The Atlantic: "Can the Middle Class Be Saved?"

When did we "cut" education spending?



http://bit.ly/nMG1qu

When I worked at City Hall in NYC in 2000, the education budget was around $11-$12 billion. It's now nearly $24 billion.

Are we really not spending enough?

 

Education is more important to the job market today and the economy that will emerge. Hence, spending should be going up, no?

Also, your chart is federal government spending, correct? I'd like to see a similar chart regarding local spending on education.

 

"Manual labor" is also much different than it used to be.

I do manual labor. But, I work on sophisticated machines, with intricate computer boards.

To work on them, you must be logical. You have to diagnose the problem and have good problem solving skills.

You also need communication skills, so you can explain to the owner/manager what is wrong, what you're doing to fix it, and how to avoid it in the future.

I would hire someone right now if i could. I had one guy who was qualified -- an out of work electrician -- flake out on me a couple of weeks ago.

Another employee is dealing with some pretty serious mental health issues that has limited her hours. I don't think I've ever gotten 40 hours out of her in a week.

I'd hire a good sales person too.

It's not easy.

 

To find reliable employees, you mean?

 

I don't necessarily object to it going up, but don't tell me spending is the problem. It's how we spend the money.

The chart I posted is Federal Spending. It's appropriate since most people are talking about national/federal solutions.

I'd like to see more data on local spending. The district I'm most familiar with is NYC.

Here's a report: assembly.state.ny.us/member_files/044/20090128/report.pdf

Spending keeps going up, even as enrollment has dropped.

And, don't forget, we've been living in a very low inflation environment for the last several years.

 

Yes.

To find good, reliable employees worth investing in.

It takes a lot of time and effort to train an employee. If one flakes out, that's time and money down the drain.

I have opportunities to grow my business. I can't if I don't have reliable employees.

If I hire new employees, take on new business, and then have someone flake out on me, I'm dead.

 

It's like anything else. It has to be the right spending, not just spending as a magic bullet. I think that curriculum changes are in order, for example, and I would focus spending on two places: Early-childhood education of the impoverished and advanced science and math teachers at all levels, including, perhaps especially, high school.

 

Az posted this same article within The Budget talks thread. Did not generate as much discussion as there is here.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/posts/3119377/

 

You'd practically need one-on-one teaching/oversight for every at-risk kid. Good luck with that.

If parenting skills have deteriorated/and or non-existent, then this country is doomed.

 

Politics threads over one hundred pages are not a place I want to be.

 

You're fine as long as you wear your breathing apparatus.

Thanks for the citation, Boom. I appreciate it.

 

"Over time, both trade and technology have increased the number of low-cost substitutes for American workers with only moderate cognitive or manual skills—people who perform routine tasks such as product assembly, process monitoring, record keeping, basic information brokering, simple software coding, and so on."

That passage speaks directly to something I observed more than a decade ago. I was early in my PhD program and was teaching a course in a very specific area at a community college nearby. The folks I was teaching all carried job titles such as "Senior Basketweaving Technician" or "Basketweaving Analyst II," and there was a good bit of resistance at my trying to teach the fundamentals of Basketweaving. Yet when we got to that portion of the course devoted to their area of expertise, it was clear they really didn't know anything about it. What they did know how to do was enter into computer system X that which computer system Y had told them. When I asked them what they'd do if system X ever learned how to talk to system Y -- which of course ultimately happened -- you could have heard a pin drop.