Robert Gray for President

[johnson86-1]

Mississippi spends a little over 8k per student, which ranks 45th in spending. Seems like there *MIGHT* be a little correlation?

Yeah, looks like you might not know what correlation means. Kind of hard to point out a correlation with one example out of 51. You could just as easily say D.C. spending is really high, and they rank really low, so there is a negative correlation.

But maybe you can argue that if we had fully funded education for more than two years you would use correlation correctly?

But joking aside, I did mean correlation after controlling for socioeconomic status of students, race, country of origin, and whatever else can be controlled for. I think we probably could stand to spend more on education (although I'd put it several notches down on reforms I'd like to see), but a constitutional initiative putting the power to set statewide education spending in the hands of one chancellor that only residents of Hinds County get to vote for is a 17ing terrible way to go about this.

 

[Shmuley]

I'm copyrighting "@50ShadesOfRobertGray" as a parody twitter handle.

 

[OleMissLogo]

Mississippi spends a little over 8k per student, which ranks 45th in spending. Seems like there *MIGHT* be a little correlation?

Study after study shows that there is no correlation between school spending and student success.

Like I said, some degree of district consolidation is a no-brainer. What do you consider waste?

For starters, Mississippi spends

$ 4,200,403,490.89

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on "administration" which is about 33% of the all school expenditures. So there is a start.

 

[thatsbaseball]

That`s not such a bad thing....no mug shots !

 

[seshomoru]

Study after study shows that there is no correlation between school spending and student success.



For starters, Mississippi spends

$ 4,200,403,490.89

<tbody>
</tbody>

on "administration" which is about 33% of the all school expenditures. So there is a start.

Wow!!!! $4billion!!!!

Except that the entire K-12 budget for 14-15 was just over $2billion. Also, administrator and superintendent salaries are funded through your local taxes, not by the state. Even if that $4billion number is somehow correct, that means it's spent at the local level, is up to the local districts, and has jack **** to do with state funding.

 

[archdog]

Because challenging Bryant would be political suicide for any Republican. And no Democrat has a chance anyway.

Hell I will do it, I will run against him. Everyone get on the archdog ticket.

 

[prairiedawg]

Study after study shows that there is no correlation between school spending and student success.



For starters, Mississippi spends

$ 4,200,403,490.89

<tbody>
</tbody>

on "administration" which is about 33% of the all school expenditures. So there is a start.

Add to this fact, spending per student has increased 50% adjusted for inflation over the last 20 years and yet there is no appreciable improvement. And these education rankings that keep being quoted, a lot of them incorporate spending per student in their rankings to support a flawed argument to spend more = higher ranking. Take the spending out of the equation, Mississippi is at the bottom, but DC is right above us and they spend the most. South Dakota is near where we are per student, yet they academically rank in the top five or ten. Casino money = no improvement, Tobacco money (that which was earmarked for education) = no improvement. Does education need to be improved? Of course, but education spending alone will not address the issues we face.

 

[dorndawg]

Last time I checked, 45 was still pretty 17ing close to 50.

Don't want 1 chancellor making decisions? Fine, maybe have the Legislature do it's job? Is that really too much to ask?

 

[aTotal360]

 

[mstateglfr]

School district consolidation, merit pay for teachers, and a Master's Ed degree requirement for teachers (with more child psychology and learning coursework).

How would merit be determined? By peer review, by leadership review, or by student testing?
Getting a class of 25 where 18 are on free lunch, 20 come from single parent homes, and over half read at a grade level below what they are is just setting up for failure if you use student testing as a measure of a teacher's merit.

 

[johnson86-1]

Last time I checked, 45 was still pretty 17ing close to 50.

Whooooooooosh.

Don't want 1 chancellor making decisions? Fine, maybe have the Legislature do it's job? Is that really too much to ask?

The Legislature basically is doing it's job. They take a pot of money each year and decide what to spend it on. What you're asking for is for the Legislature to not do its job b/c you don't like the way they're doing it. I don't like the way they do it either but they vote the way their voters demand. I sure as hell wouldn't be so childish (or corrupt, depending on whether the person knows what Initiative 42 does) to try to vest spending power in one chancellor that only residents of one county get to vote for. I'm not even sure Initiative 42 would be constitutional, because I'm not sure having that much legislative power in an elected official that most of the citizens can't vote for constitutes a republican form of government. But I'm not sure there is a way to enforce that constitutional provision; I think I remember that the courts have basically said they can't enforce that provision.

 

[Duke Humphrey]

Raising taxes or gutting other state services, which do you prefer?

Don't want 1 chancellor making decisions? Fine, maybe have the Legislature do it's job? Is that really too much to ask?

How would you feel if that Chancellor said "MSU has more than enough, lets give some of their money to K-12." There is only a limited amount of resources.

 

[johnson86-1]

How would merit be determined? By peer review, by leadership review, or by student testing?
Getting a class of 25 where 18 are on free lunch, 20 come from single parent homes, and over half read at a grade level below what they are is just setting up for failure if you use student testing as a measure of a teacher's merit.

Teacher merit probably can't work in public schools. We don't really have a good, objective way to measure performance and gov't agencies are just not good at pay for performance b/c they don't have competitive pressure to force them to get it right. The only way I can see it working is to basically leave it up to the individual schools to set teacher pay and combine it with school choice. Principles can allocate their labor budget however they feel best, and the only control that would stop giving higher pay based on something other than quality would be students leaving the school and/or the school board firing him.

 

[dorndawg]

Again, why not maybe have the Legislature do it's job? Like is that really such an unreasonable position?

 

[dorndawg]

^^^Prima facie evidence 42 is needed^^^

 

[seshomoru]

Heard a great argument against merit pay once...

You can't run public school like you run a business. First of all, it's not a profit generating entity. The output is very subjective and takes 10-15 years to really see what works or not. The biggest difference however, is that schools can't pick their inputs (students), and they can't throw them out if they aren't what you want. Not only that, cooperation, not competition is what you want to inspire in teachers. So they don't pick who they teach, they don't have the resources they need, they don't have the classroom size they need, and you want to pay them based on what they do with that?

Anyway, we've seen what 15 years of under funding (lets just call it breaking a law they passed themselves) does.

 

[OleMissLogo]

How would merit be determined? By peer review, by leadership review, or by student testing?
Getting a class of 25 where 18 are on free lunch, 20 come from single parent homes, and over half read at a grade level below what they are is just setting up for failure if you use student testing as a measure of a teacher's merit.

All of the above, actually. For one of my courses I did a mock formula for bonus pay that incorporated peer review, administrative review, and student testing. And the peer review would involve teachers in other districts to avoid favoritism.

Also, the formula would scale each component differently based on the experience of the teacher. So, a first year teacher would have student testing weighted the same as a teacher with 25 years of experience.

 

[OleMissLogo]

You can't run public school like you run a business. First of all, it's not a profit generating entity. The output is very subjective and takes 10-15 years to really see what works or not. The biggest difference however, is that schools can't pick their inputs (students), and they can't throw them out if they aren't what you want. Not only that, cooperation, not competition is what you want to inspire in teachers. So they don't pick who they teach, they don't have the resources they need, they don't have the classroom size they need, and you want to pay them based on what they do with that?

Anyway, we've seen what 15 years of under funding (lets just call it breaking a law they passed themselves) does.

First, they aren't breaking a law. The MAEP formula is a suggestion of funding, not a requirement. There is not a law that requires the Legislature to fully-fund the MAEP formula. That is a myth. It's false. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't read the law.

Second, there are plenty of ways to encourage cooperation with merit pay. There are numerous studies that show that when done right, merit pay encourages and facilitates cooperation. Of course, in places with strong teacher unions, it often fails because the unions work so hard to oppose it.

 

[seshomoru]

Then let's just call it screwing over the kids of Mississippi.

But doing it legally.

We do have some sweet new shopping malls though.

 

[OleMissLogo]

Wow!!!! $4billion!!!!

Except that the entire K-12 budget for 14-15 was just over $2billion. Also, administrator and superintendent salaries are funded through your local taxes, not by the state. Even if that $4billion number is somehow correct, that means it's spent at the local level, is up to the local districts, and has jack **** to do with state funding.

Wrong.

First, the state appropriations from the General Fund was just over $2 Billion. That is not the only revenue source for schools, as you yourself point out in the next sentence.

Second, I got it from here: http://www.mde.k12.ms.us/docs/missi...ual_report_2013-2014D6B1CBFBF3B5.pdf?sfvrsn=2 That would be the Superintendent's Annual Report. Under the table titled "Administrative Cost"

 

[mstateglfr]

You can't run public school like you run a business. First of all, it's not a profit generating entity. The output is very subjective and takes 10-15 years to really see what works or not. The biggest difference however, is that schools can't pick their inputs (students), and they can't throw them out if they aren't what you want. Not only that, cooperation, not competition is what you want to inspire in teachers. So they don't pick who they teach, they don't have the resources they need, they don't have the classroom size they need, and you want to pay them based on what they do with that?

Anyway, we've seen what 15 years of under funding (lets just call it breaking a law they passed themselves) does.

Exactly- Tying pay to the standardized results of a group of kids who are picked for you to teach is nuts.

 

[OleMissLogo]

But doing it legally.

We do have some sweet new shopping malls though.

And as I would argue, there is plenty of money in the system as it is. The system is broken, right? Can we agree on that? If the system is broken, how is an increase in inputs going to help? The system will still be broken.

The public education system hasn't been about the kids in a century.

 

[OleMissLogo]

Exactly- Tying pay to the standardized results of a group of kids who are picked for you to teach is nuts.

And I didn't recommend that.

 

[mstateglfr]

All of the above, actually. For one of my courses I did a mock formula for bonus pay that incorporated peer review, administrative review, and student testing. And the peer review would involve teachers in other districts to avoid favoritism.

Also, the formula would scale each component differently based on the experience of the teacher. So, a first year teacher would have student testing weighted the same as a teacher with 25 years of experience.

Administrative review makes sense. Peer review, when properly executed, makes sense. Student testing doesn't make sense. Teachers, especially ones in socioeconomically lower areas, are so much more than simply educators. They deal with social issues such as drugs, poverty, broken homes, abuse, hygiene, language barriers, and uninterested parents. Progress for one child or group of children must be measured differently than progress for another child or group of children.


I don't understand your last 2 sentences. You say components would be weighted differently, but that the weighting would be the same for a new teacher and experienced teacher.

 

[mstateglfr]

Originally Posted by mstateglfr Exactly- Tying pay to the standardized results of a group of kids who are picked for you to teach is nuts.

And I didn't recommend that.

Originally Posted by OleMissLogo School district consolidation, merit pay for teachers,

Originally Posted by mstateglfr How would merit be determined? By peer review, by leadership review, or by student testing?

Originally Posted by OleMissLogo All of the above, actually.

 

[OleMissLogo]

Administrative review makes sense. Peer review, when properly executed, makes sense. Student testing doesn't make sense. Teachers, especially ones in socioeconomically lower areas, are so much more than simply educators. They deal with social issues such as drugs, poverty, broken homes, abuse, hygiene, language barriers, and uninterested parents. Progress for one child or group of children must be measured differently than progress for another child or group of children.

Administrative review would take that into consideration. Also, in my formula teachers wouldn't be compared to one another, and they certainly wouldn't be compared to teachers in other districts. But how much of a demographic difference is there from one classroom to the next within the same school? Very, very little.

I don't understand your last 2 sentences. You say components would be weighted differently, but that the weighting would be the same for a new teacher and experienced teacher.

Typo. Would NOT have the same weight.

 

[seshomoru]

I'm seeing administrative expenses of $437mil... not $4billion

$4.66 billion was the grand total of everything. And as I stated, the state doesn't pay a dime toward administration anyway. MAEP money, whether existing or new in the future can only go toward instructional expenses. Fight away at your local level about consolidation. Maybe you'll save $20 bucks a year on your property taxes. But also fight away for increased MAEP funding, because whatever they short instructional expenses has to be made up locally. Many districts are at the maximum allowable percentage of local funds that can go schools as it is, so they have no recourse other to force the legislature to give them what the law says they should.

 

[johnson86-1]

Again, why not maybe have the Legislature do it's job? Like is that really such an unreasonable position?

The Legislature's job is difficult to do in part because voters resist being grownups. They act like you and stick their fingers in their ear when somebody tries to explain tradeoffs to them. You apparently think their job should be defined as appropriating more money to primary and secondary education. But every year, lots of voters have ideas about what spending should be prioritized. There's not really a good reason to let voters in 2015 set spending priorities years in the future, much less give a chancellor the authority to appropriate money.

 

[johnson86-1]

You can't run public school like you run a business. First of all, it's not a profit generating entity. The output is very subjective and takes 10-15 years to really see what works or not. The biggest difference however, is that schools can't pick their inputs (students), and they can't throw them out if they aren't what you want. Not only that, cooperation, not competition is what you want to inspire in teachers. So they don't pick who they teach, they don't have the resources they need, they don't have the classroom size they need, and you want to pay them based on what they do with that?

None of those are reasons you can't run public school like a business. Businesses can handle all those things, but not when there is no discipline from the market. It wouldn't be perfect because it's pretty difficult to get right, but plenty of businesses manage to identify and pay high performers when their production is not easily measured.

Anyway, we've seen what 15 years of under funding (lets just call it breaking a law they passed themselves) does.

I always cringe when I hear this because it makes Mississippians sound so stupid. Nobody stops to think, "Wait, how did a legislature over a decade ago bind today's legislature on a majority vote?"

 

[dorndawg]

Yeah I understand tradeoffs just fine but thanks for the condescending tone. YES, I do in fact think the Legislature's 17ing JOB is to appropriate $ to schools (amongst other duties), which the votes hired them to do. If you are suggesting voters have largely hired incompetent morons for that job, we would be in agreement.

You are further being intellectually dishonest when you say "one chancellor will appropriate money" if in fact the legislature doesn't do their job. If it goes to court, it will be appealed no matter what to the Supreme Court.

 

[dorndawg]

I'm not sure you understand how "laws" work...

I always cringe when I hear this because it makes Mississippians sound so stupid. Nobody stops to think, "Wait, how did a legislature over a decade ago bind today's legislature on a majority vote?"