# The Education Numbers **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 26, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320 "2013-10-26T17:24:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/21 "2013-10-28T06:20:49Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Obviously we need a major reform of our public education system. > > **Resistance to accountability measures** from teachers’ unions as well as the inherently foolish notion that simply spending more money will solve the problem are the major roadblocks to fixing it. > > Instead of reforming a truly broken system–education–the Democrats fell on their sword to reform a system that was serving the majority of Americans to a satisfactory degree. There are no good objective measures of a teacher’s capability. Evaluating such is highly subjective with far too many uncontrolled variables. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/22 "2013-10-28T06:25:01Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I recently looked at the NIMSS scores for North Carolina, and I took away a few interesting things: > > 1. Contrary to public opinion, the US scores significantly above average among industrialized nations on this test (average is 500, the US is something like 540). We’re not in the upper tier, but we’re solidly above-average. Yea, the “education crisis” is something of a crock. As you say, we score a bit above average against other OECD countries, and the aforementioned NAEP scores have gotten steadily better since 1970. Of course, one can argue we should improve faster, or do even better. But the idea that our schools are getting worse, or that they’re much worse then similar countries is wrong. There isn’t any huge problem with American education. > [@Stringbean](#): > > Obviously we need a major reform of our public education system. Why? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/23 "2013-10-28T06:35:11Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Instead of reforming a truly broken system–education–the Democrats fell on their sword to reform a system that was serving the majority of Americans to a satisfactory degree. Please tell me you don’t mean healthcare. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/24 "2013-10-28T12:24:05Z")
My first thought when looking at that graph was “are those teacher salaries adjusted for inflation”? Because if they aren’t (and the sidebar note doesn’t indicate they are), then it looks more like teacher spending was flat, just like the performance. My second was that I thought many of these tests were re-centered to account for changing scholastic performance, so a test from 1980 is not directly comparable to a test from 1990. My next was who these extra staffers are, and are they the ones driving the increase in spending more than actual teacher salaries. Adding a math teacher is going to have a much different effect than giving the principal his own secretary, but they may both be listed as “extra staff”. If people think money doesn’t affect education, I wonder how many of these people would also be ok with education dollars being distributed statewide instead of district wide - thereby spending the same on high-income neighborhood schools as low-income neighborhood schools. Somehow I think the high-income neighborhoods would not be as happy as the low-income neighborhoods about that arrangement. ---
**Author:** ![BrightSunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b3f665/32.png) [@BrightSunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightSunshine)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/25 "2013-10-28T12:54:53Z")
Real (inflation-adjusted) GDP per capita doubled between 1970 and 2010[1]. The rise in education spending is not out of line with the general rise in spending on everything else. [1] [US Real GDP Per Capita](http://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-per-capita) ---
**Author:** ![Cyros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a698b9/32.png) [@Cyros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyros)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/26 "2013-10-28T13:19:32Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > But when I talk about how the real solution to our educational ills is to attack poverty head-on, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. We ROCK at educating middle-class and upper-class kids. Where we struggle is at educating low-income kids. Well, it looks like **cornopean** ’s solution would solve that by taking those low-income kids right out of the pool. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/27 "2013-10-28T14:00:17Z")
The main reason that teachers roll their eyes at “accountablity” is that it takes away from teacher preparation time, one-on-one teaching, parent conference time, extra-curricula sponsorship time and the hundreds of tasks a teacher has to do to be prepared. It’s a little like having two jobs and trying to do them at the same time. When we first had the Career Ladder program of accountability in Tennessee, I passed the bonus pay stage easily, with a perfect score in one of the four areas of the test. But on the second stage of the evaluation (which was optional), an evaluator marked me down on classroom discipline. Reason given? I had no discipline problems while the evaluator was present, so she couldn’t see how I would handle discipline problems if they arose. (I found out later that what she did was illegal.) This class was a fundamental English class. That is where most teachers have discipline problems. I could have challenged it and won easily, but I didn’t have time to do the extra activities that would be required of a teacher at that career level anyway. (At the second step, they didn’t just give you a bonus for having a high evaluation. You had to do still more work than a regular teacher in years to come.) JFTR, I graduated from the country’s #1 ranked teacher education school. It is also the #1 ranked school at Vanderbilt University. I was a good teacher. Our inner-city school outranked all other high schools in Nashville on proficiency skills for two years. Don’t tell me that Africian-American students don’t have what it takes. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/28 "2013-10-28T14:20:39Z")
The graph would be more honest if it tracked changes in science/math/reading expenditures along with changes in science/math/reading scores. As it is, it’s purposely misleading. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/29 "2013-10-28T14:24:25Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The graph would be more honest if it tracked changes in science/math/reading expenditures along with changes in science/math/reading scores. Along with number of high school graduates per capita now vs then. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/30 "2013-10-28T15:28:20Z")
I agree. We should also cut Doctor’s salaries as well as Attorneys since salary obviously does not get quality people into a field. Doctor’s earning maybe 10% more than an average teacher should suffice. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/31 "2013-10-28T17:13:26Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > I believe school performance is largely due to genetics and family income. Poor schools perform poorly on average because their students are poor, regardless of teacher salaries or budget. > > If you want to increase educational success, reduce poverty. This would also have the effect of reducing crime, disease, depression, obesity, malnutrition, drug use, gang violence, discrimination, teenage pregnancy and… poverty. Win-win, really. But it would do nothing for the genetics, assuming you’re using that word in the usual sense. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/32 "2013-10-28T17:27:58Z")
> [@Cyros](#): > > Well, it looks like **cornopean** ’s solution would solve that by taking those low-income kids right out of the pool. The gene pool? ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/33 "2013-10-28T17:38:30Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Why? We spend vastly more than any other nation yet our students score middle-of-the-road in comparative aptitude. I assume your solution is to throw even more money into the system? Isn’t there a saying about repeatedly doing something but expecting different results? ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/34 "2013-10-28T17:40:11Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Please tell me you don’t mean healthcare. Yes, I mean healthcare. Polls taken during the ACA debate showed 70+% of Americans were satisfied with their healthcare. Do you suppose equivalent polls about our education system would yield similar results? ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/35 "2013-10-28T17:42:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But it would do nothing for the genetics, assuming you’re using that word in the usual sense. Right. My point is we can’t help genetics overall. Good schools have ways of attracting parents/kids with good genes and rejecting others in order to keep their scores up. But in general, if we’re talking about universal education, government run or otherwise, we can’t change students’ genes in the short run. We can, however, change their income, which would go a long way towards fixing a whole lot of problems, one of which is educational achievement. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/36 "2013-10-28T17:43:27Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Instead of reforming a truly broken system–education–the Democrats fell on their sword to reform a system that was serving the majority of Americans to a satisfactory degree. Actually, it was the **Republicans** who fell on their sword over the ACA, and they’ll bleed out in November 2014. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/37 "2013-10-28T17:45:00Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Polls taken during the ACA debate showed 70+% of Americans were satisfied with their healthcare. 92.8% of Americans are employed, so I guess we needn’t do anything about unemployment. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/38 "2013-10-28T17:45:54Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Yes, I mean healthcare. > > Polls taken during the ACA debate showed 70+% of Americans were satisfied with their healthcare. > > Do you suppose equivalent polls about our education system would yield similar results? Would they in any country? Health care can be pretty black and white- either you are healthy or you are not. Education, on the other hand, always has room for improvement. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/39 "2013-10-28T17:49:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Actually, it was the **Republicans** who fell on their sword over the ACA, and they’ll bleed out in November 2014. It beggars the mind then to explain the historic swing in Congressional power in the 2010 midterm elections. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320/40 "2013-10-28T17:53:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > 92.8% of Americans are employed, so I guess we needn’t do anything about unemployment. Unemployment isn’t a poll of consumer satisfaction but merely a data point, so your comparison is laughable. Not to mention that your statistic is inaccurate since tens of millions are not employed but are not counted in the unemployment statistic. The number of employed Americans is more like 67% or so. Please try again and genuinely answer the question I posed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-education-numbers/672320.md?page=3)