike
Those who use private schools are still paying the taxes for the public ones in addition to the private tuition, they just aren’t using the service.
So do those of us who’ve never had kids. And we get nothing in return.
Sometimes you just have to accept that you’re paying for a service which you will never, personally, benefit from but that will benefit others. As such, I would abolish all private schools, put all kids into the public system, and make the parents force the school system to work rather than to be able to weasel out based on their personal fortunes.
LikeLike
So much for the right to choose, I guess.
LikeLike
BTW, the fact that a person sends their kids to a private school does not in the slightest suggest that they have a “personal fortune”. Lots of parents scrimp, save, and sacrifice in order to send their kids to private schools.
LikeLike
Some interesting stats on private schools (primary and secondary) in the US, from the most recent survey in 2009/10:
There are a total of 33,366 private schools with just 4.7 million children enrolled
68% have a religious orientation or purpose
43% of all private school children attend a Catholic school
45% of all private schools enroll fewer than 50 students
About 1/3 of all private schools offer some kind of non-traditional education, such as Montessori, special education, vocational, or emphasis on a particular program (performing arts, language immersion, science/math focus).
Enrollment in private schools is less than 10% of enrollment in public schools. I think it is beyond nuts to believe that, if only this small percentage of students (who, BTW, go private for all kinds of reasons beyond status – religious reasons, special program reasons, vocational reasons) stayed in public school, the public schools would somehow become significantly better at educating the 90+% of kids who are already enrolled in public schools. Truly nuts.
LikeLike
if you choose to opt out of something that I’m paying for, then I think you owe me some money.
Isn’t that libertarian of me (and you–you know, paying for your own way and stuff)?
LikeLike
Isn’t that libertarian of me?
No, it isn’t.
LikeLike
What if you just let your kid treat the school you’re forcing them into as daycare and then send them to private school afterwards. And before you scoff, we are talking about the lowest of the low here, those who “weasel” out of utilizing a system they help pay for. What kind of social conscious have they shown already?
Why stop there? These “weasels” shouldn’t even be parents, no? Take those kids. In the immortal word of Markos Moulitzas, “Fuck ’em.”
LikeLike
if you choose to opt out of something that I’m paying for, then I think you owe me some money.
Aren’t they paying for the shitty system too? Further, why do they owe you? Doesn’t the district owe you? They’re not having to indoctrinate, er, educate that kid right? Make them give you your money back!
LikeLike
“Exactly. I remember a similarly bizarre phenomenon when I lived in England. They wanted to place an extra tax on anyone who had private health insurance and thus was able to opt out of the NHS (and its long wait times). What a great idea….the NHS doesn’t have enough resources to handle the load its already got, but the solution is to encourage more people to use it by punishing those who don’t. Insanity.”
I still owe Inland Revenue tax for my benefits… I have no intention of paying…. From most of my expat friends it seems like stiffing the taxman is typical – you get fucked so hard from both countries that you feel justified keeping a little for yourself. Anyway, I have no intention of ever going back, so I am not worried about it.
Of course I had to beat back NY State with a baseball bat when I got back for taxes they thought I owed (which I didn’t).
LikeLike
Heh. Got you guys all riled up.
But seriously, I couldn’t care less where you send your kids to school. I do disagree with the whole “voucher” idea when it relieves property owners from paying taxes that support public schools simply because they choose to opt out. You make your choices and you pay for them.
LikeLike
I don’t think anyone is arguing that you should get an exemption from paying property taxes if you send your kids to a private school. I think people are ridiculing the notion that you somehow have some sort of civic / moral obligation to send your kid to a crappy public school in order to achieve a more egalitarian society.
LikeLike
I do disagree with the whole “voucher” idea when it relieves property owners from paying taxes that support public schools simply because they choose to opt out.
I have never heard of this option. Where has it been floated?
LikeLike
I think ideological opposition to voucher programs suggests a greater interest in the idea of public education for its own sake than in actually educating kids. And speaking of vouchers, we now have the (almost) unbelievably bizarre spectacle of the black US attorney general, appointed by the black President of the US, trying to prevent poor black families from sending their kids to better schools (via vouchers) because their departure from the crap school would upset the racial balance and make the school more white.
Obama’s America truly is the Twilight Zone.
LikeLike
because their departure from the crap school would upset the racial balance and make the school more white.
Is that why the left hates vouchers so much? I always thought it was hostility to religion that was behind it, along with fealty to the teachers unions..
LikeLike
Brent:
Is that why the left hates vouchers so much? I always thought it was hostility to religion that was behind it, along with fealty to the teachers unions..
I have to admit that this was a new one for me, too.
LikeLike
Brent and McWing: exempting property owners from the portion of their taxes that go toward public school funding in Utah was the big selling point when it was floated last (2006 or 2008, I can’t remember which). It sank like a stone. What is even funnier (from my point of view as both a childless person and a non-Mormon) is that the taxes on liquor in Utah pay for the school meal programs. If it weren’t for us godless Gentiles a lot of Mormon kids would be going hungry during the school day.
We on the left hate vouchers for a number of reasons, but religion, making schools more white, and fealty to teachers’ unions are not any of them. Nor do I think you have a moral obligation to send your kid to a public school. Wanting a special deal (vouchers) because you do decide to send your child to a private school is something I disagree with. After all, as I’ve been told many, many, many times by conservatives, if I don’t like something about the place I live I can always move. If you don’t like the school district you’re in, you can always move. Or you can decide to pay for your child to go to a different school.
LikeLike
I like public to public and public to charter vouchers. I like public to private non-sectarian vouchers[assuming the school meets minimum state mandated standards]. I don’t like public to religious school vouchers.
LikeLike
MArk:
I don’t like public to religious school vouchers.
I don’t understand this, unless it is indeed just simple hostility to religion in general. The whole point of vouchers is to empower parents with the ability to make choices, under the assumption that parents make the best advocates on behalf of their children. To disallow parents from using vouchers for religiously affiliated education is to simply continue with the same, current attitude of “I know better than you what is best for your kid”.
LikeLike
Scott, I don’t like vouchers for parochial schools strictly on separation of church and state grounds.
Otherwise I am for all sorts of vouchers. I could have used one for Sean at Texas Military Institute, ’85-’86. It would not have defrayed the $26K in three semesters but it would have helped. Especially as my real estate “millions” were going down the tubes in the S&L crisis.
YJ, I am continuing my agreement with you that poverty is typically the defining issue, by local examples. This morning KUT [local NPR] analyzed the Dove Springs area in southeast Austin. Dove Springs was a subdivision that served Bergstrom AFB families until Bergstrom closed. Then it became a rental neighborhood populated densely, often by multiple Chicano families in one house.
Unlike the middle class chicano families in, for instance, the Bowie or Austin HS zones, these kids were dropouts ready to happen. Beyond no English and no books in Spanish at home, the biggest problem turned out to be: nutrition! Over 50% of the kids were obese by age 7!
George, the national obsession with ethnicity on much of the left [and I think on much of the right] is as misplaced, I think, as you do. Locally we can attack what we really find to be solutions, like having a second chance HS in Austin and like addressing nutrition/exercise through a local public-private arrangement at Dove Springs. There is no national solution and no “one size fits all”, I am sure.
YJ, my longest continuing fight with a union was with TFT. Its then president, John Cole, and I had been friends. After five years he could barely tolerate to be in the same room with me. I think teachers run the gamut, that I have seen more good ones than bad ones, that great ones are few and far between, that there are bad ones with “tenure”, and that some are naturals at it and some learn the skills over time. I think on the whole they are underpaid and under valued. I also think that a true merit system, like I think Rhee wanted in DC, is a great local idea but that the union will fight it tooth and nail.
LikeLike
I see y’all dealt with everything I just posted. Never mind.
Agree that it is good AFT recognizes, late, the issue.
JNC – it is a counter-factual, but I would bet BHO’s kids would do as well in a public school. They go to Sidwell for security reasons.
LikeLike
I think on the whole they are underpaid and under valued. I also think that a true merit system, like I think Rhee wanted in DC, is a great local idea but that the union will fight it tooth and nail.
The unions, perhaps rightly, see a merit system as attacking job security in exchange for peanuts in merit pay. Teachers I know see merit pay as a red herring to lower overall salaries. Not to mention that the metrics used to allocate bonuses redefine arbitrary and capricious. Teaching is a collaborative enterprise and pitting teachers against each other can’t turn out well.
Rhee was rather ruthless to no discernible improvement and much rancor with both teachers and parents but now we’ll never know how things would have shaken out long term.
For a long time we have underpaid teachers. Perhaps we could try overpaying them for a decade or two just to gather some additional data points.
LikeLike
Mark:
Scott, I don’t like vouchers for parochial schools strictly on separation of church and state grounds.
As long as the state does not require that the voucher be used for a particular religion, or prohibit it from being used for a particular religion, then I don’t see where there are any separation of church/state issues. The first amendment prohibits the establishment of a religion. Giving a voucher to a parent and allowing them to use it even for a religious education at their discretion, isn’t remotely an example of the state establishing a religion.
LikeLike
Scott, I suppose if the voucher were paid to the parent that would make more sense. Here the voucher is paid to the school of the parents’ choice, which has the AISD cutting checks to charter schools, on a budgeted monthly basis. It could be argued that I am elevating form over substance but my discomfort is cutting checks from the School district to the Diocese or to the mosque or to the synagogue, etc. It might pass constitutional muster, I don’t know. But it might not.
LikeLike
We on the left hate vouchers for a number of reasons, but religion, making schools more white, and fealty to teachers’ unions are not any of them.
LikeLike
Thanks Michi, as I mentioned I’d never heard of being able to opt out of property taxes before. If everybody has to pay property taxes, what is the objection to vouchers?
LikeLike
McWing:
My guess is that reducing property tax owed was simply a way of making vouchers more efficient. Rather than take the money from you and then just give it right back in the form of a voucher, skip the bureaucratic middleman and save the expense. If one supports vouchers, such a system makes a lot of sense as a matter of efficiency. If one opposes vouchers, it won’t much matter how the voucher is provided, whether via a tax credit or via the issuance of an after-tax piece of paper with the word “voucher” on it.
LikeLike
Your point, Scott? I didn’t have sexual relations with that woman and I can prove it with DNA.
LikeLike
Forget it…it loses its humor if it has to be explained.
LikeLike
McWing:
My (and many others) objection to the way it was last presented in Utah was that if you, as a parent, elected to send your child to a private school your property taxes would be reduced by X amount. I don’t care if you send your child to a private school, but that’s your decision and you get to pay for it.
LikeLike
simply a way of making vouchers more efficient
Yes, that would be your spin on it. If you don’t want to send your kid to public school, that’s fine. But you get to pay for it.
LikeLike
I don’t get why public schools suck just because whitey left. They’re still paying property taxes. If anything, the schools shoulda got better because there were less students. That vaunted student teacher ratio woulda been sweet. Where am I wrong here? Are only white parents concerned about school quality? I don’t beleive that.
LikeLike
I don’t get why public schools suck just because whitey left
I don’t think anyone rational has claimed that. It came up as a spin in one of Scott’s posts.
LikeLike
Why do unlicensed schools suck then?
Oops, edit: Why do public schools suck then?
LikeLike
I don’t get why public schools suck just because whitey left. They’re still paying property taxes. If anything, the schools shoulda got better because there were less students.
Because the white flight in the wake of the 1960s riots often decimated the tax base as well. And people left in the urban districts quit voting for bond referendums. Florida has the same problem with school funding that inner cities have because the retirees have all raised their kids and don’t see the need to fund the local schools.
That vaunted student teacher ratio woulda been sweet.
They hire and fire teachers to maintain a fixed student teacher ratio. They don’t keep teachers on staff for students that aren’t going there anymore.
Where am I wrong here?
Must. Resist.
LikeLike
trying to prevent poor black families from sending their kids to better schools (via vouchers) because their departure from the crap school would upset the racial balance and make the school more white.
Huh? I have never heard that argument advanced.
LikeLike
So, only whitey cares about their schools? And teachers need whitey money cause they don’t work for the love of teaching but for base money? And non-whites take no interst in their children’s education? Is that what’s going on?
I hear DC spends a fortune per student, why do the schools suck there? Seriously? I live is Houstoned (see what I did there?). It has one big district. Why do some schools suck and others don’t? Tax base is the same, the City of Houston.
LikeLike
And here’s where i check out because none of that deserves an answer.
Go for it if you like, yello.
LikeLike
I always thought it was hostility to religion that was behind it, along with fealty to the teachers unions..
You forgot the rent-seeking on the part of for-profit education companies. I don’t know how they are supposed to deliver a better product at a cheaper price and pay dividends to stockholders. That adds extra slices to the pie.
Frankly, I have no problem with religious schools splintering off. The more that do, the less pressure there is to teach Creationism and ban Anne Frank and force abstinence-only sex education in the public schools. I always find it hypocritical when a parent who homeschools runs for the school board just so they can inflict their beliefs on other people’s kids as well.
It’s a well kept secret but parochial and private schools often do get taxpayer funds in the form of textbooks and transportation subsidies and the like under the logic that these are expenses the public schools are avoiding.
LikeLike
yello:
I don’t know how they are supposed to deliver a better product at a cheaper price and pay dividends to stockholders. That adds extra slices to the pie.
I guess your mistake is to think that government run schools do not have unnecessary “slices” that can be removed. That is a pretty big mistake.
Study finds millions in waste at Milwaukee schools
LA public schools waste $500 million on pointless training
Newark schools and teacher sick leave
Theses are just the tip of the ice-berg, of course.
LikeLike
And here’s where i check out because none of that deserves an answer.
I don’t blame you. The biggest factor to remember is that most measures of academic quality such as standardized test scores are largely proxies for parental income and/or level of education. Once you wrap your head around the correlation, the root cause of a lot of the other problems in education come into sharper focus.
LikeLike
…proxies for parental income and/or level of education.
That seems an approximation of the experience here. Bowie HS in southwest Austin is a middle class school with 2800 kids. Asian 163 (6%) Black 127 (4.51%) Hispanic 855 (30.39%) Native American 25 (0.89%) White 1643 (58.41%). It scores in the top 11% of Texas HSs. Its minority kids go to college. Hispanic kids at poverty stricken Johnston HS do not. Johnston may have to close, under NCLB.
We also have Akins HS for second chance kids. Largely minority, older, can schedule classes around work. Surprising high success rate because it self selects for motivation. These are kids almost invariably from poor families who are now making it on their own. A few years ago an Akins student was a National Merit semifinalist. Now, virtually all semifinalists become finalists, it takes bad grades or failure to file the papers with National Merit not to become a finalist. This kid, then 20, simply did not have the full time HS hours to become a finalist. I know a woman, who came out of Juvy [drugs] at 19, who went to Akins and apprenticed to a jeweler, graduated and now makes triple digits in the jewelry business. Funny – her older sister was working on her PhD in biology when SHE became a druggie. The younger sister, the lifelong screwup, became the adult success, while the older sister, the star, went to hell in a handbasket.
Two of my daughters and W’s twin daughters went to Austin HS, downtown. Its composition is:
Asian 52 (2%) Black 198 (8.38%) Hispanic 1026 (43.40%)
Native American 10 (0.42%) White 1078 (45.60%)
The school is very good, but about 20% of its kids are in poverty and its overall scores are not as good as Bowie’s.
My son, who was a drunk at the time, went to private schools.
My youngest daughter went to the science magnet, as I mentioned before. I’ve got nothing against private schools and if they will take your problem kid all the better. My son is sober for 25 years now. A Texas Military Institute biology teacher almost got through to him before he was kicked out.
LikeLike
I don’t blame you. The biggest factor to remember is that most measures of academic quality such as standardized test scores are largely proxies for parental income and/or level of education. Once you wrap your head around the correlation, the root cause of a lot of the other problems in education come into sharper focus.
Hunh. It’s not white flight, and $ per pupil. I’ll be damned.
LikeLike
The point of the article was that one should not opt out of even bad public schools, because doing so prevents them from becoming good.
I sympathize with the sentiment because their argument makes sense. However, I cannot in good conscience tell people to send their kids to bad schools to make a point. However, most schools where people have those options are not as bad as the media likes to make them out to be.
Joel Achenbach, a writer for the Washington Post, has three daughters who have attended or are attending DC public schools. Back in 2008, some unfavorable publicity caused Paris Achenbach to write in defense of her school. After discussing all the advanced courses she is taking, she makes this point:
Paris Achenbach is currently a student at Oberlin where hopefully she is not creating hate crime hoaxes.
LikeLike
yello:
I sympathize with the sentiment because their argument makes sense.
But it really doesn’t. As I pointed out, the number of private school kids pales in comparison to the number of public school kids. There is no reason to think that the presence of those few private school kids among the sea of kids who are already in public schools would make any appreciable difference to the quality of the school. Nor is there any reason to think the presence of those few private school parents at the local parent/teacher night would make any difference, either. I went to a private, all-boys catholic high school, after having gone through the public system thru 8th grade. The local high school was not horrific – it wasn’t like kids were getting mugged in the hall – but it wasn’t very good, either. At the private school I was the only kid from my school district in my class, and there were only 3 of us from the district in the whole school. The notion that had we gone to the local school, or had those 6 parents not stopped caring about the quality of the local public school, somehow the local school would have become a lot better is really pretty absurd.
LikeLike
As I pointed out, the number of private school kids pales in comparison to the number of public school kids.
The numbers you cite are national averages which mask the effects on urban and poorly performing schools. All the article points out is that if involved committed parents used the same resources in their local community the public schools would be that much better for the effort. Vouchers only accelerate this hollowing out process by cherry picking families with the determination to go through the process.
As I said, I don’t object to parochial schools as they serve a niche for people with philosophical differences on secular education. My experience with parochial school high schoolers and ones from all-male schools in particular is that they were far ‘wilder’ in settings outside of direct supervision. That there were norms of behavior they hadn’t quite internalized because their social experience was so limited.
LikeLike
How could it be a detriment?
For all the reasons mark enumerated, and some more.
Public schools have an economy of scale that private/parochial schools don’t. When my parents moved to Florida. I had already finished ninth grade. They compared the local public high school to the top (male only) parochial school in the area. Based on my class tracking, Jesuit did not offer the full slate of advanced
economicmath and science courses I could get at the public school. Nor did Jesuit offer German, a language I already had one year in and since many colleges require two years of the same language, I would have had to start over.My parents made the right choice to send me to the co-ed public school because that is where I met my wife.
I have a rule of thumb I call the Top One Hundred Comparison. Take the top 100 students from a public school and compare them to the top 100 students from a nearby private schools. The SAT scores, college acceptances, and other achievements tend to be identical. If anything, a public school can be a leg up in applying to hyper competitive elite colleges as many of them have quota limits for private schools.
LikeLike
yello:
Huh? I have never heard that argument advanced.
Nether had I until our current AG advanced it. Never let it be said that Obama’s admin isn’t innovative in its thinking.
LikeLike
Mich:
It came up as a spin in one of Scott’s posts.
No it didn’t.
LikeLike
To disallow parents from using vouchers
I find it amusing that you, who claim to be a Libertarian, want others to underwrite your personal choices in this matter. You make the choice, you pay for it.
LikeLike
Mich:
I find it amusing that you, who claim to be a Libertarian, want others to underwrite your personal choices in this matter.
But of course I don’t want any such thing. As a libertarian, I object to the very existence of public schools. I am simply saying that, within the context of a system in which public schools exist, a voucher system is the best alternative to providing choice to parents and creating competition between schools. Of course, if one is anti-choice and anti-competition, then one would certainly oppose vouchers and, indeed, even oppose the existence of private schools.
LikeLike
Scott’s argument, and mine is that we should let the parent make the choice.
Why do liberals hate parental choice?
LikeLike
“The biggest factor to remember is that most measures of academic quality such as standardized test scores are largely proxies for parental income and/or level of education. ”
such utter bullshit. you put kids in a system that has no incentive or reason to improve and blame others for its failure.
public schools suck because the underlying goal is not education. it’s a jobs program.
LikeLike
public schools suck because the underlying goal is not education
The underlying original goal of public education in the US was the rapid assimilation of the children of immigrants which it has done a wonderful job of and continues to do. As for the industrialized employment indoctrination aspect, sure, there is still some of that. Kids are taught to obey rules and perform mindless repetitive tasks. But contrary to popular opinion, critical thinking and independent analysis do get taught.
If not employability, what other function of the education system provides such a clear Public Good? Other than removing child labor from the economic mix and teaching core social values.
LikeLike
I agree that was the original goal. That was a long time ago.
and that’s the issue. is public education:
1 .. designed to educate people to function as small r republicans so they might best participate in the political system?
2. a jobs training program
3 nether … a private good that’s purpose is to prepare the student to best compete. a race to the top, if you will, based on the idea that somebody is going to win.
update — those 3 goals and how they compete are discussed in this journal (opens PDF) http://www.stanford.edu/~dlabaree/publications/Public_Goods_Private_Goods.pdf
LikeLike
also — seems this slate article blew up the internet. i can’t decide if she’s serious or just trolling all of us.
LikeLike
also — seems this slate article blew up the internet. i can’t decide if she’s serious or just trolling all of us.
Meh, it’s right before Labor Day weekend. Her husband wrote a piece for Gawker along similar lines.
Yesterday, Ace wrote a hilarious string of posts regarding Slate’s hitwhoring.
What else is there for people to talk about, since President Daddy Issues getting us into another war is a fait accompli.
LikeLike
McWing:
Why do liberals hate parental choice?
I don’t. I’ve said at least twice that I couldn’t care less where you decide to send your kids to school. Just don’t expect me, who is childless and already paying for a public school system which you choose to reject, to underwrite your choice with vouchers.
And “hitwhoring” is one of the funniest words I’ve seen in ages. Bravo!
LikeLike
I don’t know how they are supposed to deliver a better product at a cheaper price and pay dividends to stockholders. That adds extra slices to the pie.
I would also add that it seems like some schools are in empire building mode with respect to property development (George Washington University, for example). Publicly traded companies have to consider the return to shareholders when deciding to build a new building or buy property. Non-profit universities only have to consider how this would affect the prestige of the school and whether they can raise tuition enough to cover the cost.
I wish colleges competed on cost, but unfortunately the demand for college education is pretty inelastic. And if you are a seller of an inelastic good, the answer is always “raise prices.”
LikeLike
this slate article blew up the internet.
Meh. Slow news week if you don’t give a damn about Syrian killing each other.
Of the half dozen or so response pieces I randomly googled, the one at Forbes was the most cogent.
I’ll vouch for most of that. Pushy parents everywhere cow administrators but privileged helicopter moms (and to a lesser extent, dads) are especially good at gaming the system to their own benefit.
LikeLike
Michi, that’s my feeling with Medicare/aid. Give recipients 3/4’s of the average benefit in cash and if they blow it on hookers and cocaine, wherehouse them in dorms and pump in morphine until they die.
I stand with Wendy! I believe in choice!
LikeLike
So, there is a non-insignificant group of people that think parents of 11% of the school age population are miracle workers.
OK. Who’s reality based now?
LikeLike
yeah, i’m thrilled that i’m seriously considering spending 25k next year on kindergarten. It’s either that, or send him to a school where 50% of the kids don’t speak English.
NoVa,
I’m particularly interested in your situation. How are you in such an impoverished area and why do you choose to live there? Public school information including ethnic make-up and percentage of students on meal plans (aka parental income/school performance proxy) is readily available. We live in Howard County and on paper the schools my son went to were below par for the area (but still better than surrounding counties). His high school in particular was very proud of being the most diverse school in the system, i.e. no majority ethnic group but its academic reputation was lackluster at best. He got a great education being a big fish in a small pond which suited his non-competitive personality even though there were a few bumps on the road in the cultural relations department.
In Howard County, the home values of 50 year-old-houses that go to the ‘right’ high schools command $50-100k premiums over comparable houses elsewhere. The financially strategic decision is to buy a house in a good school district and sell and move once your kids are out of school. Your carrying costs are the increased mortgage interest and property taxes on the more valuable property but you recover most of that in appreciation (depending on your timing). I’m sure this is less than $25k a year if you crunch the numbers.
The most perplexing situation I’ve ever run across is a guy who put his kids through private schools for secondary education because he lived in the Baltimore City limits (which has at least three competitive enrollment high schools which perform well above average) but cut his son off after his second year at American University because the college fund had dried up.
LikeLike
people that think parents of 11% of the school age population are miracle workers.
It’s more of a ‘if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem’ approach.
LikeLike
Ah, if your not with us you’re against us.
Wait…what?
LikeLike
I guess your mistake is to think that government run schools do not have unnecessary “slices” that can be removed. That is a pretty big mistake.
Study finds millions in waste at Milwaukee schools
LA public schools waste $500 million on pointless training
Newark schools and teacher sick leave
Theses are just the tip of the ice-berg, of course.
More like the low hanging fruit. Waste, fraud, and abuse are evergreen whipping posts, justifiably. Taxpayer money should be spent responsibly with strong oversight.
But the big pole in the tent is teacher salaries. Charter schools get their financial edge by trimming teacher salaries.
LikeLike
Ah, if your not with us you’re against us.
Now you’re getting it. I’ll put in a good word for you when the re-education camps are set up.
LikeLike
I’m a known scrounger. Think James Garner / Great Escape.
I’ll be able to get food, booze and rubbers.
LikeLike
“How are you in such an impoverished area and why do you choose to live there?”
it’s classic one side of the road, single family homes in the 400-600 range. our neighborhood is a high range GSs, stay at home artist types and a “DC professional types” like me. low-moderate apartments/townhouses on the other. and they share the elementary school.
It’s a problem of house vs. location. On two professional DC salaries, Arlington County is simply not affordable. and the areas with the good public schools in DC? forget it. I’d never be able to afford the mortgage, which would be a lot more than the 1600 a month I pay for daycare.
here’s a typical listing. it’s not in the most desirable/rich part of arlington, but a nice “middle class” neighborhood http://franklymls.com/AR8155002 3 beds, 2 1/2 baths. $850k. for basically the same situation that i’m in. P&I on that place would be almost 4k a month, not including taxes and other escrow. and that’s after i put about 127k down.
so, yeah, my monthly is about the same by the time i pay for house and daycare. but my down payment was about half.
or the really nice neighborhood Arlington. $1.9 million. http://franklymls.com/AR8057433. I don’t even want to know what the mortgage would be there.
I could get a lot more house and newer schools by moving to loudon county, which we looked into a few weeks back. see http://www.millerandsmith.com/?community=One-Loudoun&cat=directions
i would also have 1 and half hours commuting each way. assuming no accidents/hiccups. and if we put my son in public school out there i’d have to be on the road by 4 to guarantee a pickup by 5:30-6.
Howard is lovely and my wife has family up there (he teaches in Carol County, IIRC). i’d never be able to maintain any sort of sane schedule with that commute to DC.
so our housing came down to the best balance of affordability and commute. buying into the best public schools just wasn’t really an option.
LikeLike
“Michigoose, on August 29, 2013 at 3:28 pm said:
Those who use private schools are still paying the taxes for the public ones in addition to the private tuition, they just aren’t using the service.
So do those of us who’ve never had kids. And we get nothing in return.”
That wasn’t exactly the point. The quote that I linked noted that as part of the scheme to outlaw private schools. taxes would have to be raised to capture the amount of tuition currently being paid in private schools. Absent some sort of evidence that taxes had been cut when the parents opted out, this struck me as specious.
I’ve never seen a scheme where property owners are relieved of paying taxes by sending their kids to private school, but I am familiar with proposals to allow the money to be directed by the parents through vouchers.
Neither of which benefits those who don’t have kids who pay regardless.
LikeLike
“yellojkt, on August 30, 2013 at 8:46 am said:
…
Taxpayer money should be spent responsibly with strong oversight. “
Strong oversight is not compatible with teachers unions being able to donate to those doing the oversight.
LikeLike
“yellojkt, on August 29, 2013 at 8:41 pm said:
And here’s where i check out because none of that deserves an answer.
I don’t blame you. The biggest factor to remember is that most measures of academic quality such as standardized test scores are largely proxies for parental income and/or level of education. Once you wrap your head around the correlation, the root cause of a lot of the other problems in education come into sharper focus.”
This reminds me of one of the Red State observations on the article:
That’s why people will never “wrap their heads” around “Not My Fault” as an excuse by the education system.
LikeLike
That’s why people will never “wrap their heads” around “Not My Fault” as an excuse by the education system.
I’m not sure it’s as much as “Not My Fault” as it’s “There’s Only So Much We Can Do”. It seems oddly discognitive to be constantly preaching self-reliance and individual responsibility and then knocking institutions for not being able to overcome the obstacles thrown at them. Teachers can’t force kids to do homework and value their studies when the homelife undercuts it at every turn. And it’s not just disadvantaged families. My wife gets very tired of the ‘we had a soccer tournament last night’ excuse for missed homework. Parents set the priorities.
Back when you and I were students, a note home from a teacher was a conviction. Now it’s the opening salvo in a rebuttal from the parent to put the teacher on trial.
Teachers don’t want their students to fail. But they can’t force them to succeed.
LikeLike
yello;
It seems oddly discognitive to be constantly preaching self-reliance and individual responsibility and then knocking institutions for not being able to overcome the obstacles thrown at them.
Ummm…someone not going to your school is not an “obstacle”.
LikeLike
“My wife gets very tired of the ‘we had a soccer tournament last night’ excuse for missed homework”
I’d just give them a 0 and move on.
LikeLike
I’d just give them a 0 and move on.
Call me back after you’ve had your two year review and fifty parent-teacher conferences. Remember, the parents are the customers.
LikeLike
Thanks for the clarification, nova.
low-moderate apartments/townhouses on the other. and they share the elementary school.
I suspect that is by design. There is whole level of school district planning that is black art, mostly to average things out as much as possible. My wife just got a whole influx of Hispanic non-native speakers to her school when a new school opened.
Here’s the high school my son went to. I suspect the ones in your area aren’t that much different.
LikeLike
FWIW, my wife is absolutely heartbroken about it. she’s a big believer in public education as a societal good, etc.
LikeLike
“The biggest factor to remember is that most measures of academic quality such as standardized test scores are largely proxies for parental income and/or level of education.”
Your assertion, not mine. If this was true, then it wouldn’t matter if President Obama sent his kids to DC public schools. They would perform the same as they are at Sidwell Friends.
No one buys this.
Further, from a political standpoint, teachers unions are digging their own graves by picking fights with Democrats who are attempting education reform. If they are unwilling to even consider reform of the public school system, everyone else will just write them off. The experiences in Chicago and DC are telling. The system will not tolerate reform.
Ezra was dead on:
LikeLike
our public high school
http://www.greatschools.org/virginia/falls-church/481-Falls-Church-High-School/?tab=demographics
LikeLike
“There is whole level of school district planning that is black art, mostly to average things out as much as possible.”
I have a friend in Herndon. they don’t have kids, but apparently there was a near riot when FCPS wanted to move a few blocks in his neighborhood from the “good” school into the the “not so good” one to balance it out. lots of “we paid a premium for this good school” which, McArdle argues is basically saying “we paid for private school”
“This is nominally public schooling, but in fact, as I once remarked, parents who think that they are supporting public schooling by moving to a pricey district with good schools are actually supporting private schooling. They’re just confused because the tuition payment comes bundled with hardwood floors and granite countertops.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-29/is-it-evil-to-send-your-kids-to-private-school-.html
LikeLike
apparently there was a near riot when FCPS wanted to move a few blocks in his neighborhood from the “good” school into the the “not so good” one to balance it out.
Same thing happened in Howard County because one of the best schools abuts one of the lower performing high schools. There was talk of parents suing for lost property value.
LikeLike
That is to say, they cannot try to lay off the bad teachers while saving the good ones.
The better way to do that is to not hire the bad teachers in the first place and the way to do that is to raise salaries to encourage a higher grade of applicant. This would be the free-market principle. Imagine!
LikeLike
This would be the free-market principle.
Another good free-market principle would be to allow people like me to move into the education arena. I have absolutely no credentials in teaching, but I’ve done it for years at the university level and have been told (by people who do have credentials, parents, and students) that I’m very good at it. Utah wouldn’t let me near a classroom; I don’t know what Maryland’s requirements are, but I suspect that I wouldn’t be allowed to even attempt it here, either.
I’d be fully behind hiring me on a provisional basis for a year, followed by an assessment of how I did.
OTOH, I would likely get a lot of bad reviews because I’d be giving the kids with soccer tournaments the night before 0s on that assignment. You can still do that at a university, I’m not so sure about a public school with helicopter parents.
LikeLike
Yes. The teacher’s unions are too powerful and do tend to coddle bad teachers. However, a year or two ago, my wife caught wind of an administrator trying to gin up a case against her for some inexplicable reason. She was glad to have the union to help her avoid a showdown. The problem went away when the administrator got transfered to a different school.
And barriers to entry are a big problem. There are alternative certification processes but they tend to be more cumbersome than just knuckling under and taking the required pedagogical coursework. But making a trained engineer or scientist take BS courses in math is stupidly counterproductive. Even once a teacher it never ends. My wife has spent more time and effort on continuing education as a teacher than I ever have as an engineer.
LikeLike
‘Goose, my oldest daughter got zeroes for missed assignments no matter what the excuse. Something changed by the time Jen hit junior high 8 years later. The older system was better.
However, our youngest was in a strict compliance mode at the magnet JHS and SHS. So it must have been a school policy, not a district policy.
About PL: I went over there the other morning to discuss the CWC and the OPCW which are the operative international treaties on chem warfare and supersede the non-existent or voluntary UN jurisdiction. I cited from it on several different comments. Not one of the regulars believed a word I was writing and Mcurtis told me I would understand when I got older and that the materials I linked weren’t “signed”. Fucking idiots. I thanked Mcurtis for the compliment on my youth, however. At 70 we take what we can get.
LikeLike
“This would be the free-market principle. Imagine!”
Nope. That’s private schools. And here we are again.
More to the point, if you’ve lost Ezra in the argument….
LikeLike
More to the point, if you’ve lost Ezra in the argument….
I suppose you are referring to this:
But then Juice Box thinks all professional certifications are job-killing nanny-statism so I suspect he is a closet libertarian.
LikeLike
re: teacher raises
i’d do that by shit-canning the vast majority of the admin and infrastructure.
I pulled this from the Fairfax county school website.
“The FY 2009 cost per pupil expenditure is $13,340—which ranks 5th when
compared to other local area districts. Per-pupil costs were cut in FY 2010 by
$442 to $12,898”
keep some for a skeleton crew of admin types and send a check to every parent for 10k per kid. gather kids in groups of 20. That’s payment of $200,000 per teacher.
LikeLike
keep some for a skeleton crew of admin types and send a check to every parent for 10k per kid. gather kids in groups of 20. That’s payment of $200,000 per teacher.
You’ve floated that Modest Proposal before. I volunteer your basement for the chemistry lab.
LikeLike
NoVA’s point, even though exagerrated, is worthy of examination. Tom Peters [or maybe it was Drucker?] actually showed by example how a stripped down and lean admin with more pay for teachers worked well in many places. He derived what he thought were replicable guidelines. If this is on the web somewhere and I find it I will post it.
LikeLike
Let me also say that I don’t think that teachers–good teachers–get nearly enough respect or pay for what they do. Teaching is damned hard work when done right; as I said, I’ve been told I’m a good one, but I don’t know if that would translate to a public school classroom setting. I’d love to be able to give it a try, but I’m sure that there are a LOT of grades I wouldn’t be able to teach.
As far as NoVA’s suggestion of getting rid of most admin jobs, I’d be willing to bet that 99.9% of teachers from pre-school through post-graduate levels would agree with that.
Dylan Matthews has an interesting series going on Wonkblog about higher education and associated costs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/26/introducing-the-tuition-is-too-damn-high/
LikeLike
I can’t take credit for it.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/end-them-don%E2%80%99t-mend-them
I brew beer in the basement. that’s kind of chemistry right?
I think teachers are almost like members of congress. everyone loves his, but the other ones are those worthless, no good ….
LikeLike
Mark: I saw your exchange with mcurtis and got a chuckle out of it. FWIW, you do write younger than your chronological age. 🙂
I’ve been called a weapons nerd and a tool today for suggesting that it’s no worse to die from a chemical weapon than a bullet or a bomb. I kind of like the weapons nerd epithet.
LikeLike
Kelley, Weapons Nerd, in the 90s I was regularly invited to teach a segment in the AP Am Gov course at SF Austin HS. It was well received, and the teacher who invited me didn’t get flack. The HS juniors were alert and questioned everything. As well prepared as I was to teach a module of three classes, I thought it was like preparing for a half day bench trial and that I could not have kept up the energy level day after day. I discussed that with my host teacher. She readily conceded that was a common issue for even the best teachers – and it was part of the reason she invited lawyers and legislators to teach modules in AP class. The other reason was it gave the AP kids exposure to real world examples of government from “outsiders” who broke up the monotony on the receiving end.My module was specific to freedom of the press and its legal-historical development. AP HS kids invariably would ask about its application to student publications, of course. I have no idea what I would have done with a bunch of bored and going through the motions kids. Teaching eager students is relatively great. Sort of like coaching, everybody wants to play and win.
LikeLike
FYI –
LikeLike
send a check to every parent for 10k per kid. gather kids in groups of 20.
The very first step in the eventual Lord of the Flies devolution of that system would be to get twenty parents to agree to a teacher. The days of the Wild West town sending cash back east for a school marm are long gone.
As far as NoVA’s suggestion of getting rid of most admin jobs, I’d be willing to bet that 99.9% of teachers from pre-school through post-graduate levels would agree with that.
What employee in the trenches doesn’t like that idea?
From the pretty funny WS article:
Anytime my uncle wants to start a fight at a family function, he just calls teaching “The World’s Best Paying Part Time Job”.
LikeLike
“But then Juice Box”
Glad to see you and Troll have some common ground.
LikeLike
i’m with you michi. you can kill as many as you want, but don’t gas them makes little sense to me.
LikeLike
The whacko-birds over at Reason’s hit and run refer to Matt Yglesias as “sad beard” which i find hilarious.
LikeLike
“markinaustin, on August 30, 2013 at 11:01 am said:
JNC – it is a counter-factual, but I would bet BHO’s kids would do as well in a public school. They go to Sidwell for security reasons.”
They went to private school in Chicago as well and it wasn’t only for security reasons.
Actually President Obama is probably one of the people who could make a difference by opting in. The White House budget is large enough to provide the Secret Service security for the public school that his kids would attend. That security presence would presumably have some spill over effects to the rest of the students there. And also the DC schools would feel some public pressure to make that school an example, at least for the duration of his attendance.
LikeLike
JNC, I thought I saw an analysis somewhere of the security issues for the WH kids. But I defer to your certainty on the matter. Unless something contrary pops right up and hits me in the face, of course.
I agree the Obamas could make a real statement if the girls were in public school but I also agree that making statements with one’s kids is BS. While I am sure those girls would do just as well in any reasonable setting as they would at Sidwell – and I have a first cousin once removed who went to Sidwell and Yale and Yale LS and think Sidwell is OK – the Obamas might think Sidwell is worth the tuition. Better that the Obamas be open that they think there is room for public and private education at the grammar school level. My cousin and his wife, both Yalies, thought Sidwell was a better fit than their Chevy Chase area [DC side of the line] public school, and they could afford it. However, in their case, the deciding factor was actually the soccer coach. Whatever. I saw her score a winning goal in a hotly contested girl’s soccer game sometime in the 90s.
Their two younger daughters who were both math whizzes went to public HS and then to Ivy League colleges [Columbia and Yale]. So that is another testament to family, I guess.
LikeLike
“markinaustin, on August 30, 2013 at 12:07 pm said:
JNC, I thought I saw an analysis somewhere of the security issues for the WH kids. But I defer to your certainty on the matter. Unless something contrary pops right up and hits me in the face, of course.”
No, security is a real issue. I argue that with enough willpower & funding, there’s a way. If it was a priority for President Obama, it could have been made to happen and was discussed as a real option when he was inaugurated in 2009.
Jimmy Carter sent his daughter to DC public schools, but that was a far different time from a security standpoint.
Obama himself is blunt that it’s due to academic quality.
LikeLike
Obama, as a parent, has a point. If he sent Malia and Sasha to public schools they could end up like Amy Carter and wind up at Brown. God forbid.
Not entirely sarcasm.
LikeLike
Ha. Brown.
LikeLike
Must be another one of those east coast insider jokes. Why “Ha. Brown.”?
LikeLike
jnc: Why Sheila Bahr?
LikeLike
RE: school quality, property taxes and vouchers.
While I won’t be able to stay on for further debates, I do enjoy reading all the comments, and only want to mention one thing, which I know has a direct affect on the quality of the public schools in Oklahoma.
In Tulsa County public schools alone businesses, yes businesses, not individuals, owe more than $20 million in back property taxes. State wide the total is more than $46 million.
About half the amount is under the “corporate subsidy” umbrella where the state or county provided businesses with “property tax” subsidies yet don’t have the funds to actually pay those, which is what they are supposed to do; they give the break to the businesses, which btw aren’t hiring, and the county or state is supposed to pay those property taxes “for them”.
The other half is pure negligence by businesses to pay the property taxes they are supposed to pay for and are billed for.
I can only imagine how many more “qualified” teachers, how many more text books and up-to-date equipment, etc., could be paid for with these unpaid property taxes. It is difficult to provide quality education when you just don’t have “quality” funds.
In Tulsa County, the State is the biggest single defaulter in paying property taxes… the State owes Tulsa County $2 million, and that’s not this years property taxes it owes.
I’m not a fan of the voucher system as I see it as just another form of those who can already afford to send their child to private schools, getting a “tax break”, while those who cannot already afford it will continue to send their child to the same public school as transportation, costs of uniforms, etc. will still be out of reach.
What I am in favor of is for our local and state governments stop subsidizing businesses who have already surpassed their “up and coming new business” status, are already reporting revenue and profits of a well established business, and instead provide those funds to our schools.
For example, in 2011 Texas had a $5.4 Billion budget shortfall. Gov. Rick Perry, very pleased that he can, year after year, state how he is able to balance his state budget, had to do something to balance. While he didn’t hesitate to hand out more than double that $5.4 Billion to established businesses, most worth in the multi-millions and billions, he took the entire $5.4 Billion from the state education budget. And this year Texas is short much much more, and so far the ONLY prospect they have stated for balancing the state budget is to lay off more teachers and combine more classrooms.
I don’t know about you, but I see no reason to continue to hand out millions and millions to multi-million/billion dollar corporations while continuing to strip funding for the education of our children. Although, I do see where Gov. Perry is coming from…. as long as he can keep the children in his state uneducated and “bribing” businesses to come/stay there… he and the businesses are thrilled to know they can hire masses at or below poverty level wages…. and he and the businesses run to the banks laughing all the while…. and our Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin seems to be a Gov. Perry wannabe… and she’s working fast and furiously to meet his expectations.
Ok, now I just hurt too much to hang in here. But I’ll be watching my emails for more on the debate concerning schools, etc.
LikeLike
Michi:
Skinner: Lisa, the president of Harvard would like to see you.
Pres.: Nasty business, that zero. Naturally, Harvard’s doors
are now closed to you, but I’ll pass your file along to
[snickers] Brown.
Skinner: Mmmm, Brown. Heckuva school. Weren’t you at Brown, Otto?
[camera pans to Otto, sunning himself on the hood of the
school bus]
Otto: Yup. Almost got tenure, too.
Lisa: [gasps in horror] No, not Brown, Brown, Brown …
[Mrs. Hoover wakes her up from the dream]
Hoover: You seem to be saying “brown” an awful lot. Are you okay?
LikeLike
Well, I guess even the Ivies have to have a bottom of the barrel. . .
As one who matriculated from MSU rather than Ann Arbor Community College I try not to mock anyone’s alma mater, though.
*cough*
LikeLike