America the Free???? ( Archived) (581)

Yes you are quite frequently





"I've never been wrong... wait, wait... There was that time I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken" ~Bohemianjack. Mistaken

Could be that most in Texas aren't getting a good education.

Texas’ School Funding Lower Than Most States

You may have seen the spot featuring Tommy Lee Jones talking about how Texas funding for schools is low compared to other states. He voices concern about the Legislature reducing the already-low funding. He says, “That’s unacceptable” and “Don’t bankrupt our future by cutting back on our kids.”

Politifact investigated the claim that Texas funding ranks at the bottom when compared to other states’ funding. Their bottom line: the rankings vary from year to year and based on methodology, but Texas does consistently lag behind most other states in per pupil education funding.

To see the Tommy Lee Jones spot and to see the Politifact report:







God to the rescue?


Rick Perry Resigns Control Of Texas: God In Charge As of August 6

Texas Governor Rick Perry has declared he can’t solve the state’s problems, so from now on official government policy is “pray, everybody.” Perry is holding a day of fasting and prayer called “The Response” at a sports stadium in Houston on August 6th, which everyone can now consider the “effective date” for God’s taking over of Texas affairs. “Some problems are beyond our power to solve,” Perry said, which includes the state debt, unemployment, public health, disaster response, and, uh, teen pregnancy. Prayer will now be in charge of these things. If anyone has a problem with how these things are going, they can phone God and ask “what the hell,” because Rick Perry will no longer be responsible.







"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." ~Thomas Jefferson

They're totally screwed now.


This can't be serious, is it?

I'm sure he was referring to MSNBC.

Following up on the above intellectual comment:

Academic researchers have sought to answer the question of whether Education expenditures are correlated with student performance. However, there is a lack of consistent evidence on whether Education expenditures are related to academic achievement. Eric Hanushek has studied the effect of per-pupil expenditures on academic outcomes, finding either no relationship or a relationship that is either weak or inconsistent. Despite the lack of consistent findings, leading researchers in the area acknowledge that any effect of per-pupil expenditures on academic outcomes depends on how the money is spent, not on how much money is spent. According to Hanushek:

Few people…would recommend just dumping extra resources into existing schools. America has…followed that program for several decades, with no sign that student performance has improved.…

…The issue is getting productive uses from current and added spending. The existing evidence simply indicates that the typical school system today does not use resources well (at least if promoting student achievement is their purpose).

Hedges and Greenwald note that:

he results do not provide detailed information on the educationally or economically efficient means to allocate existing and new dollars.… iscussions of school reform… should instead incorporate an assessment of the current relation between inputs and outcomes and determine how to best allocate resources in specific contexts.

What is clear from these competing findings is that policymakers should seriously consider improving how to allocate educational resources more effectively.

The evidence about Education spending and achievement leads to the following important lessons:

American spending on public K-12 education is at an all-time high and is still rising. Polls show that many people believe that a lack of resources is a primary problem facing public schools. Yet spending on American K-12 public Education is at an all-time high. Approximately $9,300 is spent per pupil. Real spending per student has increased by 23.5 percent over the past decade and by 49 percent over the past 20 years.
Continuous spending increases have not corresponded with equal improvement in American educational performance. Long-term measures of American students' academic achievement, such as long-term NAEP reading scale scores and high school graduation rates, show that the performance of American students has not improved dramatically in recent decades, despite substantial spending increases. The lack of a correlation between long-term Education spending and performance does not suggest that resources are not a factor in academic performance, but it does suggest that simply increasing spending is unlikely to improve educational performance.
Increasing federal funding on Education has not been followed by similar gains in student achievement. Federal spending on elementary and secondary Education has also increased significantly in recent decades. Since 1985, real federal spending on K-12 education has increased by 138 percent. On a per-student basis, federal spending on K-12 education has tripled since 1970. Yet, long-term measures of American students' academic achievement have not seen similar increases. Long-term test scores among specific student populations, including ethnic minorities that have been a main focus of federal Education policy, have improved some. However, the achievement gaps among white, black, and Hispanic students persist in test scores and graduation rates.

Following up on the above intellectual comment:

Academic researchers have sought to answer the question of whether Education expenditures are correlated with student performance. However, there is a lack of consistent evidence on whether Education expenditures are related to academic achievement. Eric Hanushek has studied the effect of per-pupil expenditures on academic outcomes, finding either no relationship or a relationship that is either weak or inconsistent. Despite the lack of consistent findings, leading researchers in the area acknowledge that any effect of per-pupil expenditures on academic outcomes depends on how the money is spent, not on how much money is spent. According to Hanushek:

Few people…would recommend just dumping extra resources into existing schools. America has…followed that program for several decades, with no sign that student performance has improved.…

…The issue is getting productive uses from current and added spending. The existing evidence simply indicates that the typical school system today does not use resources well (at least if promoting student achievement is their purpose).

Hedges and Greenwald note that:

he results do not provide detailed information on the educationally or economically efficient means to allocate existing and new dollars.… iscussions of school reform… should instead incorporate an assessment of the current relation between inputs and outcomes and determine how to best allocate resources in specific contexts.

What is clear from these competing findings is that policymakers should seriously consider improving how to allocate educational resources more effectively.

The evidence about Education spending and achievement leads to the following important lessons:

American spending on public K-12 education is at an all-time high and is still rising. Polls show that many people believe that a lack of resources is a primary problem facing public schools. Yet spending on American K-12 public Education is at an all-time high. Approximately $9,300 is spent per pupil. Real spending per student has increased by 23.5 percent over the past decade and by 49 percent over the past 20 years.
Continuous spending increases have not corresponded with equal improvement in American educational performance. Long-term measures of American students' academic achievement, such as long-term NAEP reading scale scores and high school graduation rates, show that the performance of American students has not improved dramatically in recent decades, despite substantial spending increases. The lack of a correlation between long-term Education spending and performance does not suggest that resources are not a factor in academic performance, but it does suggest that simply increasing spending is unlikely to improve educational performance.
Increasing federal funding on Education has not been followed by similar gains in student achievement. Federal spending on elementary and secondary Education has also increased significantly in recent decades. Since 1985, real federal spending on K-12 education has increased by 138 percent. On a per-student basis, federal spending on K-12 education has tripled since 1970. Yet, long-term measures of American students' academic achievement have not seen similar increases. Long-term test scores among specific student populations, including ethnic minorities that have been a main focus of federal Education policy, have improved some. However, the achievement gaps among white, black, and Hispanic students persist in test scores and graduation rates.