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Re: [OM] Karma sucks

Subject: Re: [OM] Karma sucks
From: Chris Crawford <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:37:17 -0500
Ken,

In New York City, the cost of living is so outrageous that the schools there
simply have to pay everyone who works for them twice the pay the Iowa
schools have to pay, or else their staff would all be in poverty. People
with Masters degrees (most teachers. Here in Indiana, and probably in NY too
a masters is required to teach) won't work for poverty wages. On top of
that, costs for everything else, like electricity, building materials to
repair old schools, etc. cost far more there than they do in the midwest.

So, no, the money isn't buying them a better education, but take the money
away and they'll get NO education, which is exactly what a lot of
conservatives think that poor 'nigger kids' and 'white trash' deserve. I
know you don't agree with that, so be careful how you interpret numbers you
see in the corporate media...you have to dig a little deeper to find the
cause of a lot of government spending than what those in power would like.
If you want to bring school spending in big cities down, then the cost of
housing (the primary driver of the high cost of living that causes the price
of EVERYTHING else to rise in places like NYC) must be brought down to
reality. An apartment in NYC that a middle class person in Iowa would live
in (i.e. Not in a dangerous neighborhood, not infested with bugs or mold,
the plumbing and heat works, etc) costs $2000 in NYC compared to $700 in the
midwest.



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On 1/4/11 1:09 PM, "Ken Norton" <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> That's a pretty big generalization, Ken! Got any references to back that up?
>> 
>> I'm sure there are anecdotes you can site, but are you really suggesting that
>> (as an example) Harlem ghetto kids are getting a better education than kids
>> on the Upper West Side?
> 
> Not at the top of my head. I don't know how the spending compares
> between schools in NYC, but I think it would be pretty shocking to see
> what the per-student cost for the Harlem kids is compared to the
> country's norm. Of course, most of those funds never reach the
> classroom.
> 
> Just doing a little surfing, I see that the spending in the NYC metro
> area is around $27000 per student per year. Lowest in the Pheonix area
> is about $12000. Iowa is running about $15000 give or take a couple
> thousand depending on district. So, the question can be asked: Is the
> average NYC child getting 2X the education of the average Iowa child
> who gets 1/2 the funding? Wierd, because our school is about as
> gold-plated as they come. I'm NOT talking about the testing results,
> because those can be influenced by ethnic and socio-economic issues,
> but just the overall quality of education.
> 
> Just picking on two neighboring districts here in Iowa--The Newton and
> Grinnell districts have very similar ethnic and socio-economic
> profiles. The per-student spending is inverse of the testing results.
> When we lived in Newton, we sent our kids to private school for a
> reason. The quality of education in Grinnell is so much better that
> it's laughable if it wasn't sad. But the per-student spending is
> lower.
> 
> AG


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