I need some clairfiaction on Obama's econ plan...

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: eleison
They need to test and teach English in the inner cities.. Also math... I'm sure those can easily be quantified. Based on this, if the school fails they should be held accountable. Isn't this what the no child left behind act is suppose to do?

Yes, they absolutely need to teach math and English in the inner cities. But if you look at the best schools in this country, the private schools where 100 percent of the student body goes on to higher education, they are not just learning math and English (and science). They learn critical thinking skills that make them want to pursue more education because they realize that school is more than just rote memorization of numbers. How boring would education be if all you learned was multiplication tables?

And yes, no child left behind is supposed to quantify education (an inherently unquantifiable thing, mind you; someone with a brilliant command of the English language may be an utter failure in mathematics, while a brilliant mathematician may be borderline socially retarded; neither is unintelligent, but good luck testing for it). But where NCLB completely misses the mark is that it takes money away from schools that do poorly. That makes no sense at all. If the goal of NCLB is to help education by ensuring that children around the country attain a basic education, it doesn't work. What it does do is ensure that schools that fail will continue to fail as they get less and less money. It's a fail spiral. I suppose one could make the argument that we should stop wasting money on these people who will be failures anyway (we need dishwashers too), but that's not the goal of the American education system and never has been. All it does is create a further disparity between the haves and the have-nots. You're in a good school? Bully for you, have some more money. Your school can't make the grade? Sorry buddy, guess you'll have to make those textbooks last another year.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Originally posted by: senseamp
It's debt, but at least it's debt that is going towards infrastructure that will increase economic activity down the road. Would you rather rack up that debt paying for welfare and unemployment benefits for the jobless? Compare that to the debt accumulated by the Republicans in the last 8 years mostly on tax cuts, which which were supposed to stimulate our economy, look how great that worked out.

Please back up your statement that our debt accumulation over the past 8 years was due to tax cuts. Everything I've read says that spending was the culprit, not decreased revenues due to tax cuts. No blogs please.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan

Originally posted by: senseamp
It's debt, but at least it's debt that is going towards infrastructure that will increase economic activity down the road. Would you rather rack up that debt paying for welfare and unemployment benefits for the jobless? Compare that to the debt accumulated by the Republicans in the last 8 years mostly on tax cuts, which which were supposed to stimulate our economy, look how great that worked out.

Please back up your statement that our debt accumulation over the past 8 years was due to tax cuts. Everything I've read says that spending was the culprit, not decreased revenues due to tax cuts. No blogs please.

Not all of the debt accumulation was due to tax cuts, but a large chunk of it was. The director of the Congressional Budget Office estimates their contribution to the deficit as about $200 billion a year as I understand it.

 

[theeedude]

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan

Originally posted by: senseamp
It's debt, but at least it's debt that is going towards infrastructure that will increase economic activity down the road. Would you rather rack up that debt paying for welfare and unemployment benefits for the jobless? Compare that to the debt accumulated by the Republicans in the last 8 years mostly on tax cuts, which which were supposed to stimulate our economy, look how great that worked out.

Please back up your statement that our debt accumulation over the past 8 years was due to tax cuts. Everything I've read says that spending was the culprit, not decreased revenues due to tax cuts. No blogs please.

Well, at the very least, the tax cuts, which were promised to stimulate the economy, failed miserably to do so. Also, I believe increased spending is a direct result of decoupling taxation from spending (not balancing budget) which was done by the Bush taxcuts. Once you decide you are not going to raise taxes to pay for spending, then there is no downside to politicians increasing spending, since they don't simultaneously have to ask their constituents to pay for it. That is why we have had runaway deficits every time we elect a supply side Republican to the office.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
What it does do is ensure that schools that fail will continue to fail as they get less and less money. It's a fail spiral. I suppose one could make the argument that we should stop wasting money on these people who will be failures anyway (we need dishwashers too), but that's not the goal of the American education system and never has been. All it does is create a further disparity between the haves and the have-nots. You're in a good school? Bully for you, have some more money. Your school can't make the grade? Sorry buddy, guess you'll have to make those textbooks last another year.

That presumes a direct link between financing and whether a school succeeds or fails. In NJ, Newark and Trenton spend the most money per student and also have the worst schools.

 

[mooseracing]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton
Almost every economist will agree, now is absolutely not the time to balance the budget.

And I have heard the statements that they are going balance the budget in years past.

I don't think we will have ever a national deficit that shrinks for 5-10yrs straight, I think politicians see it as free money that they don't have to worry about.

I still don't see a good reason for investing our tax money ,at this point in time, in growing the internet.

I think there needs to be someway we can invest in growing our technology in manufacturing that can compete at a price level of all the overseas companies that have no restrictions and are fucking things up.


I think it would help to reduce ALOT (speculation, as I don't know total numbers) of debt if we restructed welfare to be limited amount of time instead of indefinite.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
What it does do is ensure that schools that fail will continue to fail as they get less and less money. It's a fail spiral. I suppose one could make the argument that we should stop wasting money on these people who will be failures anyway (we need dishwashers too), but that's not the goal of the American education system and never has been. All it does is create a further disparity between the haves and the have-nots. You're in a good school? Bully for you, have some more money. Your school can't make the grade? Sorry buddy, guess you'll have to make those textbooks last another year.

That presumes a direct link between financing and whether a school succeeds or fails. In NJ, Newark and Trenton spend the most money per student and also have the worst schools.

That's a valid point; it's not always the case that a well-funded school will have the best results. But are you honestly claiming that there is no correlation between funding and quality of education? Why do the wealthy elites in this country send their children to expensive private schools? Because they have better equipment, better materials and better faculty which they are able to afford thanks to having more money. The problems in the New Jersey school district are more likely the result of a poorly run administration combined with inefficient use of funds than they are indicative that quality of education and money can't be tied together.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
What it does do is ensure that schools that fail will continue to fail as they get less and less money. It's a fail spiral. I suppose one could make the argument that we should stop wasting money on these people who will be failures anyway (we need dishwashers too), but that's not the goal of the American education system and never has been. All it does is create a further disparity between the haves and the have-nots. You're in a good school? Bully for you, have some more money. Your school can't make the grade? Sorry buddy, guess you'll have to make those textbooks last another year.

That presumes a direct link between financing and whether a school succeeds or fails. In NJ, Newark and Trenton spend the most money per student and also have the worst schools.

That's a valid point; it's not always the case that a well-funded school will have the best results. But are you honestly claiming that there is no correlation between funding and quality of education? Why do the wealthy elites in this country send their children to expensive private schools? Because they have better equipment, better materials and better faculty which they are able to afford thanks to having more money. The problems in the New Jersey school district are more likely the result of a poorly run administration combined with inefficient use of funds than they are indicative that quality of education and money can't be tied together.

If there is, its because wealthy private schools foster a culture of learning and interest in education and not a culture of rap and gang thuggery.

Washington DC spends more money per student than a lot of those private schools do. Of course they're inefficiently run. That's the entire point, and that's why we should pull funding from the dropout factories.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: winnar111
If there is, its because wealthy private schools foster a culture of learning and interest in education and not a culture of rap and gang thuggery.

Washington DC spends more money per student than a lot of those private schools do. Of course they're inefficiently run. That's the entire point, and that's why we should pull funding from the dropout factories.

So instead of trying to get rid of the school board that hasn't worked and replace it with an administration that enables schools to "foster a culture of learning and interest in education and not a culture of rap and gang thuggery", we should just pull funding? What then, just hope the children say "fuck this hip hop shit, I'ma read me a book!" It doesn't work that way. You seem to be in favor of a progressive educational program that goes beyond the rote memorization and delves into why it is important to know these things, then you flip and say we need to stop pursuing education in low income areas. That's an incongruous argument. If the school board is the problem, get rid of the school board. Don't pull the money; the only people that hurts are the children.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy

Originally posted by: winnar111
If there is, its because wealthy private schools foster a culture of learning and interest in education and not a culture of rap and gang thuggery.

Washington DC spends more money per student than a lot of those private schools do. Of course they're inefficiently run. That's the entire point, and that's why we should pull funding from the dropout factories.

So instead of trying to get rid of the school board that hasn't worked and replace it with an administration that enables schools to "foster a culture of learning and interest in education and not a culture of rap and gang thuggery", we should just pull funding? What then, just hope the children say "fuck this hip hop shit, I'ma read me a book!" It doesn't work that way. You seem to be in favor of a progressive educational program that goes beyond the rote memorization and delves into why it is important to know these things, then you flip and say we need to stop pursuing education in low income areas. That's an incongruous argument. If the school board is the problem, get rid of the school board. Don't pull the money; the only people that hurts are the children.

Who's going to get rid of the school board in Washington DC and the rest of the inner cities? The teachers' union? The Democrats? :laugh:

The public school district where I live makes do with $11k per student per year, and they do well because parents foster a culture of learning. Trenton is right next door and gets $17k; there's no reason they should get that $6k premium for bad results.

Of course, that wouldn't appease the race baiters. Chicago school kids protested because they were getting 'only' $11k from the state; never mind that they piss it down the drain.

http://www.chicagoreporter.com...he_fight_about_funding

"All the studies from the 1960s show little, if any, correlation between school spending and student performance," said Jim Tobin, president of National Taxpayers United of Illinois, a taxpayer advocacy group that opposes increased spending for education.

Tobin says an increase would amount to nothing more than giving "overpaid public school teachers a big, fat pay raise."

The Reporter commissioned Eric Mitchem, a fifth-year doctoral student in economics at Texas A&M University to conduct a "successful schools" analysis of nearly 900 school districts in Illinois.

In successful schools analyses, researchers label schools or school districts as "successful" or "underperforming" based on a number of standards and examine the differences in spending between those two groups. Mitchem identified nine definitions of success based on various levels of the districts' composite test scores and whether districts were meeting the state's definition for Adequate Yearly Progress.

Mitchem did not find a statistically significant link between school expenditures and student outcomes. His analysis shows that there is a wide range of spending levels for successful districts.

Spending for the 13 districts that met each of Mitchem's definitions of success ranged from $5,613 per pupil to $13,413 per pupil.

In fact, under eight of Mitchem's definitions, underperforming districts, on average, actually spent up to $772 more per pupil than the successful districts.

A major difference between the two groups was the percentage of students who qualified for free and reduced-price lunch. In fact, the percentage of low-income students was the only variable that was statistically significant in each of Mitchem's nine definitions of success.

Mitchem cautioned against drawing the conclusion that additional spending in districts with higher percentages of low-income students would inevitably lead to higher test scores. "We can't tell what would happen if we spent more," he said.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
What it does do is ensure that schools that fail will continue to fail as they get less and less money. It's a fail spiral. I suppose one could make the argument that we should stop wasting money on these people who will be failures anyway (we need dishwashers too), but that's not the goal of the American education system and never has been. All it does is create a further disparity between the haves and the have-nots. You're in a good school? Bully for you, have some more money. Your school can't make the grade? Sorry buddy, guess you'll have to make those textbooks last another year.

That presumes a direct link between financing and whether a school succeeds or fails. In NJ, Newark and Trenton spend the most money per student and also have the worst schools.

That's a valid point; it's not always the case that a well-funded school will have the best results. But are you honestly claiming that there is no correlation between funding and quality of education? Why do the wealthy elites in this country send their children to expensive private schools? Because they have better equipment, better materials and better faculty which they are able to afford thanks to having more money. The problems in the New Jersey school district are more likely the result of a poorly run administration combined with inefficient use of funds than they are indicative that quality of education and money can't be tied together.

If there is, its because wealthy private schools foster a culture of learning and interest in education and not a culture of rap and gang thuggery.

Washington DC spends more money per student than a lot of those private schools do. Of course they're inefficiently run. That's the entire point, and that's why we should pull funding from the dropout factories.

I think that's why we should fix the problems with the bad districts. If they do poorly with what they've got now, LOWERING their funding won't help.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: mooseracing
I'm slightly confused and not finding the answers I was looking for when using google.

So he wants to start more gov jobs that will do road/bridge work, school buildings, and broadband access.

I'm confused to where the money is actually going to come from in the end. I mean the workers have to be paid, we have to get more equipment, we have to get the materials and so on. Road Repair and bridge fixing/construction is not cheap when done correctly.

The internet broadband I don't understand how that is fully going to help anything. No one NEEDS internet access, it's a luxury.

So in the end is this whole process just going to add to our national debt or am I missing a corner of this confuzing puzzle?

The nature of capitalism is such that everything is sold for maximum profit, not minimum cost. Obviously he plans to nationalize everything and use them for the benefit of the US at cost.

On a more serious note, broadband Internet access (which includes slow-ass 256KB/s DSL which is now cheaper to implement than dial-up) is as much a necessity as radio or TV. You can argue those are luxuries, but the government is subsidizing people to switch over to digital television.

I think adding to our debt is BAD...period. But thanks for enlightening me with your typical partisan spin.

It is, except in the case that deficit spending yields greater returns. Of course, you have no way of knowing this will be true ahead of time, just in the same way a business taking out loans has no idea they'll be able to pay them off and come out ahead.
I'd rather not have deficit spending, but I'm not a big fan of our current economic system either. But I will admit it works better than the gold standard, and deficit spending (so long as it's done wisely and controlled, something the government rarely accomplishes) is pretty much implicit in our current economic system. That said, I'd really only support deficit spending in things that have long-term benefits, such as education, and transportation/communication infrastructure.
There should also be strict standards and control for any government hand-out. If money is going to schools, the federal government should have 100% say in how the schools are run and the ability to withhold the money if policies are not followed. Make sure the money is going to it's intended destinations. The same should apply to welfare and any social program.