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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (54303)	6/19/2014 4:47:53 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 86355

Hi Land Shark; Re: "That is not broken down, for the USA, between private and public school spending. You see private schools spend 2x per student than public ones do."; About 11% of US students are at private schools. Using your figure for 2x spending (which might be true), average spending "A" is related to average for public spending "P" and private spending "2P" by computing total spending "T" and number of students "N" as: T = 0.89 N P + 0.11 N 2P, so the average figure is A = T/N or A = 0.89 P + 0.22P = 1.11P, and the figure for US spending is therefore overestimated by only 11%. But it's worse than that. You see, you've noticed that private schools spend 2x as much as public schools and this raises the average amount spent per pupil. But those of us who actually understood mathematics and logic would also like to point out that those private students raise the average academic achievement of American students. So they contribute to both sides of the issue; higher costs and better results. And so the ineffectiveness of US public education, per dollar, continues unabated. And finally, the costs for private education nowadays are the costs for schools that make a profit. Public schools are owned by the government and do no make a profit. So comparing public school costs with private school tuition isn't quite fair. Part of the reason the private schools are able to charge so much is that the public schools are so lousy. For example, K12 (the largest education management organization or "EMO" by enrollment) made $111 million on income of $848 million in 2013, and that's after paying taxes that public schools don't have to pay. -- Carl

To: Land Shark who wrote (54303)	6/19/2014 6:40:11 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 86355

This isn't true, but it is the Democratic party's unstated goal: America is divided into the very few (who are fabulously rich) and the 99% who haven't a hope in hell of ascending into that class.

To: Land Shark who wrote (54303)	6/20/2014 10:01:31 AM
From: Follies	2 Recommendations Recommended By Brumar89 TimF Respond to of 86355

and the 99% who haven't a hope in hell of ascending into that class Wrong, It turns out that 12 percent of the population will find themselves in the top 1 percent of the income distribution for at least one year. What’s more, 39 percent of Americans will spend a year in the top 5 percent of the income distribution, 56 percent will find themselves in the top 10 percent, and a whopping 73 percent will spend a year in the top 20 percent of the income distribution. nytimes.com