Unlikely. The department of education numbers show that the amount of money being spent on teaching has also gone up quite a bit relative to inflation.

Granted, this number may have trailed growth in wages and median income by some, but I'd actually have to go run the numbers. It shouldn't be that much of a gap.

if your district is anything like the average in the US, they are spending more per student in constant dollars now than they were when you were in school (of course, this may not exactly be the case if you were in school 7 years ago and your area was hit quite hard by the recession).

So the question is, what happened to all the money? Why were there budget cuts even though per student funding in real terms went up? Of course, your district could be different, and be the outlier. The real question we should be asking is where is the money going, because there is a lot more of it in the public school districts now that there was when I was in school (and that was only 12 years ago).

if we are measuring the success of a system by the few who stand out (by definition, people will stand out without a system, even if that system is absolute and utter crap), then the nonexistent PE classes (at least in my area they were phased out) are doing an amazing job creating professional athletes (just look at all the professional athletes that went to public school!).

That there are people who are exceptional is besides the point. The goal of public education isn't the exceptional, and it's success isn't measured by that metric. The success should be measured by the success of the middle class (not defined by percentile ranks, but rather percent of median income) in both the increase in it's size and the increase in that median income.

On the last two measures, without considering other factors, American public schools have been a failure in the last 30 years. But you may say this metric is unfair because there are so many influences on this measure. I'd agree. The closest we can come is probably college attendance and completion, and the experience of college professors when dealing with foreign educated, privately educated, and public educated students. My discussions with professors and many studies show that they feel as the years go by, students are LESS prepared for college level work. And it is bad enough that remedial classes are now being taught at the college level.

So at least by the local outcome and the global outcome, we are getting worse. On international comparisons, we are really quite miserable and don't only lose out to the intense testing and cram systems of East Asia and India. We are also losing to most of our European counterparts, even those crazy "don't believe in testing and everyone gets a medal for participation" Finns.

Yes I spent 11 years in the public system (only Kindergarten and 1st grade in a private school), and I appreciate it. In fact, some of the most inspiring teachers I ever met were in high school. But I'm not blind to the facts on the ground. I went to an extremely good school, within a system that was very responsive to parental pressure. It took 2 years for the school to go from never considering AP classes to rolling them out across all the high schools because a small cadre of parents asked. The school system is definitely doing worse than it used to on a whole though. And it's unlikely we will have a WW3 to wipe out competition for jobs that bolstered the middle class in the 50s and 60s, so we have to address this.

you should check the studies on this:
http://credo.stanford.edu/docu...

on average, charters are no better. But for some reason, they prove exceedingly successful in educated people in poverty, people where english is not their first language, and special education needs students.

Charters are supposed to be a place where different approaches are tried. And if public schools were doing their duty, they would look at this extraordinary set of results dealing with poor, handicap, or ESL students and find out how they can incorporate this success. There are real successes with at risk populations that are not being effectively serviced by the current public school system. As education is the best way to address the long term issues of generational poverty, I'd say charter schools are proving their worth quite ably.

The other data we have is that charter schools, their first or second year out, are very ineffective. It probably has to do with both the lower experience of the teacher core and trying to figure out what works, or at least that is my random guess based on nothing more than the back of an envelope.

So the best of both worlds would be leveraging the success in dealing with the needs of poor, ESL, and handicap students either as an offshoot or within the framework of the public school system. But no one in TPS wants to hear that they may be failing quite miserably relative to the competition and no one within the charter movement is willing to admit that the data doesn't support the wholesale abandonment of the public school system.

why is it everyone's argument against deregulation is only fraudsters will succeed?

That is ridiculous. What happens is that new entrants will have to spend years building a reputation in any job people highly value (like being a surgeon) before people will frequent you. It will take years, and many spent as an understudy of a doctor who has already won people's trust as being competent. This is what used to happen, and what would happen again. If you were only legally allowed to drive a specific type of car because the government certified you as competent, it would produce much the same result without requiring personal knowledge.

It does not mean that everyone would suddenly abandon quality products because someone sells something cheaper, without regards to what they are getting. I didn't run out and buy the cheapest phone available when I wanted to upgrade. In fact, I bought the most expensive one at the time because quality mattered to me. And I wouldn't do that with a doctor, a lawyer, or any other professional I have interacted with.

if they are worth it, then they have nothing to worry about. Literally, nothing. Because we are in the modern world, just because a cheaply made smartphone exists does not in any way slow sales of the iphone or galaxy S, and just because I can buy a plastic bag doesn't mean Louis Vutton suddenly has an issue.

I lived in London (just left a couple weeks ago) and as soon as I found out the ridiculous price gap to a mini-cab service, and the ease of calling for a private cab vs trying to find a black cab outside of downtown London, I never went back. It was cheaper, more convenient, and the price was known in advance (as compared to my experience of a cab driver taking wild detours that made no sense given traffic patterns at the time, they knew I wasn't an inspector though, with a thick american accent). I'm glad you value the black cab, and I suggest you continue to frequent them. But just because you love them doesn't mean everyone who doesn't should be stuck using them. Uber gives me another option for a private cab, and if the price and service are right on average, it'll win my business along with others. else it won't.

most likely the other mini cabs have to tell you your fare in advance, as compared to calculating it based on distance and time while in the cab. That seems to be the regulation at issue, though I'm unclear about the specifics.

You seem to be quite the cheerleader for the black cabs. Living there last year, I was far less impressed. I had a cabbie who didn't know Hamilton Terrace, and didn't know any of north London (within your 10 mile radius). I've had cabbies take me on long roundabout "shortcuts" that might have saved me 1 minute but definitely added several quid to the bill in the end (having taken NY cabs before, I know this strategy quite well).

They pass a test, and in the end know the major attractions. Hell, I had to pull out my phone and direct the cab to one of the paddington area hotels (within 300 meters of the station). That's pitiful.

why shouldn't a prominent lawyer's interpretation and other notes on a case not be copyrightable?

I don't really have a problem with this. If you just want all hte case documents, they are almost always available online in the US for free. If you want to read someone else's interpretation and commentary on the case, and possibly gain insight into how the case applies in other circumstances or following cases, then you pay for it. Sure, a significant portion of what they are giving you may just be edited versions of the case itself (and this is quite a time saver for some) or whatever public domain info they are giving you, but it doesn't mean their own input isn't copyrightable. I.E. you can copy the case pages in the book verbatim and be fine I would think, but I don't know why the rest needs to be public domain.

no it's the same as when you pay for a copy of any old book (canterbury tales for example). You are not paying for the copyright or a license, you are paying for the nice binding and ordering. and maybe some summaries along with discussions, or anything else they are providing.

guess you've never run your own business? car leases are an amazing way to get a car pretax. And if your business is incorporated (not S corp) you can get the car before corporate and personal taxes (which means you save quite a bit... as much as 60%) and still basically have a personal car. So what if the dealer makes an extra 10%...

In places with higher personal and corporate taxes, it is even better. Look at Japan's used car market, tons of black super high quality sedans that are 3 years old, because 3 years is the standard shortest lease and every company that is even kind of successful leases for 3 years and gives those cars to the senior execs as personal vehicles (a nice pretax perk). They sometimes give the car with a driver in the bigger companies because then you can really validate it as a work expense.

what are you talking about? 100k for school is still very expensive. Most public instate universities will have tuition and fees of 5-10k / year (UCF is 210/credit hour, UF is a bit more, I didn't feel like going for more schools). Cost of living varies, but in my senior year of college (within the last 10 years) I got away for about 600/month for rent, food, and beer money), so add in 6k per year in living expenses at school.

Now of course, if you want to pay the headline cost for a super expensive private school, boo hoo. That is like complaining your ferrari is bankrupting you.

so you are saying in my lifetime we may get to a point where a single chip could stop all the dupes on slashdot?

so you have the one size fits all method to make sure all children are learning exact what they need to at every stage? You should write an extension to the common core.

Everyone develops different skills at very different paces. I was, even though very active, very slow at developing any physical skills (eye-hand coordination, etc) but years ahead at math. If you think you have the solution to everyone's learning strategy, you are wrong.

For me, the creator of the show is the one who was inspiring, though unseen. But Shatner did a lot more than just act in the show, and that is probably a lot more important for this award than just his years on Star Trek.

Does anyone know if Roddenberry also pushed kids to study science? Star trek still inspires me to what is possible, and it's more than just technology. The society he envisioned is also something to work towards.