4 Day School Week in Some Parts of the Country

[Lokrian]

Originally posted by Aristotle
If non-wage spending on one type of education is $500, and non-wage spending on another is $5000, and the cheaper one is doing better, isn't it pretty obvious that the extra $4,500 spent on the 2nd type is clearly not doing a whole lot?

I know. I get that. I understand. It's just that the information here translates in my poor little bovine brain to something rougly equivilent to, "Did you know that after paying for school buildings, busses, fuel, administrative overhead, insurance, legal defense, support staff, 5 meals a week, curriculum reviews, and in some cases massive security, that it costs more in non-salary expense to educate kids at a school than it does at home?"

Well, yeah. I knew that... I then ask myself, "Moo cow, why did ANYONE ever go to the trouble of making schools?" The answer appears to be that it is another example of the specialization and division of labor that typifies the modern era of industrialization. It turns out that if you take that lost household income I keep harping on into account, suddenly it becomes painfully clear why it is more efficient overall to have one person teaching 20 kids, even with the expanded overhead, than each and every child being taught at home. Right? Or where did I drift off into crazy land?

Originally posted by Aristotle
Some people are always saying "We have to spend more money on education. More labs! More field trips! More technology in the school! Bigger schools! More supplies!" and other crap. Apparently, all this ancillary crap is not what determines how good someone's education is, since the home schooled kids get very little of that type of expenditure and do a lot better in the end.

Amen. No argument here. Spend smart. Yes indeed! It's just that even if things were streamlined idealy there would still be more non-wage overhead for a school system than for a home schooled child. That still doesn't make it cheaper in real dollars that take the cost of not working into account to educate children at home. It merely would make the school system even more efficient than it already is. Sounds all wrong, but that's the fact. It's more efficient even in its present state than teaching everyone at home. It's not illegal to home school after all. Why are so few people doing it?

Because it is expensive in terms of lost wages is my guess. Oh, there are other reasons. Some argue that the child doesn't learn social skills at home and so forth. But basically, I suspect money is at the root of most of it. Again, call me a cynic.

Plus, that stat doesn't answer the issue of why it is that poor school districts are performing worse. Your reply to Cyrinne on that seems to have missed that in some cases the kids don't actually get to a better school. They get to a stopgap state run school. Guess who was running the previous school that just failed? Imagine the chaos of relocating an entire school's population. Are there even enough schools, public or private, to absorb the overflow? Where is the standard to decide whose fault it all was and get rid of the right people and rehire the right people? Or do they just shuffle back into the system and get lost in the ebb and flow of a constant percentage of schools that fail every year, coincidentally in the poorest districts for some mysterious reason? It's not that I am saying not to try, it is that I am suggesting there is a lot more to the picture here than NCLB or voucher proponents are letting on.

Surely you understand that I of all people support the whole idea of vouchers for religious schools. *blush* Well, I do... But... I don't claim that it is going to cure all of our educational woes. And there are any number of things in the line of the liberal bias of the NEA that if I even knew about them would probably send me into paroxysms. I hope that doesn't come up anytime soon for my sake.

Perhaps it's not so much more money as a redistribution of money that is needed, but as I tried to point out earlier there is resistance to that as well, as evidenced by the failure of voucher referendums.

Not only that, but for parents who are not so hot at english, math, or both, there's really not much of a choice. They need someone's help no matter what.

We agree on so much more here than we disagree. I have no idea really even why this is an issue. I have my side of the story on the other thread as well, but it is becoming moot. I found this post much easier to understand and deal with though. Thanks for not hoping I never procreate.