Elected officials in NY are debating the cost of universal pre-K.
It was a central plank in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaign. He won in a landslide.
He wants to pay for it by a tiny tax increase on incomes over $500,000. This would add about $1,000 a year in new taxes, less than dinner for 2 at Per Se or other high-end restaurants of 1%.
Yet the pushback and debate about cost continues. See here.
And here. Everyone thinks it is a good idea, but no new taxes. That is the view of Governor Cuomo, who likes to be seen as a fiscal, pro-business, pro-corporate conservative.
However, let it be noted, It is good for business to have healthy, ready to learn children.
According to a survey published by The Economist, the US ranks 34th of 145 nations in supplying high quality child care.
Other nations recognize the long-term value of early childhood education, which grows more important as both parents work.
Yet we debate whether we can afford to do what research and experience demonstrate is good for children and for society.
When we went to war in Iraq and Adghanistan, did anyone worry about the billions and trillions it would cost? We made a bad bet.
Why not invest in our children? That’s a sure bet, and we can afford it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One of the only things Jeb Bush did as Governor of Florida that I supported was Universal Pre-K. Florida schools face SO many challenges, especially in South Florida. This act gave everyone a fairer shot at providing their kids with a quality education. It should be a national policy…free, PUBLIC pre-k education.
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But it was only part-time. 3 hours a day means that most low-income parents can’t drop off any pick up their kids or provide child care when they get out, so most low-income don’t take advantage. Jeb probably knew that, so he got to look good, without really doing anything that would cost much money. At my title one school, maybe 3 or 4 per class attended pre-k. Also, the $$ goes to private, often Christian schools providing the education. Only special ed students get pre-k at a public school. Again, benefitting private schools: Jeb’s agenda. Jeb’s supporting pre-k is an obvious farce.
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Today’s NYTimes has an article contrasting NY’s proposed pre-k plan with the evidence based and highly effective one in place in NJ. diBlasio’s plan falls short of the mark in three areas: it is one year instead of two; it seeks $10,000/pupil vs. the $13,000 per pupil NJ has funded; and it doesn’t clearly specify the need for certified ECE teachers. While it is short of the NJ program, it is FAR better than the one Cuomo claims he will fund. The article has this great quote by Geoffrey Canada: “We do not need another lousy service for poor kids that we feel good about but that doesn’t actually accomplish anything.” Now that the conversation has started I hope diBlasio makes the needed adjustments and continues to insist that it be funded from a dedicated tax source. Cuomo’s plan will effectively rob the K-12 program to pay for watered down pre-K… the result will be a compromise that will leave all kids in the lurch.
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Diane- I feel this focus on the cost of the UPK implementation is a smoke screen here in NY. What about the idea that current UPK programs are being forced to implement Common Core standards, and follow the Common Core curriculum/modules? PLEASE address this, as THIS is an issue most UPK teachers (and ECE, providers and parents) are, or should be concerned with- in my very humble opinion..
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Seconded.
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When it comes to unnecessary wars of choice, we don’t worry about the costs, we don’t worry about deficits or the national debt. Bush was the only president to cut taxes during a time of war. The costs of the wars were not paid for but rather placed on the national credit card. Tom Delay had said that the most important thing in a time of war is to lower taxes (on the rich and the big corporations). But when it comes to education, deficits matter and according to the “reformers,” sacrifices must be made with cuts in teachers’ benefits packages and pensions.
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To be in the top 1% of income earners in the US, a household must have an adjusted gross income of about $370,000 (2010 tax year), so the $500,000 threshold does not even cover the 1%.
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We can’t afford NOT to invest in our children. (Pardon the double negative!)
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True. Yet, the mandated Common Core implementation is NOT investing in our children. If you speak with DA-Practicing UPK or any ECE professionals, you will see the damage being caused in these programs on a daily basis.
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Exactly. That’s the thing…investing in pre-k through the current reform system is literally putting children in a prison earlier.
They aren’t going to do age-appropriate instruction, it is going to be getting them on technology earlier, getting them to do all kinds of things earlier that crowd out the simple play/creative/socialization that they should do. This is a travesty that people are bent on pushing this, without vetting what will actually take place once these pre-K cells are built.
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A fair question would be when did it become necessary to send children to school at age 3 or 4? What are the driving social factors that necessitate this and are we doing anything as a society to address those factors?
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Fair question – but in this case I think we’re talking more about a choice between letting impoverished kids spend their first 4-5 years at home NOT learning vocabulary, NOT getting rich sensory stimulating environments, instead possibly raised by single parents with poor parenting skills (often teens themselves) or by parents with little or no English, with few if any toys or books in the house – OR getting them into places where they can interact with other children and with adults who speak English, where they have access to a rich environment of open-ended toys and games, opportunities for creativity that might be lacking at home, and a sense of routine and safety – and in some cases, possibly the only real meal they will have that day.
I’m envisioning the sort of Early Childhood setting that, say, Finland has for its kids up to 6 or 7 years of age: NOT an academic setting, but a place where small children can play and learn the way small children are hard-wired to play and learn, to set the stage for formal schooling when it does start.
I don’t see anything about it being mandatory – but having it available to all families, particularly those where children are more likely to come to school already behind their peers, is one step toward equity of opportunity.
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This is a great response, and if UPK were what you are envisioning, I would support the funding 100%. Unfortunately, most UPK programs are not. Governmental guidelines and funding have intercepted the true implementation of developmentally appropriate practice and raped these programs of their intended cause. The implementation of Common Core standards and practice will only corrode these programs and damage the children at a faster rate.
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@Beth Bingham: while I agree that govt-funded preK is presently subject to wrong-headed govt-pushed curricula, is this a reason to drag feet on govt-provided preK? CCSS will have its day & die, meanwhile there are plenty of kids whose parents cannot afford private preK & waste that 4thyr in substandard babysitting situations, at an immediate disadvantage to the privately-educated when they enter K. I have seen gov-funded preK in NJ, it is far superior to babysitting despite the lousy gov curriculum. Meanwhile, private preK will no doubt continue, sans gov subsidy, providing excellent preK just as it already does in K-5.
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A dilemma that our society has failed to address is that most mothers are now in the workforce, yet we blithely carry on as if this were not true. The cost of reliable, developmentally appropriate child care is enormous even in two parent families with reliable incomes. Civilized nations offer child care and pre-K education at low or no cost to parents who wish to enroll. During WW II, free early child care was offered in the U.S. because the government needed women to work in the war effort. Children were also fed 3 healthy meals a day. When the war ended and women were pushed out of the labor force, these supports were ended. Now, they are labeled “socialism”.
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Even crazier, a couple of private schools in my city started full day classes for 2 year olds this year!
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What do our self-proclaimed corporate and elected political leaders really value? Is it educating America’s youth or something else?
One example reveals what America’s leaders value most.
The US currently has 19 aircraft carriers and ten are nuclear powered.
The country with the second most aircraft carriers is France with four—only one other country has a nuclear powered carrier and that’s also France. Not counting the US, the world total is 18 aircraft carriers divided by 12 countries. Other than France, no country has more than two.
Russia has one carrier that’s more than 20 years old; it isn’t nuclear, and it’s half the size of America’s ten nuclear powered carriers.
China has one it bought used from Russia and it was more than twenty years old when China bought it. China’s one old, used carrier is not nuclear powered.
The United States is currently building three new nuclear powered aircraft carries to add to its fleet of 19. The first one, the Gerald R. Ford, is almost finished and the cost is estimated at $17.5 billion, and there’s two more left to build. And this is only one weapons development program. The DOD has other programs. In 2013 the budget for procurement of new weapons was more than $115 billion.
Does the United States need 22 of the deadliest, most powerful aircraft carriers in the world when the only country seen to be a potential future threat—and even that is questionable—is China?
Food for thought: there was a study to see how many countries in the world where McDonald’s sold fast food was a threat to the world.U.S. and discovered that once McDonald’s moves into a country to do business, that country stops being a serious threat to the United States or other countries. There are more than 1,800 McDonald’s operating in China. Pizza Hut has more than a thousand and KFC has almost 4,500.
How much does the Department of Education spend to support public education in the US compared to the annual budget for the Department of Defense?
In 2013, that amount was $71.2 billion, and the total U.S. federal budget was $3.685 Trillion that year. The budget for the DOD was $526.6 Billion in 2013.
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The annual DOE budget doesn’t all go to K-12, but more importantly, the US funds its K-12 public schools overwhelmingly with state and local money, not Federal (and conversely, states and local communities are spending little if anything on national defense). Total annual K-12 spending in the US every year from all sources–Feds, states, local–is about $600 billion.
I agree that on the surface it doesn’t seem rational to have 22 aircraft carriers or whatever, but it does need to be pointed out that the defense industry creates many excellent jobs outside of military service. The yard where these carriers are built, e.g., is one of the largest employers in the state of Virginia, and many of the positions don’t require a college degree or advanced training.
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I don’t think it is rational to support jobs that run up the national debt just because it means someone keeps a job especially on the taxpayers dime.
If the product and job are not needed anymore, stop funding those programs with taxpayer money and retrain those people to work in another industry.
In the private sector, when a company goes out of business because it’s products are no longer necessary, most of the people who work for that company go on unemployment and starting looking elsewhere for a job. They may even go back to school to retrain into another field.
After the 2007-08 global financial crises, several million Americans lost their jobs and many that managed to find work went back to work earning much less.
Building aircraft carriers we don’t need is nothing but another form of subsidized welfare not only for the workers but for the wealthy people who own those companies.
When the feds bailed out Wall-street, the banks, GM and Chrysler, the consensus was against it.
Do the feds bail out Sears or J.C. Penny when it looks like they might go out of business?
When Best Buy looked like it was ready to go out of business, did the feds step in? No. Best Buy turned around on its own.
That money could be used to fund lower class sizes and hire more teachers who are needed.
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Right-wing DINO Cuomo is positioning himself for Gov-campaign this year and for future Pres. campaign–read his lips! No new taxes! Pro-corporate, anti-tax Cuomo needs open wallets of Wall St to finance the $100mil to run for gov and the billion it takes to run for the White House. DeBlasio means well but finds himself in the old Populist Predicament–between the populist leader in office and the unorganized mass which voted him in, there is nothing, no organized force of parents, teachers, students, workers and professionals of all colors, which is needed to enforce the Nov. ballot results by voting with our collective feet the rest of the year. Only an organized mass of citizens filling the streets and demanding UPK fully-funded for 2yrs via taxes on the super-rich can tilt the field in favor of our kids. Voting for a Populist new Mayor is not enough power from the bottom up to guarantee DeBlasio will or can do what we want or what he promised. This is why voting is never enough in an oligarchy like ours; populists take office and the landslide of voters goess home to watch and wait. DeBlasio cannot do justice for the kids unless the rest of us are permanently organized and mobilized to demand what we voted for.
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Can’t we use some of the money we didn’t spend going to war in Syria on K-12 education?
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Reason: The elite want HUMAN DRONES!
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Love your conclusion:
“When we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, did anyone worry about the billions and trillions it would cost? We made a bad bet.
“Why not invest in our children? That’s a sure bet, and we can afford it.”
Speaks volumes about our broken political system.
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William Berkson: perhaps we can declare public education the lynchpin of national security and watch the billions and billions and billions pour in…
As unimpeachable witnesses for putting our money where our priorities are, from the Council on Foreign Relations website, “Publications,” I present edugeniuses Joel I. Klein and Condoleeza Rice:
[start quote]
The United States’ failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country’s ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role, finds a new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)–sponsored Independent Task Force report on U.S. Education Reform and National Security.
“Educational failure puts the United States’ future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk,” warns the Task Force, chaired by Joel I. Klein, former head of New York City public schools, and Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. secretary of state. The country “will not be able to keep pace—much less lead—globally unless it moves to fix the problems it has allowed to fester for too long,” argues the Task Force.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.cfr.org/united-states/us-education-reform-national-security/p27618
So why are the leading charterites/privatizers not opening wide the national pocketbook for public education since our fate as a nation rests on spending whatever is necessary to ‘win the war’?
Or maybe,just maybe, $tudent $ucce$$ doesn’t involve public schools but charters and vouchers?
My head is spinning…
😎
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You quote members of the White House staff/cabinet who worked for President G W Bush as if what they say is truth? These are the same guys who told the country that we had to go to war in Iraq due to WMDs that weren’t there.
The truth is that our schools are not failing and have never been more successful in the history of this country. The claims of the critics that US public education is failing are lies supported by cherry picked facts they want people to believe.
America graduates more students on-time from its one track academic high schools than any country on the planet. When the results of the international PISA test are reported in the media, they are not offering all the facts—only what they want you to see. They don’t bother to tell us that the PISA test breaks down the scores into six socioeconomic tracks and our lowest students in group one outscore all other similar students in similar countries including Finland.
When the US on-time high school graduates rates are compared to other countries, the media doesn’t bother to mention that there are two tracks in most other countries: vocational and academic. They only report the total high school graduation track.
For instance, in Japan about 70% graduate from the college prep academic track while the rest graduate from vocational high schools and go to work without going to college.
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This is an interesting article looking at PISA scores broken out by income deciles:
http: //www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/pisa-wealth_n_4641669.html
Some very interesting scores, especially considering that the richest 10% of the population in the United States is considerably wealthier than the richest 10% of the population in many of the countries whose wealthy students perform better on these exams than US students.
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I suggest you skip secondary news sources such as the Huntington Post for your information and go to a primary source that dissects the international PISA tests in depth.
The in-depth report from a primary source will show that U.S. students outperformed or held their own with almost every socioeconomic group in similar industrialized countries and even a top ranked country like Finland.
And when U.S. students weren’t in first place, they were close enough to make the difference insignificant.
However, when we take into account that the United States tested more schools in the lowest socioeconomic group, the overall average is weighted down just like the scores in China are boosted sky high because the PISA only tests the elite of the elite in Shanghai while ignoring more than 99% of the 15 year olds in China.
There is no way that the U.S. can compete or look good in a comparison that is so lopsided.
Comparing the U.S. to Finland is also lopsided by a wide margin due to cultural differences and the fact that in Finland parents and the government supports the teachers and lets the teachers make the vital decisions of what to teach and how to teach. The average parent in Finland starts teaching their children to read at age three and the kids don’t start school until seven—that is four years of learning to love reading at home before starting school.
I suggest you read “What do international tests really show about U.S., student performance? from the Economic Policy Institute.
http://www.epi.org/publication/us-student-performance-testing/
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I am just eyeballing the data.
If we look only at the scores for students living in the richest 10% of households, students in the US do not score as well as wealthy students living in many other countries. If we look at students living in the poorest 10% of households, students in the US do not score as well as many other countries. Clearly relative income distribution is important, but just as clearly there are other important factors as well.
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Comparing countries without knowing all the facts about the other cultures and their public education systems is like comparing the Chinese bitter melon to Florida oranges
Each country is unique
Each culture is unique
Each public education system is unique and different
In each country there are different subcultures and they have unique differences that influence a child’s learning
The U.S. public education system can only be compared to its previous history and when we do that public education in the United States today is better than it has ever been and—on average—is slowly improving and steadily getting better.
When you finish the entire report, you will see that the U.S. compares favorably to similar industrialized countries and in some cases is better. If you don’t see that, you’re blinded by bias.
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This blog is stuffed with comparisons to other countries. I agree that these need to be carefully made (I have pointed out many times that a relatively poor household in a rich country like Norway would be a relatively rich household in a poor country like the Slovak Republic, for example), but international comparisons can be useful as you implicitly acknowledge by urging a comparison of the US to similar industrialized countries in the final paragraph of your post (though you do claim that is illegitimate to do in the previous paragraph of your post).
It is very possible that a country’s education system can be improving compared to past outcomes but still be performing poorly when compared to other education systems around the world. I am sure that Mexico, for example, would like to improve their education system, but it will take many decades of growth for them to catch up to most of the OECD countries.
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Maybe this will help:
I’ve taken the liberty of copying and pasting this crucial info. from the Economic Policy Institute’s report:
In our comparisons of U.S. student performance on the PISA test with student performance in six other countries—three similar post-industrial economies (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) and three countries whose students are “top scoring” (Canada, Finland, and Korea)—we conclude that, in reading:
Higher social class (Group 5) U.S. students now perform as well as comparable social class students in all six comparison countries.
Disadvantaged students perform better (in some cases, substantially better) than disadvantaged students in the three similar post-industrial countries, but substantially less well than disadvantaged students in the three top-scoring countries.
The reading achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students in the United States is smaller than the gap in the three similar post-industrial countries, but larger than the gap in the top-scoring countries.
We conclude that, in mathematics:
U.S. students in all social classes perform relatively less well than in reading.
Even so, disadvantaged students in the United States now do about the same or better than disadvantaged students in similar post-industrial countries, while advantaged students do much less well.
U.S. students in all social classes perform less well than comparable social class students in the top-scoring countries.
The mathematics achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students in the United States is smaller than the gap in the three similar post-industrial countries, but mostly larger than the gap in the top-scoring countries.
Considering trends, the performance of disadvantaged U.S. students has improved between 2000 and 2009 in both reading and mathematics relative to the performance of disadvantaged students in five of our six comparison countries. This results both from the fact that disadvantaged students’ average PISA scores in both tests declined or were unchanged in all comparison countries except Germany, while in the United States disadvantaged students’ PISA scores have improved. …
We are most certain of this: To make judgments only on the basis of national average scores, on only one test, at only one point in time, without comparing trends on different tests that purport to measure the same thing, and without disaggregation by social class groups, is the worst possible choice. But, unfortunately, this is how most policymakers and analysts approach the field.
Here’s the link if you are willing to take the time to read the rather long report:
http://www.epi.org/publication/us-student-performance-testing/
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The conclusions you quote seem to be perfectly in line with the data presented in the graph in my link, depending on what one means by “about the same”. It is good, of course, to remembering that the richest 10% of households in the United States is far richer than the richest 10% of households in a country like Poland. The graph in my post just allows the reader to compare scores across more than 7 countries and broken down by income deciles.
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Do you have a link to your graph?
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It was in my original post, but here it is again: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/pisa-wealth_n_4641669.html
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It just occurred to me. Don’t most of the kids in the top 1% go to private schools?
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I suspect that it depends on where they live. I think it likely that students in public high schools in the expensive school districts like Rye or Scarsdale in New York or New Trier in Illinois are largely from families in the top 1% of income earners in the country. In towns like mine where the district boundary lies in farmer fields, almost everyone goes to public high schools, though those that desire a more specialized education like Montessori or Waldorf school have to attend private schools.
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Thank you for the link. You may have seen this OECD.org report: Public and Private Schools. How Management and Funding Relate to their Socio-Economic Profile
Click to access 50110750.pdf
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Interesting paper. I am not sure that we in the US would be willing to fund privately managed schools to the same extent as european countries like Belgium or Denmark, but it is interesting to see that public funding of privately managed schools reduces social stratification across public and private schools.
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Did you notice that several of the countries at the top of the PISA rankings provide no public funding for private schools—none?
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Indeed I did. I also noticed that some countries with higher scores than the US for the least well off students (Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Poland) provide significant public funding to privately managed schools.
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Double check Finland. More than 99% of students attend public schools and Finland required private schools to follow the same rule/laws that public schools do. The private schools in England are not as independent as they are in the U.S.
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According to figure 1.3 in the OECD report you linked to, Finland (second from the bottom) pays nearly 100% of the cost of privately managed schools using public funding. You are correct that Finland has a small fraction of students in privately managed schools (4% according to figure 1.1), but you did post about financing, not about the numbers of students or the degree of independence.
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The fact is that unless you are willing to write a book that has a chapter for each country describing how their education system works in addition to the differences in socioeconomic, religious, race, ethnicity, etc., between countries cramming all that infor into a short post would be impossible.
For instance, comparing only a few of the facts about Finland to the United States:
The US has ten times as many students in it’s public schools as Finland has people. More than 99% of the population is Caucasian from mostly the same cultural language group and more than 80% are Lutheran compared to the U.S. with thousands of different religious denominations.
Here’s just the top 25 US religious denominations:
1. The Catholic Church 68,202,492, [ranked 1 in 2011] , down 0.44 percent.
2. Southern Baptist Convention 16,136,044, [ranked 2 in 2011] , down 0.15 percent.
** Since the 2010 census of nondenominational/independent congregations, we now know that this grouping of churches, if taken together, would be the second largest Protestant group in the country with over 35,000 congregations and over 12,200,000 adherents.
3. The United Methodist Church 7,679,850, [ranked 3 in 2011] , down 1.22 percent.
4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 6,157,238, [ranked 4 in 2011], up 1.62 percent.
5. The Church of God in Christ 5,499,875, [ranked 5 in 2011] , no update reported.
6. National Baptist Convention , U.S.A. , Inc. 5,197,512, [ranked 6 in 2011] , up 3.95 percent.
7. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 4,274,855, [ranked 7 in 2011] , down 5.90 percent.
8. National Baptist Convention of America , Inc. 3,500,000, [ranked 8 in 2011] , no update reported.
9. Assemblies of God 3,030,944, [ranked 9 in 2011] , up 3.99 percent.
10. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 2,675,873, [ranked 10 in 2011] , down 3.42 percent.
11. African Methodist Episcopal Church 2,500,000, [ranked 11 in 2011] , no update reported.
12. National Missionary Baptist Convention of America 2,500,000, [ranked 11 in 2011] , no update reported.
13. The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod (LCMS) 2,278,586, [ranked 13 in 2011] , down 1.45 percent.
14. The Episcopal Church 1,951,907, [ranked 14 in 2011] , down 2.71 percent.
15. Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc. 1,800,000, ranked 15 [ranked 17 in 2011] , up 20 percent.
16. Churches of Christ 1,639,495, [ranked 15 in 2011] , no update reported.
17. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America 1,500,000 , [ranked 16 in 2011] , no update reported.
18. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church 1,400,000, [ranked 18 in 2011] , no update reported.
19. American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. 1,308,054, [ranked 19 in 2011] , down 0.19 percent.
20. Jehovah’s Witnesses 1,184,249, [ranked 20 in 2011] , up 1.85 percent.
21. Church of God ( Cleveland , Tennessee ) 1,074,047, [ranked 22 in 2011] , down 0.21 percent.
22. Christian Churches and Churches of Christ 1,071,616, [ranked 23 in 2011] , no update reported.
23. Seventh-day Adventist Church 1,060,386, [ranked 24 in 2011] , up 1.61 percent.
24. United Church of Christ 1,058,423, [ranked 21 in 2011], down 2.02 percent.
25. Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. 1,010,000, [ranked 25 in 2011 ], no update reported.
Total membership in top 25 churches: 145,691,446, down 1.15 percent.
POVERTY:
About 17% of Fins are at risk of poverty—that 850 thousand people who live close to the poverty line but in the US that number is more than 46 million. Finland also does not have to deal with the level of immigrants the US does (legal or illegal)—not even close.
Literacy in Finland is 100%.
The U.S. has the third biggest population in the world at 316 million. China is first and India is second.
If we just look at the 4% that are Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu, we’re looking at more than 12.6 million people.
When we talk about poverty in the United States, we aren’t talkign about people at risk of dropping into poverty because they already are living in poverty. One in five children live in poverty—-that’s 20% of 51 million children attending k-12. That’s ten million children—twice the population of Finland.
Next, illegal immigrants in the US. There’s no comparison here because Finland doesn’t have this challenge. But the US has 11.7 million—again more than twice the population of Finland.
US: 79.95% white; 12.85% black; 4.43% Asian (For instance: 14.4 million—more than three times the population of Finland); about 1% native, and 15.1% Latino/Hispanic
Languages spoken in US: English 82.1%, Spanish 10.7% (almost 32 million), other Indo-European 3.8%, Asian and Pacific island 2.7%, other 0.7% (2000 census).
Do you understand the point I’m making? We can’t compare Finland’s PISA score with the United States because of the challenges faced by the public education system in America.
And for the same reason, the US can’t be compared to any other country’s PISA scores. The US can only compare its public schools with the performance history of the public schools in this country and when we do that, the US public schools have never been better and are still steadily improving.
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Can you make the same argument that one state’s schools can not be compared to another state’s schools? Why would you think that schools in New York City have more in common with schools in Cheyenne than they have with schools in London?
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Your changing the subject.
But yes, I can make that argument.
First, the US has the third largest population on the planet. America is a very diverse nation on many levels and this also creates complex challenges for public education in the United States.
For instance, you may want to read this from “The Washington Post” because they did the job for me.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/which-of-the-11-american-nations-do-you-live-in/
The best way to deal with the challenges public education faces in the United States is to keep what’s already there and keep improving on that.
There are 13,600 public school districts divided by 50 states and a few territories and they are best handled by the democratic process that elects school boards from the local population to be in charge. Turning schools in California—for instance in San Francisco—over to some CEO who has his corporate offices in NYC or Houston removes local control and local/state oversight from the process. Then you have people in charge that have no idea of the unique challenges that schools face in SF. And CEO’s often are no different than dictators. It would increase the risk of the old story repeating itself that Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
The local elected school boards and administrators they hire usually know what needs to be done to meet the educational needs of their area. IF the process doesn’t work, there’s always another election until a school district has a school board that will change things for the better. I saw this happen during my thirty years in the classroom.
The only changes I would suggest is to the huge public school districts like NYC and Los Angeles that should be divided into smaller districts that are easier to manage.
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While the posts have been wound around a bit, I believe my last post concerned the question “when is it legitimate to compare the results of two different school systems?” Your position, I believe, is that it is not legitimate when those systems are in different countries, but is legitimate when those systems are in the same country, and it is legitimate to compare two schools systems in the same country at different times. Have I characterized your position correctly?
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I don’t think you understood me. I don’t think we can fairly compare any school district to another district in a country as diverse and large as the United States. I’m not sure there is any way we can compare one district to another and be fair about it.
Country to country—no way!!!!
For instance, in California, the API index offers an overall average compared to all schools in the state at the same grade level and then a similar school average where schools are ranked against other schools that have similar socioeconomic profiles.
This is a sample from the 2011-12 School Accountability Report Card for Nogales High School where I taught for sixteen of the thirty years I was a public school teacher. Before Nogales, I taught in two middle schools and before that fifth grade.
If you click on the next link and scroll down to page 14 of the API report, you will notice that there as a statewide API rank and a similar schools rank. 10 is the highest score for an API ranking. Eight is what was required before Obama’s “Race to the Top”, the stupidest piece of idiocy I’ve seen come out of DC since G. W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” garbage.
I retired in 2005. Comparing the API for 2009 to 2010 to 2011, it looks like the school is sliding downhill fast.
Or maybe the tests used to measure student growth changed with Obama’s Race to the Top and that caused the API to drop. The politicians are always changing things.
Click to access 2012%20Nogales%20High%20School%20Accountability%20Report%20Card.pdf
I know the community where I worked and when you go down to page 15, you will notice that 10 of the schools in that district are in what’s called “Federal Intervention Program”. I’m sure this is the stupid program that Obama put together with his Common Core crap and that idiotic Race to the Top.
I know for a fact that there is nothing that the feds or the district can do that will get the kids who aren’t learning to work harder. This is a tough community mired in poverty and dominated by violent street gangs. There’s going to be no increase in the number of kids cooperating to learn unless the schools were turned over to the U.S. Marine Corps and a Marine general was in charge 100% to do whatever it took. And if you know anything about the Marines, you might know what that means.
There is no magic pill to get these kids to decide to drink at the well of learning. I worked in those schools for thirty years and no matter how many hours a teacher puts in; how hard they work in the classroom to teach, the kids who aren’t there to learn will not cooperate. They will do all they can do disrupt the classroom and take over from the teacher.
It doesn’t take much to learn how many kids are cooperating with the teachers and those that aren’t. On page 13 you will who is Not Proficient in English and Math. That pretty much represents the number of students who are not cooperating—who are making little to no effort to improve. Many of the kids will not read at home, do the classwork or homework. They think all they have to do is show up and fill a seat and the teacher better give them passing grade.
The fools in Washington DC and the critics of public education have no clue what’s going on in schools like this one.
How about comparing two high school that are 2.5 miles distance from each other [five minutes away in a car] but in different districts.
That’s how far it takes to drive from a poverty ridden barrio to an upper middle class community with a vastly different socioeconomic profile.
Do you really think its fair to compare Nogales with Walnut High School (ranked a 10 on the state API) in the next district?
Do you really think if we sent all the kids at Nogales to Walnut and doubled the size of that high school that the teachers at Walnut would succeed with the kids attending Nogales?
If you say yes, then I want to sell you some expensive acreage on the moon.
Click to access WHS%20SARC%202011-12.pdf
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Lloyd, I believe KrazyTA, was being facetious.
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Cosmic Tinker,
What you say about KrazyTA being facetious may be true [in fact, I suspected it might be so], but can we really afford to be flippant in this debate?
There are far too many people outside of public education who will take what Crazy TA said literally instead of with a good old laugh. Not everyone reads between the lines. In fact, I think that only the proficient readers might get it—-13% of adult readers or 28 million leaving almost 200 million in the dark.
Our very way of life is at stake. The public schools are at risk. Once the public schools are gone and the billionaires have total control of the education of our children, what’s next?
I’m sorry, but this is a very emotional topic for me. I taught in the public schools for thirty years and saw what was going on. Too many times, we teachers were forced to do what we were told even when we knew it was wrong. Over time, I started to suspect that there was a deliberate campaign to destroy the public schools from within and it wasn’t until I read “Reign of Error” that I learned my suspicions were true.
For thirty years I invested sixty to a hundred hours a week; I invested my heart and soul in teaching to reach as many kids as I could without the banjo, jingles, rhymes and dancing of the so called public image of a great teacher.
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Lloyd, I empathize with and share your concerns about public education.
Maybe it’s because I am familiar with KrazyTA’s style of writing, but I think if you look closely at the closing, you can see that it is a defense of public education and a bombasting of profiteering:
“So why are the leading charterites/privatizers not opening wide the national pocketbook for public education since our fate as a nation rests on spending whatever is necessary to ‘win the war’?
Or maybe,just maybe, $tudent $ucce$$ doesn’t involve public schools but charters and vouchers?”
All those $ signs are the give away…
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I understand but will everyone who reads such comments that are tongue in cheek understand them?
When I was working toward my BA in journalism, we were taught that we had to write for the average reader and we were told the average reader in the United States read at a fifth grade level.
Then when I was the adviser and teacher for a high school journalism class that produced the student paper, I taught the student reporters the same thing. The kids who produced the paper were in AP and honors classes and were all reading way above grade level. They would all go to college. When they started, they wrote way above the average reading level for that high school.
That high school had almost 3,000 students and many of them came from families that lived in poverty. The reading level of the average student was way below grade level.
If you want people to understand what you write, you write so they can understand the message.
How many readers who read at a fifth grade level would understand what KrazyTA’s intent was?
Do you understand what I mean?
We are at war with people who make their message by cherry picking the facts that are available and making them really simple for the average American to understand.
If our side doesn’t doesn’t keep the message simple and easy to understand, the odds of losing go way up. In fact, I’m often guilty of not doing what I’m preaching here. Short simple messages usually have more impact in this short attention span cyber world we live in today.
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The US doesn’t just lag in investment in early childhood education, it also lags in health coverage to poor families and children, in the number of days of maternity and paternity leave conferred by law to parents, and the food quality given to children (cultural and economic, as well as poor gov. support are cofactors in this), as well as inequities in the quality of education throughout childrens entire lifespan. Add poverty rates which the USA has no peer in the developed world. THE USA is likely the worst place to raise children in the developed world.
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I get very uneasy when “pre-k” is conflated with “daycare”. We’re hearing all about how universal pre-k will help poor and working women with childcare, etc. But pre-k is a couple hours a day, 3 to 5 days a week – that’s not going to help anyone keep a job. Either it’s going to be a program that no one except those wealthy enough to have a stay-at-home parent will be able to use (which such families can generally afford pre-k programs anyway), or it will be a full day of drill-and-kill, worksheets, test prep, learning to use computers (for the sake of the tests), and being tested with little or no play time, nap time, story time, etc.
The conversation we really need to be having is about subsidized, affordable (or even free), developmentally appropriate play-based nurturing childcare. Otherwise it will just be one more income stream for Pearson.
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Very well said, Dienne. Although, the issue with your point is this goes against Cuomo and deBlasio making any brownie points or money, so that wouldn’t be prudent.
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repeating myself here Dienne, hoping for your always thoughtful input: while I agree that govt-funded preK is presently subject to wrong-headed govt-pushed curricula, is this a reason to drag feet on govt-provided preK? CCSS will have its day & die, meanwhile there are plenty of kids whose parents cannot afford private preK & waste that 4thyr in substandard babysitting situations, at an immediate disadvantage to the privately-educated when they enter K. I have seen gov-funded preK in NJ, it is far superior to babysitting despite the lousy gov curriculum. Meanwhile, private preK will no doubt continue, sans gov subsidy, providing excellent preK just as it already does in K-5.
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I dunno, Freelancer, I have mixed feelings, but given what Obama & Co. (and the Republicans) have done to K-12, I just hate to see them get their hands on pre-k too.
I’ve told this story before, so forgive me if you’ve heard it. I was talking to a woman (BJ) who runs an in-home, play-based daycare. One of her five-year-olds had to take a test for kindergarten. He failed (according to what BJ said, it was because he didn’t know the names and values of coins, but that’s at least third hand information). Anyway, he had to go to five weeks of summer school to “learn the basics”. BJ’s daycare is in Oak Park, Illinois, which is quite affluent and she’s not cheap, so I’m sure this kid has had all kinds of enrichment in his life, but he still had to go through all this.
He told BJ that the summer school was all worksheets, the same things over and over. He would alternatively say it was too hard and too boring. Before summer school he was giving up his nap, but during summer school he would come back to BJ’s place at 12:30 and voluntarily sleep for three hours. She tried to encourage him that regular kindergarten would be a lot better, but every day the first two weeks of kindergarten he came back to her place in tears saying it was worse than summer school. He said he hates school and he can only get by because he comes to BJ’s afterward. I have no idea how he’s going to survive next year when he no longer goes to BJ’s.
I hear what you’re saying – it would be nice to have pre-k in place and hope that this NCLB/RttT/CCSS nonsense eventually goes away. But I fear the damage it will do in the meantime. I honestly think that this particular kid would be better off with second rate babysitting than learning so early that school is awful. I don’t think he’s an isolated case either. If anything, he’s had the advantage of being with BJ long enough to learn to enjoy his own sense of exploration and creativity, even if he’s not getting any of that in school. I fear this kind of harsh programming being moved to even younger ages before kids have any opportunity to develop any such sense.
Again, I would love to see government subsidy of appropriate, play-based daycare services, but if funding pre-k gives the government the right to dictate a CCSS inspired, Pearson delivered curriculum, I want no part of it.
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I would not be so quick to dismiss the impact of Common Core on private PreK. I have worked most of my 45 year career in a wide variety of private PreK programs, as an ECE teacher, administrator and teacher educator, and I would not characterize it as “excellent.” In fact, it’s highly variable. At least in part, that is due to the minimal education qualifications many states require of teachers and administrators.
I have yet to meet any private providers that want to be known as “babysitters.” In my experience, to avoid that moniker, most, who are minimally trained, are unfamiliar with developmentally appropriate practices and, consequently, they resort to pushing academics on young children. Many also do this to be competitive in the child care market, including our country’s largest chain. Now, they are using the Common Core as an excuse to justify their pushed down curriculum, especially since, ready or not, 5 year olds are expected to be reading in Kindergarten.
Additionally, locations that were awarded funds under the Race to the Top -Early Learning Challenge for PreK must meet a variety of different requirements, which impact both public and private programs, and they are required to develop standards for young children that are aligned with the CC.
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Deblasio is showing his true colors here, getting the pre-k plan fully funded from the state is not good enough on, he has evil rich people to tax. This proves that his plan for pre-k has nothing to do with kids and everything to do with taking it to the wealthy. If that did not tip his hand, how about the fact that he has not endorsed pre-k for public charter schools yet? Apperently his demand for universal pre-k has very key caveots, the kids can only go to non-union public schools and the funds can only come from those making more than 500k a year. Good to know our mayor has his priorities strait.
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Oh get off it. Taxing the wealthy is the best part of his plan. The tax amounts to less per year than most of those people spend on food per week.
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why do you need the tax when the money is already there from the general fund? Do you hate rich people?
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Technically, “non-union public schools” are charters, which are not regulated. However, non-union private schools for birth – 5 year olds are child care centers, which must be licensed and they are highly regulated, with minimum space requirements, maximum group sizes and specific child-teacher ratios that must be met.
If those requirements apply to traditional neighborhood public schools, too, all the better, but since they don’t apply to charters, I would choose private programs for our nation’s youngest children over unregulated charter schools in a New York minute. BTW, states and districts can require all schools which receive public funds for PreK, including private programs, to employ teachers certified in ECE, as they do in Illinois, where universal PreK is for both 3 and 4 year olds.
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Cosmic thinker, you have it wrong, public charter schools are regulated by the Department of Ed and the Board of Regents. However, private schools are not regulated. You have your facts wrong.
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No, MS, you are way off base. Child care centers are regulated in every state. NY state requires that day care centers allocate 35 square feet per child in each classroom and centers must meet additional specific requirements for staff-child ratios and for maximum group sizes.
For PreK, NYS has the following requirements for children age 4:
Staff//Child Maximum Ratio: 1:8
Maximum Group Size: 21
This means that, provided the classroom has 35 square feet per child, there can be no more than 21 children age 4 in a class and no less than 3 teachers, due to the maximum 1:8 staff-child ratio.
Charter schools do not have to meet any of these requirements.
For younger children, the maximum staff-child ratios and group sizes are even less. All can see the NYS requirements stipulated under Section 418-1.8 Supervision of Children in the NY standards Part 418 for Day Care Centers located here: http://nrckids.org/default/assets/File/StateRegs/NY/ny_418_sub_1.pdf and all child care regulations located here: http://nrckids.org/index.cfm/resources/state-licensing-and-regulation-information/new-york-regulations/
And, as I previously indicated, when private programs accept State PreK funds, states can require higher educational qualifications of the teachers in those programs than those required by day care licensing regulations.
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People can also see the very minimal regulations that are imposed on charter schools in NY, which includes a link to the actual charter school law, none of which says anything about square feet required per child in classrooms, maximum group sizes or staff/child ratio requirements. All of these regulations are truly critical for young children, so that large numbers of little kids are not crammed into closets with a single teacher:
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/psc/csregs.html
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MS – I don’t hate rich people in general. Only greedy, miserly ones who consign everyone else to a life of misery while stealing public assets.
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Didn’t someone figure out previously that MS, who has a child in Success Academy, or his/her spouse, is an employee of Eva Moskowitz? Explains all the uninformed, pro-rich, anti-liberal and hateful comments…
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CT, it is currently illegal for charters to have pre-K, yet the Governors plan will allow charters, under the proper regulatory framework, to begin hosting preK and being funded by the state for the service. the union opposes this of course as the charter teachers are non union, so much for the unions credibility but that was never a real debate. Deblasio has yet to support Cuomos call for charters taking part in pre-K as well. This shows his desires are not the best interests of the kids but of the union.
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Dolly that is a preposterous comment. While I do have a child in SA, we have no connection to Eva other then our political support. I have taken grass roots steps to start parent networks at our SA to lobby our local city and state congressmen to support our charter. As of yet I have not met Eva. I have encouraged her in emails to get on 60 minutes or Oprah who’s exposes would get Eva and SA some fantastic national exposure and show the hatred that going against the power elite establishment creates. People hate success in all forms of life, its sad but true.
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MS, Teachers in private child care centers are not unionized, so give up the rant against unions because it does not apply. In states like Illinois, Universal PreK (UPK) is situated in private, state licensed, child care centers precisely because those centers are regulated and young children need the protections provided to them by licensing requirements. The regulations don’t apply to charter schools and they never will, since by state law, charters are free from having those kinds of requirements imposed on them –and they typically fight to preserve those freedoms.
It sounds like Eva and her ilk are eager to pillage UPK funds. God forbid preschoolers should ever be subjected to military style boot camp charter schools with drill sergeant “teachers,”
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CT you seem to not be farmiliar with the plan here in NY, but it is not for pre-k for private providers, it’s to add preK to existing schools and deblasios plan ONLY includes schools with unionized teachers while excluding the non unionized public schools that would also provide the same service.
Its nice to see your own true colors come out with such a blatant misunderstanding of SA and how the school is run though.
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No “plan” is set in stone. Politicians like De Blasio and his team would be wise to consult with Early Childhood experts, including those involved in implementing UPK in other states, not listen to charter schools that have never taught children that age before which are poised for a cash grab.
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As you know, MS, the state has not yet lived up to its obligations for regular K~12 funding as mandated by the NYS Court of Appeals Campaign for Fiscal Equity case. If Cuomo can’t live up to his obligations for regular ed funding, why would we trust him to continue to come up with the money for pre-k each year?
In addition, the Guv is actually proposing to cut taxes this year, at the same time he would provide the $1.4 billion for pre-k. That would mean other programs would be cut to pay for pre-k. Why not impose the proposed price-of-a-latte tax for those making 500k or more?
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Id hope you are wise enough to realize cutting tax rates does not mean cutting tax receipts. In fact cutting rates has lead to higher receipts thruought this nations history. You should also be aware that Cuomos budget will leave the state with a fiscal sirplus.
Why do you demand the rich paying a tax that is not needed? The state has the funds and has outlined how to use them without drastic cuts to other areas of spending.
As for obligations, I do not trust our mayor with money, I think he intends to use the tax as a way to pay for plump union contracts, this is why he has not supported public charter schools also being given funding for pre-K.
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“In fact cutting rates has lead to higher receipts thruought this nations history.”
I’d ask for a source, but you couldn’t find one anyway. This nonsense has long been debunked.
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I could provide hundreds of sources, but you should do your own research. Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
It is not just an economic fact its proven, there are certain points where higher taxes lead to lower tax collections and lower rates higher collections. You can dispute it, it only takes away your credibility.
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MS,
There is no question that at some tax rates, further increases in tax rates will decrease income. The question is whether the current level of tax rates is sufficiently high that lowering tax rates will lead to an increase in tax revenue.
You might want to look at some of the empirical literature about the Laffer curve. One good paper to look at is Evidence on the High-Income Laffer Curve from Six Decades of Tax Reform by Austan Goolsbee, Robert E. Hall and Lawrence F. Katz in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Vol. 1999, No. 2 (1999), pp. 1-64
The paper concludes that
The notion that governments could raise more money by cutting rates is, indeed, a glorious idea. It would permit a Pareto improvement of the most enjoyable kind. Unfortunately for all of us, the data from the historical record suggest that it is unlikely to be true at anything like today’s marginal tax rates. It seems that, for now at least, we will just have to keep paying for our tax cuts the old-fashioned way.
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Thanks for the post TE, I am quite familiar with Goolsbee’s work as I work in finance myself, however, he was President Obama’s chief economist, so clearly his political leanings are in a certain direction and the Brookings Institution is left leaning as well. Now, I am not discrediting them in any way, but I could also post a few dozen studies from conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute or Cato Institute that also hold credible data showing there is an equilibrium that we are well above. I am a centrist who can accept the findings of both sides.
As for the current point, well if you are ‘rich’ as people here define it, as in 500k a year living in NYC, you already are paying well over 50% of your income into taxes between federal, state, city, Medicare, social security, property, capital gains and sales taxes. So if you are a father taking home 500k a year to provide for a stay at home wife and 3 children, you are not exactly rich after all of these taxes and the prohibitive living costs of NYC. I know of a dozen young professionals who moved to the suburbs specifically because of this problem. They save the 4% city tax as its not charged to commuters. The city loses a tremendous tax base with this 4% tax savings by moving out of town. If that tax is increased, it will generally lead to more of the tax base departing. If we lowered that tax rate, maybe young families who are starting to make decent money wont leave.
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It would be useful to see those papers you refer to.
No doubt the elasticity of demand is greater the narrow the market, so a tax in New York City is is going to generate a larger behavioral response than a tax in New York State or a national tax.
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Im surprised they do not revisit the commuter tax in some form. I think if you make your living in the city you should pay some in city tax. Currently if you live outside the 5 boroughs but commute in and work in the city you pay zero city tax. If you work here you use city services. I would be ok with a 1-2% commuter tax. It does not have to be the 4% that city residents pay, but should be something. That tax alone could eaisly cover the pre-K funding and the union handouts mayor wilhelm has in mind.
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Deblasio is a real armature who showed off how poorly prepared he was yesterday in Albany. When asked why he needs a special tax when not only the city but also the state are projected to have budget surpluses this year he fumbled then admitted it was due to ‘a large number of open labor contracts putting stress on the cities finances’. And there you have it folks. The tax on the wealthy has nothing to do with funding pre-K, its about paying off the union for their support. Very sophomoric mistake for such a rookie politician showing his true colors so blatantly. We are lucky that Cuomo can outflank the mayor on this poorly planned and politically ignorant tax on wealth.
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It’s sad to see people hoodwinked into advocating for the uber-rich and uber-powerful, despite their arrogance and ignorance, because it’s always a tragedy when people have lost their humanity, especially to greed. You are fighting for a leech addicted to government and corporate welfare: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/success-academy-tax-documents-moskowitz-can-afford-the-rent/
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Great link, solid ideology too, tax those who are successful because they can ‘afford it’. That is the opposite of the American way. As for greed, hard to be greedy when you are a non-profit 501(c) corp who can not earn a profit or have shareholders by law. THe folks that are hoodwinked are the ones who buy into class warfare that does nothing but pull our society further apart. This is also a very hypocritical view as schools like Success Academy are the answer to this problem, giving inner city kids a world class education. It must suck being the person who opposes our poorest and most needy children getting the best education this country has to offer.
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Too bad you didn’t read the entire article or understand how non-profits have figured out how they can make profits. In addition to her two (possibly three) salaries for allegedly working 100 hours per week, Eva’s charter management company pocketed nearly $4M in fees –in 2011 alone. Blind faith seems to have destroyed your brain cells.
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Ok elder, please site for me where the article states that Eva’s non profit charter management company took in $4M in profits that were paid out to shareholders. You cant, what you deem a ‘fee’ is what the charter uses for operational costs because it is so severly underfunded on the state level. The reason that charters like SA have to raise so much funding privately is because they receive some $6-7k less per student per year from the state. If the state fairly funded the public charters on an equal footing with zoned schools, those evil hedge fund managers would not be as neccessary.
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I have run several schools in my career, both non-profits and for-profits. No share holders are necessary for profits to be made. And, often, a bigger piece of the pie goes to senior management when there are none. Not having to pay rent has been a huge perk, but it sounds like you are lost in your “finance” world and have fallen for Eva’s false claims of destitution, so whatever anyone says here is destined to fall on deaf ears.
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Charters already pay rent defacto by receiving less in funding from the state. That was the point of being rent free, if you charged them rent, you have to give them more operational funds at the state level to pay the rent, its a zero sum that makes zero sense.. This misses the overall point however, that public charters should not have to pay rent, they have every right to public school buildings as zoned schools do.
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Yep, EW. deaf is right, except when it comes to like minds. TE is much more amenable to feeling sorry for a guy who can’t manage to survive on $250K per year after taxes, while the rest of us, who happen to be highly educated, do valuable work and also live in cities where the cost of living is high, are scraping by on five figure incomes. Just keep on fighting blindly for your upper class cronies, MS, because Americans have been catching on to how inequitable this system is and the days of elitism are numbered.
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Who said you cant survive in NYC on 250k take home? Sure wasnt me….
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Boo hoo to the guy who makes ten times the median household income of people in NYC, complains that people grossing $500K “are not exactly rich after all of these taxes and the prohibitive living costs of NYC”, says, “I know of a dozen young professionals who moved to the suburbs specifically because of this problem”, and then denies he suggested it’s hard to live on that income.
It does not surprise me that Moskowitz expanded her charter schools in NY to appeal to these self-important upper income families. Anyone who has so much greed that the needs of 1.99 million New Yorkers who are actually in poverty pale in significance to their own “plight” deserve to be the targets of class warfare.
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I have been thinking deeply about the hundred or so major American corporations that are housing some $ THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS offshore, with none of that money trickling back here in the form of jobs or taxation.
In the realm of fiscal justice, can it get any more heinous that that?
But yet, there just happens to not be enough money in NY City to pay for a critical service.
Aren’t you tired of being handservants to the uber rich?
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You’ve got to laugh when someone who works in “finance,” complains about not being able to live on a gross income of $500K per year, advocates for privatizing public schools, justifies $4M in management fees on top of multiple salaries going to a privatizer, describes Brookings as “left learning” and CATO and the American Enterprise Institute as “credible”, and claims to be “centrist.”
Welcome to your typical, entitled neo-liberal, who rides both sides of the political fence, depending upon which party’s policies lead to greater personal gain in exchange for abrogation of the common good.
This is precisely why Americans have been awakening to the fact that we really have just one party today, with politicians who represent only the people who have bought them, and why voters have chosen Bill de Blasio. Go people power!
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I never said you cant live in NYC on 500k a year, you have been caught mischaracterizing my statements, a common theme for thsoe without facts or logic on their side. What I did say was that 500k in NYC is not exactly rich, in terms of the 1% argument. If you are the sole breadwinner and raising a family of 3 children it is a very upper middle class amount of money to make but hardly the types who fly private jets to Davos and can afford massive tax hikes just for being rich. 500k is big money in the overwhelming majority of the United States but not neccessarly in NYC.
I read Brookings a lot, but they are left leaning, thats a fact, I also admit that Cato/AEI are right leaning. These are facts, not opinions. And yes, being able to take data from studies across the spectrum of political viewpoints is the very definition of centerist.
I do not call for the privitization of schools, the charter school I support is a public school, not private. The fees they generate are essential for them to operate as they receive such lower funding from the state as compared to zoned schools.
What you seem to miss is that America is waking up to the opposite of what you procliam. We are sick and tired of generations of failed schools being controlled by big labor who holds the greater population hostage with their demands and inability to change for the better of the kids. Why do you think there is such a massive demand for charter schools like Success Academy, because America is sick of ‘centerists’? LOL, get a clue mate.
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“500k is big money in the overwhelming majority of the United States but not neccessarly in NYC.”
Medium household income in NYC 2008-2012 —- $51,865
Per capita money income in 2012 dollars —- $31,661
19.9% of NYC’s people live below poverty level—-that’s about 1.66 million.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/3651000.html
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Thanks for the stats LL, lets work off of them as they set a basic standard, one that is not the reality of life here but one that paints the same picture. $501,500 is the median home value in NYC. So tell me how someone making 51k a year can support a family of 5 let alone a home that costs half a million dollars? If you want to tell me that the guy making 51k cant afford to buy he must rent, well the rental picture is as bad as the purchase picture:
http://www.nakedapartments.com/blog/average-rental-prices-in-nyc/
Tell me how a guy making 51k a year can afford an average rent of 3,000-3500 a month for multi bedroom units?
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You keep mentioning half a million. That’s close to the median but that isn’t the price for every home and every neighborhood in NYC. Median means there are homes priced lower and others priced higher.
You may want to click on the next link and read the piece in the New York Daily News to get a better idea of how prices can be so high in one area of a city and much lower in another.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/big-prices-homes-citywide-article-1.1589737
Where do you think we’ll find the highest level of poverty? My bet it’s a community in NYC called Jamaica where the typical home costs $117,000 or maybe where the most rent controlled housing is located. In Brooklyn there are 58,699 apartments that are rent controlled and the renters pay no more than 30 percent of their income in rent. In Manhattan there are 53,890 of these apartments.
To learn more, I suggest you read this piece from Slate.com that paints a completely different picture of NYC than the one you may imagine exists.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/01/new_york_city_census_data_manhattan_and_brooklyn_are_much_poorer_than_you.html
The disparity in Manhattan between market-rate and stabilized rents has never been greater. In Manhattan, the median market-rate tenant makes $100,000 per year and pays $2,625 per month in rent, while the median rent-regulated tenant makes $49,200 and pays $1,295.
Slate says: “The average family annual income in NYCHA projects is $22,994.”
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If there is such a high demand, SA should not have wasted millions of dollars in advertising to recruit students: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eva-moskowitz-success-academy-charter-schools-disproportionate-share-state-education-money-article-1.1101668
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