Angry New Yorker

Semi-Daily Rants from New York City's Angry Man

"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly." - Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Life of Johnson, Sept. 1783

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Monday, January 24, 2005
 
The Gathering Education Cabal Prepares to Storm Gotham

Sol Stern has an excellent new essay over at Barron's Online, entitled "They
Never Learn". What don't they learn about? Read the entire thing here, or for a peek, here's an excerpt:
They Never Learn
By Sol Stern
Barron’s Online, January 24, 2005
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_barrons-they_never_learn.htm

The United States Now Spends almost a half-trillion dollars yearly on its public schools. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, on a per-pupil basis, we allocate significantly more money to K-12 education than any other industrialized nation. Yet the performance of American students on international achievement tests remains close to the bottom among OECD countries.

Such depressing results should ring alarm bells and force some recognition that what ails American education has little to do with money. Alas, local politicians, education officials and even some business leaders are in denial about the implications of these international comparisons and continue to complain that there's not enough money being spent on the nation's schools.
* * *
This march of judicial folly has reached New York, with trumpets blaring. The current New York City education budget per pupil is higher than the average for every state in the union, as well as for every other urban school district but one -- Washington, D.C.'s.

Nevertheless, a three-judge panel in the remedy phase of the 10-year-old case known as Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York has ruled that New York City's public schools are entitled to an additional $5.6 billion in operational aid from the state, plus another $9 billion in new capital funds. If the decision is upheld and the state pays up, the city's education budget will reach at least $20 billion within four years, for an average per-pupil expenditure of more than $18,000 annually.
Utterly amazing isn't it?

posted by anonymous at 3:52 PM

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