Did you even read the article you cited here? (And, btw, it's a news article, not a rigorous research article.) Person after person in the article points out that spending DOES matter, and it also really matters HOW it is spent.

Schools now have responsibility to do many things in society that were once provided elsewhere. Free lunch and breakfast, for example. Many schools have counselors and social workers, too. These are essential services to children who don't get them anywhere else. But they aren't free.

Also, the "overall scores," or tests, have changed somewhat too. Content changes, expectations change, learning needs change. They are definitely not teaching the exact same content now that they taught "in the 1970s." So making a comparison with students over five decades ago isn't really very meaningful, even for "test scores" (which, btw, have their proficiency requirements set by teachers).

Glad you brought up charter schools. The spending difference is largely a myth, since many charter schools have other sources of funding (such as donations or in-kind contributions), and many charter schools use the facilities from public schools and have little direct responsibility to pay for those facilities. So, duh, their costs would be much lower because those charter schools aren't building facilities. AND, many public schools STILL provide services for students who are enrolled in charter schools - special education services (which are very expensive), are often still provided by the public schools. Like private schools, charter schools also tend to skim off the families and students who are most motivated and have the most resources to put toward school.

It's a compelling talking point, but like many political talking points, the facts are much more complicated and there's really no good evidence that charter schools are systematically better, cheaper, or efficient.

Alcohol prohibition was not a universal failure - alcohol consumption was way down during prohibition, as were alcohol-associated issues such as violence and domestic abuse (drunk driving wasn't really as much of a thing in the early 1900s). But, there were other consequences from alcohol prohibition, such as organized crime, bootlegging, enforcement issues, lost jobs and businesses, and lost tax revenue. Now, after the end of prohibition, there's lots of tax $$ coming in and lots of jobs in alcohol, but also lots of death, illness, and other negative societal and family problems. Alcohol perhaps causes more death than any other legal substance in the U.S. (maybe tobacco would be first, I don't know the current numbers).

In any real-world situation, causality is really complex and lots of factors interact with each other. BUT, I would note, we still prohibit children from purchasing alcohol. And I see no reason to not prohibit social media for children.

...did something very similar (without the required stock investments) in a much more efficient way, and didn't require a billionaire to donate funds. Republicans hated the expanded child tax credits (although the expanded tax credits were very good at reducing the number of children in poverty), but are now celebrating this as a big "win"...because, I guess, it includes three of the Republicans' favorite things: 1) billionaires, 2) pretending the private sector does everything better than the government (and that the private sector does not directly benefit from subsidies, regulations, and other benefits provided by the government), and 3) big, fat, juicy profits for banks and Wall Street.

Do I have to explain how causation works?

A -> B is causation. It is one directional. You can have B without A; but if you increase A, you get more B.

For most "B's" in the real world, there are multiple factors that cause B. And often there are long chains of causes that go together. Which is to say, if we eliminate or decrease one "A", we would expect "B" to decrease, although we wouldn't expect it to disappear.

Yes, and I agree, but when technology companies intentionally make products (games, social media, and videos) that are extremely addictive, target children, and designed to maximize screen time (not to mention collecting children's private data and selling it to advertisers), that's a problem we can solve with regulation.

We've had good success with efforts to stop children from smoking. We can use similar strategies to get these addictive software products out of the hands of children, too.

The article says "it would integrate AI education into every undergraduate program, and the University of Florida and the University of Michigan are rolling out similar initiatives", then people go on to make all kinds of assumptions about what it means to educate about AI, and then make assumptions - such as the Institution is Turning Over All Teaching and Content To AI! - about what that will mean for these programs and students.

When, in reality, this is not what UF, UM, etc. are doing when they say "integrate AI education." Rather, it is likely the case that programs will be teaching students ABOUT AI - what it means, what its limits are, how it can effectively be used, where its limitations are, and how to use it to support productivity.

Because there's no doubt that employers want employees who understand AI and can use it effectively.

The headline and breathless summary is just a strawman; clickbait nonsense.

The citation you provide does not support your case. The citation you provided shows the PERCENT of total spending on instruction was lower, it does not say the amount of instructional spending was less (because if the total spending went up, you can see an increase in spending even if the percent went down).

And, in fact, such a percent change could show SUCCESSFUL cost cutting, as institutions are spending less on instruction by hiring more adjunct instructors, which then requires more supervision to hire, train, onboard, manage, etc. that larger pool of part-time instructors, so the balance shifts toward administration but it could still be a cost-saving measure in the end.

I think the big area where we will see lots of financial pressure in the next 5-10 years is on spending on "research" at research institutions. Students and states are growing tired of paying faculty to do research on topics that are of little public interest or direct benefit (often just arguing back and forth with other researchers), and we will see, increasingly, cuts to spending in those areas, forcing faculty to spend much more of their time teaching.

The article says Texas bought $5 Million in btc. The annual state budget of Texas is north of $330 Billion. $5 million is a rounding error. Unless Texas increases its BTC investment by 50-100 times, the fund could collapse and Texas wouldn't even notice. The fund likely also bought some hedges to protect against loss of its BTC investment, too (at least a smart investment manager would).

Personally, I wouldn't invest anything you can't afford to lose in crypto. It looks like, so far, Texas agrees with me.

You can trade-in iPhone 13 right now for $180 toward a iPhone 17. Given that there is no trade-in value for an iPhone 12, I suspect this is the last fall season where you'll be able to get a trade-in value for iPhone 13, at least direct from Apple (3rd party buyers might still offer rebates and cash on trade-ins). That incentive is enough to push some users to upgrade.

Feature-wise, battery life is much better on the 17 than the 13 (especially an old one), the camera is much, much better (especially for the Instagram crowd) and overall speed. But if the 13 works for you, that's great, keep it as long as possible. It keeps more junk out of the landfill.

Between, or maybe above the existing interstate highway system? A few tunnels here and there seem like they could be a big challenge.

And even if they used the existing highway system, the infrastructure cost would be enormous. We'll see full-on self-driving cars and busses in the U.S. before we see significant amounts of high-speed rail. Just not going to happen in a significant way in the U.S.

Sheesh, so many misrepresentations of facts in your post, hard to know where to start.

More than half of teachers identify as Republicans or Independents (https://www.edweek.org/leadership/survey-educators-political-leanings-who-they-voted-for-where-they-stand-on-key-issues/2017/12). 40% of teachers identified as Democrats.

This is laughably false. If you have "study after study" that shows this, then link to one rigorous study that shows this. Just one rigorous study.

And if money doesn't matter in education, then why do rich families send their children to schools that spend more per student than poor families? Do rich people love throwing away money on education if it really makes no difference?

I don't know what NAEP data you are looking at, but the data I see (https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=NP&chort=2&sub=RED&sj=&st=MN&year=2024R3). For example, in 2024, California outperformed Florida, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, SC, Oklahoma, and New Mexico on 8th grade reading, but did somewhat worse than national average on 8th grade math (Florida was also below the national average on 8th grade math). In terms of average spending per pupil at the state level (which is a stupid measure of spending because it is hugely variable by district), the states that spend the most - New York, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, (https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/per-pupil-spending-by-state) were often near the top in the NAEP rankings.

In any case, a state-level analysis misses the point because every state has fantastic, amazing, wonderful, community-supported schools, and every state has horrible, underfunded, overcrowded schools. Analyzing state averages and average performance ignores the reality of the vast difference between the education the rich get in the U.S. and the education everyone else gets in the U.S.

Republicans have abandoned public education, which has driven teachers to the Democrats. Even Republican teachers do not trust Republican politicians to invest in public education. Only 1 in 10 teachers say they trust Republicans to ensure "adequate funding for schools, adequate pay and benefits for teachers, and equal access to high quality K-12 education for students." (https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/04/04/teachers-views-on-the-state-of-public-k-12-education/#k-12-education-and-political-parties).

Yes, I watched my kids' elementary school classrooms during online school. What they received in school was WAY better than what I got. AND the school is way more diverse economically and socially than my school ever was.

You can't make someone be trans. And you can't make someone not be trans. And no matter your view on "trans," the reality is that there are trans people in our communities and our children interact with people who are trans either right now (as part of their own families) or in future years as co-workers, neighbors, colleagues, friends, etc. Should schools pretend that trans people do not exist?

There are something like 50 million children enrolled in school. I don't doubt that, somewhere, in some school, some teacher (or maybe a sub or an unprepared babysitter) said something about sex to children that they should not have said. And this happens across all portions of the political spectrum (like how some teachers celebrated Trump's election openly in their classrooms and laughed and mocked their brown students who were terrified that their parents would be deported while they were at school). Schools are widely diverse places and teachers should be held accountable for inappropriate behavior. But schools should also be a place for information, and children have a right to know age-appropriate information about their bodies and about sex.

If you look at opinion polls, on most issues (abortion, gay marriage, tax policy, etc.) the majority of the U.S. population is liberal.

Sure, some homeschools are great, but there are many situations where "homeschool" is simply an excuse by the parents to exploit their children's labor (by making them do chores at home or on the farm all day) or to cover ongoing abuse (teachers can't report abuse if the children don't come to school). In general I am fine if some families want to home school, but states need to do WAY more to ensure home schools are not about abuse and exploitation, and that they are actually providing children with a good education.

Sorry you had a bad experience with school. Too many schools are underfunded and too many teachers are overwhelmed with large class sizes, behavioral and disciplinary challenges, lack of administrative support and in-class assistance, and disinterested, unhelpful parents (who are working 2-3 jobs, often at night, and are themselves exhausted and burned out).

For most people the solution will not be "more homeschooling," because that is a pipe dream for most who are struggling to get by. The solution is a much bigger investment in good schools that work for everyone.