School Spending Doubled in Last Ten Years: Now They Want More
This Demozette article covered many aspects of the education budget, including the Governor's decision to leave the "temporary" extra sales tax on beer to help pay for pre-school programs at a time when the state budget surples is over 800 million dollars. I am against pre-school programs, as I think the bias should be toward children under five being raised in families and not institutions, but whether you are for or against the program, fundng it through a beer tax is unjust. An unjust tax is when one group is taxed but the benefits go to another group. We should oppose such taxes on principle, otherwise the big-goverment types can just keep playing us off against one another until all of our pockets are looted.
But the most intriguing fact in the article was on total school spending. It has possibly doubled in the last ten years. The article reported total education revenue — from federal, state and local sources — in Arkansas has increased from $ 2. 2 billion in 1995-96 to $ 4 billion in 2004-05. Figures for the 05-06 year were not available, but it is logical to conclude that they were much higher.
The state courts have ordered the legislature to spend even more money on education- if the ledge had any grit or regard for the taxpayers they would tell them to take a hike- and I want you to remember that funding has essentially doubled in the last ten years already. Has your income doubled in that time? Will it double again over the next ten years? If not, the current pattern of growth in government spending is unsustainable. At some point, the government will demand every penny you make and more if current trends continue. We simply cannot sustain the current course. I wish we would elect leaders with the grit to change direction sooner rather than later.
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Friday, November 17, 2006
16 Comments:
The state hasn't adequately funded schools for decades, so a doubling or tripling sounds like a lot -- but it isn't.
We wouldn't need to be increasing funding so drastically had we invested and funded them properly in the past.
Unfortunately, Mark Moore is too blinded by his ideological beliefs than to see the facts.
If he had his way, public education would be abolished.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mark Moore (me) spent 12 years as a public school teacher (middle school science). I support community schools. I support public education, but it is not in good shape, and the things that need to be done to help it are not done by pouring in more money.
You say we haven't "adequately" funded education for decades, but who died and made you the arbiter of what "adequate" means?
The level of funding for public education should be decided by the public, through their elected legislature, not imposed by courts or by elitists like you who think that people are too stupid to know what to do with their own earnings.
As far a being "blinded by idealogy" goes, it is typical for a condescending liberal elitist such as yourself to ascribe "idealogy" to only one side- you never get around to admitting that YOU also have an idealogy. It is just based on different ideas.
Instead of being intellectually and morally honest enough to admit that so we can have a frank discussion of whose foundational ideas are best, you attempt to label only ONE side as possessing an integrated, comprehensive system of belief.
And so long as that system is consistent with reason, what is so bad about having an ideaology anyway? How can a person who says they are for education, be AGAINST integrated systems of ideas? I would say this is evidence that establishment forces from both parties want to use the public schools as propaganda instruments rather than educational ones. You see, people with integrated systems of thought (ideals) are too hard to manipulate. It is too hard to get them to move this way or that based strictly on the roar of the crowd or a play on emotional heartstrings.
I want a public school system that educates, not indoctrinates. To get there, it will have to have guiding principles, that is to say, an idealogical bent. The statist idealogical bent scares the dirt out of me. That is what I oppose, not education itself, but its capture by both corporate and statist interests.
Sorry if your idealogical blindness prevents YOU from seeing that.
I think the state of some of our schools, particularly in our poorer regions, demonstrates schools are not adequately funded. And if you want statisitics, compare Arkansas per pupil spending to other states. We are not adequately funded.
Just because you were a bad teacher it does not make you credidble on arguing what is needed and isn't nedded for our schools.
It is painfully obvious that we are in desperate need of investing in our education system after too many years of near neglect.
Their baaaaaaaccccck! Legal motions from the schools to the supreme court just hit the fan. When will this end? Why don't we just sign over our paychecks to the schools and hope they feed our kids enough to survive?
From a teacher who has taught more then two decades years in the public schools, I would like to add my two cents to this discussion. When I first started teaching, schools wasted no money but we had very good instruction.
Then when the state took over and started all this educational reform, wew have wasted all kinds of money. None of the extra money has gone for the proper things. It has gone for silly new fad education that tells teachers life is too short for long division and for $107 million to ADE to hire more ADE employees so they can oversee the schools and make sure teachers teach the new fads rather than traditional education.
Millions have been spent giving grants for programs that are worthless. One teacher was told she had to turn in her request for a couple thousand dollars by the end of the day or lose grant money. The sad part the money had to be spent on certain things that were of no value to her whatsoever as a teacher. These are just some of the ways the money is being wasted. Another way it is being wasted is hiring teacher specialists for math and literarcy who are put there to make the teachers teach the ADE way - the new faddish math and reading that is destroying education.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Apparently "Toast" is about as quick-witted as he is integillegent. Read: not at all.
Schools in Arkansas have been under-funded for decades. It is a F-A-C-T.
Something people who write on this site have a difficult time acknowledging.
Morons.
Your debate style is a series of unsupported strident assertions mixed with a large helping of ugly personal attack. Perhaps your own education was underfunded as you argue like a poorly educated person.
Yeah! Break his glasses!
I argue on the level that you and your petty, right-wing, ideologically-blinded website dictates.
If you dwelled in facts rather than your own dogma, i might be inclined to offer a more intellectual argument.
But you don't. There is nothing intellectual or factual based about what you say.
Reminds me of Jim Holt's campaign thati recall reading a blurb by you saying that you consulted on.
Lots of signs with bumpersticker slogans with no real policy behind it.
All y'all do is preach to people's darker sides. You use discrimination to suit your own purpose. You hide behind the bible when the bible preaches for behavior contrary to what you argue.
We are all God's creatures. Nobody is better than anyone else. Thou shall not bear false witness.
You and this website are evil because you contradict all of this... and do it as if God himself ordained you.
You are sick people who need to keep to themselves rather than impose your beliefs upon others as if you were morally superior.
For shame.
There will be a special place in hell for people who exploit God's word for their own purposes.
Better brush that bile off your keyboard, it might short out your computer.
"If you dwelled in facts rather than your own dogma, i might be inclined to offer a more intellectual argument."
Yeah. Uh huh. Sure.
Your accusations are without merit. For example, you claim I won't deal in facts. But I give facts. The key fact of the article is that school spending has virtually doubled over the last decade. That is the fact. It is also a fact that the courts have ordered the legislature to spend more as if they had the right.
YOU are the one who refuses to give facts. You merely assert that "the schools are underfunded" with out any facts whatsoever to support your contention.
You accuse me of idealogical blindness when YOU are the one so blinded by your own idealogy that you are ready to condemn people to Hell for disagreeing with you on policy, while at the same time are unwilling/unable to deliver a coherent argument as to why your policy position is correct.
You piously make the claim "We are all God's creatures. Nobody is better than anyone else. Thou shall not bear false witness."
That's just nuts. Mother Teresa IS better than Adolph Hitler. All men may be created equal in the eyes of God, but they don't stay that way. Some people are better than others, because of the choices they make. To try to make them all equal is cheating those who loved God enough to walk in His light.
You make one vauge false accusation after another against the Christians that frequent this site. So many, that one cannot answer them all, nor do they deserve answer.
We are going to continue with our effort to apply the principles of God's word to public policy. I hope that people reading this thread are able to "know them by their fruits".
My income won't double in the next 10 years because Beebe and company will raise the taxes and take even more of my hard-earned money from me.
The fact is that pouring money into education will not fix the problem. Pouring good money after bad is not the answer to fix the education problems.
Post a Comment
<< Home