Thread: The College Industrial Complex

Originally Posted by Tippster

Nobueno - don't know if you ever heard of the last DC Mayor's School Chancellor Michelle Rhee, but she actually proposed to teachers to voluntarily reject the tenure system and open an avenue to get more money above and beyond their salary through $$$ raised from private industry, including AOL and Microsoft. The Unions HATED her, but I miss her terribly.

I have heard of her and heard (mostly) great things until the standardized tests controversy. Not sure what that investigation ever determined. Not to undermine her, I believe she has tons of innovative ideas and props to DC for hiring someone who was willing to fight the union. In DPS they started allowing schools to apply for "innovation status." Essentially it gives the schools more control of their budget. Currently, for every teacher that a school hires regardless of the amount the teacher will be getting paid, the district removes something like $55,000 (which is the avg cost of a teacher in DPS) from the school's budget. The leftovers from lets say a first year teacher would be about 20,000 goes to fund the downtown admin staff. With innovation status the school is completely independent and can decide how to spend their budget. Sounds great but teachers are also then on one year contracts and anyone and everyone can be fired. I'm all for this but many teachers are not and you need to have 55 or 60% of your staff vote in favor of innovation status in order to adopt it. I think this is an example of something the school district is proposing that will help but the teachers need to come around still.

As far as charters in general, it's a love hate relationship. We need to figure out a better way to regulate them and be quicker about shutting them down when they're not working. There are some that are doing amazing things like KIPP, Waldorf schools, etc. But then there are some that are completely fucking students over. There is an online (charter) high school here that you can get a diploma from but less than half of the credits you get there transfer to high schools within the district if you decide to switch schools. Which brings me to another huge problem, in our schools at least. Students don't stay at the same school for any reasonable amount of time. We have students who attend 6, 7, 8 high schools throughout their 4 years. We need to stop allowing them to pick up shop and go wherever they want, whenever they want. Messes up their education and the schools budget.

Originally Posted by OSECS

Not very very accurate. Plenty of public school systems in the country as good if not better than some private schools, esp. when considering private college prep schools cost $12K and up a year.

Isn't $12k per year the cost per student of the average public school? See what I'm sayin'?

Originally Posted by Long duc dong

Key word being "some" private schools.

I have never heard of a public (non-charter) school where 100% of the students take the SAT's AND have a 2100 median. You can find those sorts of numbers at both Philips Andover and Philips Exeter. There are lots of other schools that are also pretty spectacular. There are schools where 40% of the grads are accepted at Ivy League level schools. At Exeter and Andover, the numbers are probably even higher.

I don't know that I have heard of a charter school with a 2100 median SAT. There could be one out there, I just don't know about it.

The idea that we could just privatize education and pretty soon every high school would be providing students with Exeter type educations is laughable.

Are they doing this with the cream of the crop students, your average every day students or the most at risk students? Charging a $44,000 tuition I'm guessing they're dealing with the best of the best. And yes it's free to families w/ an income of less than $75,000 but a.) how many of those students do they actually accept and b.) if any of the students cause any bit of a ruckus or disruption I'm sure they're withdrawn immediately. Going to have to agree w/ Tippster, not exactly a realistic standard to compare to.

KIPP schools are some of the most amazing to me. Taking the most at risk kids and having 94% of them outperform the other district schools in reading and 96% in Math. One big thing that KIPP schools do have is parent (and student) buy-in. Just sayin.

12,250 is the average revenue, the average spent per student is 10,499. The bigger the district the more money they're spending per pupil. It's just turning into a giant machine that is out of control. We need to limit the size of school districts. And no, DBT privatization will not necessarily solve this. What is to stop one company from getting just as big and charging money and we're right back where we started. Privatization = for profit schools = university of phoenix = suck ass education.

Originally Posted by nobueno

12,250 is the average revenue, the average spent per student is 10,499. The bigger the district the more money they're spending per pupil. It's just turning into a giant machine that is out of control. We need to limit the size of school districts. And no, DBT privatization will not necessarily solve this. What is to stop one company from getting just as big and charging money and we're right back where we started. Privatization = for profit schools = university of phoenix = suck ass education.

Do you guys break it down by student type? Meaning, do you know how much it costs to educate a ESL student vs. a non-ESL student? Or a special needs student vs. non-special needs? At least here in Oregon those two demographics are driving the costs of public education up.

I'm sure that they're driving the cost way up as a huge population in Denver are ESL but I haven't seen any breakdown by student.

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

TJHSST - public school in suburban VA at one point had higher mean scores than Philips. Couple other publics around that are similar or better than Exeter. I'd point to the underlying demographics of the institutions (competitive middle, upper middle, and upper class parents who value education) and the schools being able to draw from a large student block.

TJ is a governors school, public school that draws from several surrounding counties. They come from a wide socio economic swath of applicants, From really well off to kids from very low income families.

Our daughter went to the governors school in Richmond, Maggie Walker school for govt and international studies. They competed against TJ every year in all sorts of competitions. TJ is much bigger than Maggie Walker, but the same caliber of students and from the same cross sections of society. Our daughters friends ran the gamut from some fairly well off families to a friend from an Indian reservation, to some friends from very very rural school districts. Most of these kids enter college as second semester freshman or even sophomores in some cases

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

Isn't $12k per year the cost per student of the average public school? See what I'm sayin'?

Do some googling. I think you'll find some cities that spend more than that per student and aren't getting the same returns.

Originally Posted by Rip'nStick

Very interesting, never heard of that. thanks.

Baumol's cost disease* helps explain, in part, why privatization hasn't worked out as well as a lot of people, including me, would like. It's a problem because when reforms based on high level abstractions like the one's discussed in this thread are forced to contend with reality things tend to work worse than planned. I still think critics of public sector unions are right in the sense that smart people in all sectors of society try to collect rents so it becomes a Tragedy of the Commons. In other words, we need skilled experienced educators but because of the cynicism that exists in our society when it comes to public goods, occupations like teaching become less of an aspirational field.


In other countries with higher test scores teaching carries a higher social status. In America, in the past, there were fewer avenues for intelligent motivated women to pursue outside of fields like teaching and nursing so attracting talent at less pay was less of a concern.



*Baumol\\\'s cost disease: People pay more in taxes and don’t get more in return, which makes it look as though the public sector, at least compared with the private sector, is inept and bloated. But it could be that the government is merely stuck in inherently low-productivity-growth businesses. It’s not inefficient. It’s just got a bad case of Baumol’s [cost disease].

Originally Posted by OSECS

TJ is a governors school, public school that draws from several surrounding counties. They come from a wide socio economic swath of applicants, From really well off to kids from very low income families.

Our daughter went to the governors school in Richmond, Maggie Walker school for govt and international studies. They competed against TJ every year in all sorts of competitions. TJ is much bigger than Maggie Walker, but the same caliber of students and from the same cross sections of society. Our daughters friends ran the gamut from some fairly well off families to a friend from an Indian reservation, to some friends from very very rural school districts. Most of these kids enter college as second semester freshman or even sophomores in some cases

Congrats to your daughter.

There's no fucking way you can claim the greater Richmond area has the same swath of applicants as several of the richest counties in the US - as Loudon, FairCo, Falls Church, Arlington, Stafford, Fairfax City, Fauquier and Prince William are (all in the 2010 top 20 median incomes in the US). I'm sure there's a token ultra poor or two, but they are very much in the minority.

It's been a few years but they didn't enter as Sophmores. Even at UVA.

The point was more there are some very good public schools in the US - I'd add Stuyvesant in New York, I'm sure there are more - that can educate people well. Or whatever good education is.

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

Congrats to your daughter.

There's no fucking way you can claim the greater Richmond area has the same swath of applicants as several of the richest counties in the US - as Loudon, FairCo, Falls Church, Arlington, Stafford, Fairfax City, Fauquier and Prince William are (all in the 2010 top 20 median incomes in the US). I'm sure there's a token ultra poor or two, but they are very much in the minority.

It's been a few years but they didn't enter as Sophmores. Even at UVA.

The point was more there are some very good public schools in the US - I'd add Stuyvesant in New York, I'm sure there are more - that can educate people well. Or whatever good education
is.

No Richmond isn't the same demographic as NOVA, but the two schools compete pretty neck and neck academically and the make up of Maggie Walker is not predominantly upper middle class. It's pretty diverse, just smaller than TJ. There Probably are typically higher economic rates at TJ because of the regional pool they choose from. My point was the area doesn't dictate who gets in. it's the students who achieve way above and beyond the norm. And typically the parents play a bigger role.

Also didn't mean to imply they enter college as sophomores, just that most have between 10-15 college level credits placing them out of many 101 and 102 courses. The daughter is graduating a semester early from William & Mary. She's pretty typical of a lot of her friends. Our son has the same AP credit surplus his freshman year in his college engineering program He went to the math and science school... Very similar academically to Maggie Walker, again a big cross section of well to do, middle class and lower income kids.

We've been pretty involved in the school system around here and think the way they provide these magnet schools within existing High schools is a pretty good method for allowing kids to excel and not be limited to their home schools that might not be so challenging.

Current expenditures per pupil in fall enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools: Selected years, 1961-62 through 2007-08



1961-62 School Year

$393 Current expenditures in unadjusted dollars



$2,808 Current expenditures in constant 2008-09 dollars



1970-71

842

4,552



1980-81

2,307

5,718



1986-87

3,682

7,105



1990-91

4,902

7,857



1995-96

5,689

7,904



1996-97

5,923

8,002



1997-98

6,189

8,214




1998-99

6,508

8,490



1999-2000

6,912

8,765



2000-01

7,380

9,048



2001-02

7,727

9,309



2002-03

8,044

9,482



2003-04

8,310

9,586



2004-05

8,711

9,754



2005-06

9,145

9,865



2006-072

9,679

10,178



2007-08

10,297

10,441


SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

It's been a few years but they didn't enter as Sophmores. Even at UVA.

Originally Posted by OSECS

Also didn't mean to imply they enter college as sophomores, just that most have between 10-15 college level credits placing them out of many 101 and 102 courses. The daughter is graduating a semester early from William & Mary. She's pretty typical of a lot of her friends. Our son has the same AP credit surplus his freshman year in his college engineering program He went to the math and science school... Very similar academically to Maggie Walker, again a big cross section of well to do, middle class and lower income kids.

I actually graduated from TJHSST (weird to see that come up here), and graduated with a number of AP credits, which allowed me into a few 200-level classes off the bat, and saved a few dollars. I also tested out of some of my 100-level classes in the first few weeks of school for subjects in which I had taken coursework, but had chosen not to sit for the exam (I was working 2 part-time jobs for most of my jr and sr year of high school, and very involved in extracurricular activities, which meant I focused less on racking up AP credits than some of my cohorts). Overall, I think it's fair to say that most TJ grads test or place out of at least one semester of college.

As far as the makeup of the school, there's no denying that the student body tends to be predominantly middle to upper-middle class. According to numbers I just found, it looks like TJ was below the average for free/reduced lunch (FRL), compared to the rest of the county.

During the 2010-2011 school year, 44,018 FCPS students (25.5 percent) received free- or reduced-price meals. More than half of these students (24,920) were in elementary school. Elementary school students (27.1 percent) were more likely then middle school or high school (23.3 percent) students to participate in the free- or reduced-price meal program. The FCPS system had 139 elementary schools in 2010-2011. In 28 of these elementary schools, more than half of the membership received free- or reduced-price meals. In five elementary schools, more than three quarters of the children received free- or reduced-price meals— Mount Eagle (77.6 percent), Lynbrook (79.1 percent), Mount Vernon Woods (81.3 percent), Graham Road (83.3 percent) and Hybla Valley (85.9 percent). Among students of all ages who received free- or reduced-price meals, four out of every five of these students received free meals.

(from here: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/demogrp..._the_table.pdf)

vs

Although 11.8 percent of the [TJHSST] applicants were eligible for the federal reduced-priced or free meals program, only 1.3 percent (six students) gained admission.

(from: http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/...e=fairfaxTimes

According to this (http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dmb/fy2...uced_meals.pdf), Fairfax is one of the lowest-percentage counties in Northern VA (behind Falls Church City and Loudoun County). A quick look at the statistics for Longfellow Middle School (a GT center that sends a large number of kids to TJ) shows that they have 7.1% eligibility for FRL (http://www.localschooldirectory.com/...chool/88564/VA). Kids who apply to TJ generally come out of GT programs, so if the GT program has a low number relative to the county, it's not at all surprising that TJ's number will be lower too.

I suspect this comes back in some way to parental involvement. When parents are supportive of their child's educational progress, the kids are more likely to succeed in school, and it seems reasonable that the parents that are typically most supportive have achieved a degree of academic success of their own. (Then again, there are certainly cases that are the opposite, where the parent uses their own life as a sort of cautionary tale). There's definitely a correlation between level of the parents' educational attainment and their socioeconomic status, so parents that have attained higher levels of education (and may be most likely to push their children in a similar fashion) are less likely to qualify for FRL.

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

The point was more there are some very good public schools in the US - I'd add Stuyvesant in New York, I'm sure there are more - that can educate people well. Or whatever good education is.

Bronx School of Science was always a major "competitor" (in terms of National Merit Semifinalists and other such nerd cred competitions).

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

Overall, I think it's fair to say that most TJ grads test or place out of at least one semester of college.

I guess I should have elaborated - my U, like several others, allowed one to test out of courses but had a cap of like 10 credits they'd give you for AP courses and you were still on the hook for 4 years of tuition, minimum. Haven't kept up with what's allowed there or other schools currently though. Pedantic parsing.

Depending on when you matriculated you may well know various people I knew cpt awesome.

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

...making some stupid point...

What's the average cost for Private Schools?

If you sent every Public School kid to private schools all you'd do is 1. Create many more (w/o a proven track record) or much larger (class size, anyone?) Private Schools, this will 2. decrease the facilities available for the private school kids, and finally 3. lower their scores. What you'd end up with is a large lowest tier for Private Schools that was previously the low scoring tier in public schools. The "Free Market" would add nothing, since there is no option of just not schooling that group of shitty 4th graders.

The voucher program doesn't cover the equivalent cost of any private school, AFAIK. It certainly doesn't here. That means that sure, you get $7500/yr to send your kid to a Private school that MIGHT be a better fit for your kid, but you'll still need to come up with nearly the equivalent amount out-of-pocket. Not too many poor or lower-middle income people can just cough up an extra $5-7k per kid per year, but then again these programs only paid lip service to that demographic anyway.

Again, for the love of the baby Jesus - it's not the lack of teaching ability that's keeping kids from learning. Plenty of Ivy League students coming out of DCPS, for instance. It starts in the home.

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

I guess I should have elaborated - my U, like several others, allowed one to test out of courses but had a cap of like 10 credits they'd give you for AP courses and you were still on the hook for 4 years of tuition, minimum. Haven't kept up with what's allowed there or other schools currently though. Pedantic parsing.

Depending on when you matriculated you may well know various people I knew cpt awesome.

I didn't mean to be pedantic, I just misunderstood. Even with the "head start", it took me more than 4 years to finish, partly because even though I tested out of things, I couldn't take the next course until the next semester, so I didn't pay for the credits, exactly, but I had to wait out the time.

I graduated from TJ in '96.

I was the pedantic parser

small world.

I think i had 27 credits from AP tests count at Michigan. Got me some sweet seats for football games. My gf had about the same count at CU. Fuck that limit shit, thats a scam

Originally Posted by ilikecandy

I think i had 27 credits from AP tests count at Michigan. Got me some sweet seats for football games. My gf had about the same count at CU. Fuck that limit shit, thats a scam

smells like ilikecandy bullshit

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

smells like ilikecandy bullshit

Put your money where your mouth is, pussy. Name the terms, make it worth my while

And have you found that example of me lying yet?

Originally Posted by ilikecandy

Put your money where your mouth is, pussy. Name the terms, make it worth my while

And have you found that example of me lying yet?

I just did.

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

I just did.

The only one here lying is you, in this post. Or maybe youd care to back up your words for the first time?

How about this hugh - find an actual lie and i'll try to take it easy on you for a week, so you wont have to cry to tgr to nuke this forum

Saw this in the Post today, figured it belonged here as well as anywhere else: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...YqU_story.html

Dr. Dell was always regarded as one of the best teachers at the school (with a crazy haircut). I wasn't in his class, but my friends who were really loved it...

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...161013343.html

This seems like a good spot for this:

In fact, as much as 20 percent of the growth in the teaching force can be explained by a big increase in the number of special education teachers. (Until a federal law passed in 1975, schools could turn away kids with disabilities. Now more than 6 million kids receive some kind of public school special education, and special education classes are about half the size of regular public school classrooms.) The number of high school math and science teachers grew by 75 percent, meanwhile, as high schools began requiring students to take three or four years of math or science instead of only two in order to graduate. Finally, the number of teachers in the "elementary enrichment" category—people who teach one specialized subject, like computer science or math, to elementary-age kids—grew by 111 percent.

Ingersoll says that the number of English as a second language teachers has also skyrocketed, by 400 percent over the past 20 years.

The Romney campaign is looking to roll back funding for schools...his thought, there are too many teachers, duh!

Over the past few decades, two dozen states have passed laws setting a cap on the number of students that can be in a class. There is evidence that smaller class sizes increase achievement, especially among younger students, but it's an expensive reform because teacher salaries are usually the largest item in school districts' budgets.

Or not.