4 Day School Week in Some Parts of the Country

[Gadiantor]

Originally posted by Aristotle
It is pretty simple really. If a home schooled kid has $500 spent on his education and this kid CRUSHES a public school educated kid who had $6,000 spent on him, clearly money is not the important factor. If money were truly the most important factor, and therefore we needed to spend more on public education, then the $500 home schooled kid would show some degree of suffering as a result of less money being spent.

Originally posted by Aristotle
The point is: They already spend 10 times as much per kid at public school than someone spends on a home schooled kid, and the home schooled kids get a better education. Thus, the problem is not the amount of money being spent on each kid, but something else. Maybe we should diagnose and address that something else, and stop begging for more money to throw down a hole.

Here is an analogy:

Imagine a guy named Bob who does not enjoy watching television. His friend Joe says "Hey, the reason you don't like television is because you don't have an HDTV." So Bob tosses his $500 TV, and buys a $5,000 HDTV. Turns out, Bob doesn't like watching TV any more than he did before (and maybe he enjoys it less, because his HDTV is more complicated to use and setup). Then Joe comes along and says "Oh, well, hmmmm. I know. I bet you'd enjoy TV more if you got a $10,000 plasma HDTV."

The important part of the story is not which TV is more expensive or even which TV is better. What is important is the absurdity of Joe's latest suggestion. If going from a $500 TV to $5,000 TV had no positive effect on how much Bob enjoyed TV, it is pretty stupid to assume a $10,000 TV will have a positive effect.

You're doing the same thing as Lokrian and using facts that don’t apply to the argument…only you’re using unrelated facts to support something that is obviously true, so I don’t take great exception to it.

How much money it costs to home school is completely irrelevant to how much money is needed to provide a good education at a public school. In your analogy you point out that it is stupid to spend money on a more expensive TV if it isn’t fulfilling its role (providing entertainment). If the TV is public schools than an entertaining book is home schools. If Bob enjoys reading books the entertainment value he gets from a $7.95 paperback has absolutely no impact on the effectiveness of the TV at any price. It illustrates that Bob is better off buying a book than a new TV since he gets more value out of the book. The fact that spending more money on a new TV isn’t increasing his entertainment stems from different reasons. Your analogy describes the situation well, but that’s because it isn’t comparing the cost of an entertainment alternative as a justification. Too much money is definitely being spent on the TV, but that is an independent issue from how much bang for the buck Bob gets from books.

The fact that home schooling is cheaper and gets better results does not support any conclusion about the affect of funding on public schools. The reason that home school kids don't suffer is because they are getting specialized individual attention that is not available in public schools. They are benefiting from a different form of education. This proves that money is not an important factor in the success of education…if you are willing and able to give/get your child specialized individual education. Home schooled kids get a better education at a much lower cost than public schools. That is the only thing that you can prove with the $500 and $6,000 figures. You can’t use those figures to determine how important funding is to public schools, or even how much funding public schools need per student.

Just think of a public school running on $500 per student. If a teacher’s salary is $25,000 a year you’d need 50 students just to cover the salary. Just to get an average class size at $25,000 per teacher you’d need $1,000 per student. More money, to a certain point, is going to get you a better learning environment (better class size and better facilities). The problem is that current funding is beyond that point and dollars aren’t being spent in the right places. This is independent from the costs of home schooling.

Think of it this way. Let’s say that the optimal cost for providing a public school education is $2,500 per student. The government decides to fun schools at $3,000 per student. Administrators find all sorts of ways to spend the money, but they aren’t getting the job done. The government raises funding to $4,000 per student, but gets no better results. Administrators make excuses and say they need more money, so the next year they get $6,000 per student. Obviously way more money is being spent on public education than is needed. This is true whether the cost of home schooling is $500 per student or whether it is $50,000 per student.

Public schools need money to function. It is an important factor for them since they have to pay teachers, cover utility costs, and maintain their facilities and equipment…as well as pay corrupt administration, which only adds to the problem. The point you're trying to make would be better illustrated by comparing public schools to each other (compare oranges to oranges). If one public school spent $500 per student and those students outperformed another public school that spent $6,000 per student your point would be proven. I’d be very interested to see a comparison of public schools that compares the cost per student and the results they get. I’m inclined to believe that schools that are under funded perform worse than schools that are over funded. I’m sure there is some information out there, I’ll look around tonight when I get done breaking in my new running shoes!

Originally posted by Aristotle
Add to the fact that in real dollars, education spending has increased 2000% per capita since the 1960s, along with dramatic DROPS in literacy and graduation rates, it seems pretty obvious that spending more money is not the solution. There is not a lack of money being spent on education.

This fact is much more relevant to the point. We’re paying more and getting less now than in the 1960’s, and there is no way to explain why other than gross mismanagement and/or corruption.

I agree that the current public education system is over-funded. The government has been throwing money at public education in an effort to improve it, and have gotten absolutely no results. This is because school administration has been woefully inadequate and in many cases corrupt. The answer isn’t to add more funding, it is to hold administrators accountable and force them to get the most out of every education dollar. It wouldn’t hurt to massively cut spending on administration either.

Anyway, to get back on the original topic…I think that a four day school week would be awesome! Not only should you be able to get the same results, hopefully better since teachers have a longer dedicated block of time to prepare and plan, but my family would spend more time together! For those that need daycare they can get it through a daycare provider. People have to figure out daycare solutions in the summer when the kids are out of school, and if they are shift workers or work weekends, so the argument of what to do with kids shouldn’t even come up. You do the same thing you do when you need daycare any other time.