Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Where's The Bail Out For Education?

Seven Hundred billion dollars here. Twenty-Five billion maybe there? The question for the day is how much would it cost just to bring the crumbling buildings that we warehouse our children in public schools across America back up to spec and high quality safety standards? That's minimally the number we would need to bail out our public schools pre-k-Universities (already on 10-15 years of deferred maintenance). Where's the bail out for public schools in America?

Oh, wait, we squandered that last month in the new social welfare state we call Iraq. I don't mean to make light of a serious situation, but really, the for profit industry has some answering to do before they get "bailed out," if ever. Education does not operate well on the for-profit model, mainly because it's not scalable. The more students we teach at one time the more expensive it is. It doesn't get cheaper to provide high quality education to more students like it does when you aggregate risk and bundle your assets to be sold to some one willing to assume it (or if you build more cars in bigger factories).

Education is in much more dire need for a real cash infusion, but we are so used to threadbare operating budgets, that it has become commonplace and has been the longstanding status quo. When the economic crisis finally culminates in the murdering of our public schools, the tab is going to blow away those being requested by companies that actually don't deserve the bail out and should fall on their own swords.

How many small start ups are getting rescued here? Most of the people gainfully employed in America are employed in small businesses, not those asking for more corporate welfare. Our value system is totally twisted (why else would we pay baseball players more money to swing a bat than we do the teachers who taught them how to read). How do we rectify that?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can't mass educate children. It is a local problem that is why you pay school taxes.
Now on a federal level when we are talking about possible massive job losses which in fact is due more to regulations put on businesses by the government and thanks to the big unions who also are a big factor to democrat funding and the sub prime mortgage problem also accelerated by the government to force banks to make bad loans then maybe instead of blaming corporations we should be blaming dysfunctional government policies .But no we wouldn't want to expose the truth now would we. And the solution to this problem is going to be make government even bigger but not better. In other words we are headed down a path not to solution but a path to more government corruption and job loss.
Government is not the answer to all the problems. Actually they are the cause of alot of it.
Lisa

Unknown said...

Lisa,

You and I agree. You cannot mass educate children. Education is not scalable. And, your local taxes are so not going to cover the cost of educating even the small number of kids well in your community. This is what sets us up for a haves and have nots scenario. Look at the tag to the top of my blog - there is an enormous difference between a equal opportunity for an education and an equal opportunity for an equal education. The latter costs a great deal more. So, are you in favor of raising the taxes to cover it?

Anonymous said...

Hey I'd love to pay for everyone's education except in this climate raising taxes is not a good idea especially since we are already paying 11,000 a year in property taxes of which 6000,00 goes to our school taxes. So maybe people who pay alot less than us should kick in being you seem to think that people have all this extra expendendable income to pay more taxes.
That's why people who have children willing to learn who actually go to school should be able to have school vouchers as not to be exposed to schools who have kids who need parents more than teachers.
I know about that situation. I had a friend who taught at an inner city school and she said out of a 6 hour day you are lucky to teach for an hour of that. The rest of the time is spent mothering so actually money isn't always the answer.
We have 2 school districts that I know of that teachers have to be escorted by security to their cars.
Many good teachrers quit because they are frustrated with not being able o do what they are paid and love to do.
Lisa

Unknown said...

Lisa,

If you are not willing to pay for schools but willing to pay to incarcerate, aren't you filling the wrong bucket with resources?

Anonymous said...

So now you don't want to incarcerate? Maybe they can open up a halfway house on your block.
What I am saying is this is not the time to make people pay higher taxes in a struggling economy. You know Obama ran on tax cuts for the middle class,you know the ones who are struggling.
Funny thing is everyone actually thinks they are getting a big tax cut. They all fell for it. They actually think Obama is concerned about the middle clas. I guess they will find out soon enough that is was just words.
Lisa

Unknown said...

Lisa,

Proof is in the pudding isn't it. I didn't say I wasn't for incarceration, but the costs of incarcerating some one is more than sending them to high priced colleges. I would rather educate the whole, and reduce the population in prisons and save money that way.

Anonymous said...

Oh so that's our choice? How about we about the reigns on the Global Warming agenda and the trillion dollars Obama has planned for new spending and dump that into education?

Or is Global Warming more important than education. Which if you noticed we are in our 2nd of record cold temperatures,you now the normal climate cycle that the radical left doesn't seem to want to admit because all they can see is dollar signs.
Lisa

Anonymous said...

That last comment was a mess but I am sure you get the context of it.

Lisa

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Well Lisa,

it's a known fact that high quality education can prevent incarceration. It's not a choice of either or, but a win all around. Spend on delivering high quality education, and you get less criminals. The savings is gained as we prevent the need for incarceration.

In terms of global warming, you're not viewing it as a true capitalistic endeavor. There are great giant buckets of money to be made in generating clean and green energy. Most companies will have to shift or die. The money won't come from taxpayers. It will come from these new companies customers.

On the other hand, we never would have gotten to the moon if it weren't for a powerful president leading us there. And has there been a cost or a benefit for that 1960s drive?

Your thinking is largely speculative. Stick with the facts rather than the faith, and you may find yourself in a much better situation.

BTW, if you were so willing to Trust Bush to follow him to Baghdad, why can't you trust the next president to lead us?

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's about leading it's about redistribution and you want to know what will happen with further restrictions to companies? The rest of the world will pass us right up and prosper while we continue to flail. Just look at the auto industry. Why do you think forein companies passed us up? Because they had the money to create better cars with less restrictions.
What was the point of going to the moon if Obama wants to cut the reason we went ther to begin with. While China advances it's space program and we diminish ours what will we do without satellites when they decide to knock them out and defense cuts for space is cut?
Obama isn't the one leading he is the one carrying the socialist message for George Soros and Moveon(one in the same)
Again if you spend money on high quality education what good will it do if parents aren't involved or kids don't come to class.
It's not all about eduaction if one is not willing to learn.
And kids can't go to college if they can't make it past 9th grade.
Just look at the dropout rate. How will money prevent that especillay if you can't get teachers to teach in the areas where you have the high crime and high dropout rate.
There needs to be a different message other than the democrats solutin of always throwing money at it.
Lisa

Oh and didn't follow Bush to Baghdad but Clinton,Kerry,Gore and many other demorcats did.
Only they can get away with not admitting it. Truly amazing.

Unknown said...

Lisa,

That's a lot of prognostication for one person. Are you sure you can go with your predictions as sure bets?

By your own testimony, the current system of public education is bankrupt. It's not producing. If that is the case, then you would agree that there is much to improve there, and there is a large difference between the costs for an equal opportunity for education and an equal opportunity for an equal education.

Well, certainly, the W, Rove and Co. has been successful in their strategy of borrowing to pay for today so that they can tax the children tomorrow?

Anonymous said...

You know what 's amazing also that people from other countries come here from other countries.
If education is so bad here explain how Obama excelled?
Lisa

Unknown said...

Lisa,

I'm not the one saying education is bad. It needs serious improvement. You can't go case by case and expect that the whole system works the same for every one.

Why is it that there are nearly two million African American men in prison instead of excelling like Obama?

Anonymous said...

Thy made bad choices. You know they do have that right to "choose"
Lisa