exemplars

[quarrel]

The Paradox of Inexperience states that if you don't understand something, you also can't tell who truly does. Thus I have no idea if the details here are accurate or relevant. That notwithstanding, the journal post below demonstrates the level of analysis I'd ultimately like to attain, ideally in the form of a nigh-effortless inherent reflex, since it seems to manifest itself that way in the people most worth listening to.

Then again, I may have just shot myself in the foot.

Hey, you're nearly right for once. I do in fact have a too stupid;didn't read sort of autofilter and you always fall into that filter. ~$2700/student [adjusted for inflation from 1960 to 2007 dollars] sounds about right for what was actually spent on students so I didn't read deeply because you as a source are generally useless.

Anyhow, I fucked up so I guess now I have to present deeper analysis to you. I know it's a complete waste of time but I dug my own hole so...

I looked up the source of your numbers and read in more detail. Presumably: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

You are right. The federal per-person in K-12 age group was ~$400 [in pre-adjusted dollars]. That number doesn't actually represent teaching time though. It's teaching plus facilities and materials. A considerably larger portion of current spending is on facilities and materials than was true in 1961-2 both because class sizes have grown and older buildings have deteriorated.

Several other things are not reflected in your numbers.

For instance, the number of students who completed highschool in 1962 was far lower than current levels, particularly in minorities. ~ 83% for whites and < 30% for blacks in 1960 vs 87% for all students today. I could not find statistics on the age at which they dropped out but we can assume 12th grade is the limit of a geometric progression with the majority dropping in their last year. A little calculus weighted heavily in your favor says about $420 per actual student then vs $10250 now. (about 105% per actual student vs 102% per actual) The number for 1961 is probably grossly inaccurate and if I wanted to spend the time researching it, I suspect it's more like 110% or higher. Regardless, the raw number of school-aged people vs dollars spent at the federal level is rather obviously wrong, even ignoring the facilities costs and not bothering to mention that kindergarden was less frequently attended in 1961 as well.

Now should we talk distribution of those funds? At a state level, blacks, poor whites, and other minorities simply did not get an even distribution of those federal dollars in 1961. School bussing in 1971 (Swann V. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education) upheld by the supreme court explains this in far more detail than I need to bother with. It would also probably be fair to assume that drop-out rates for blacks and poor whites was considerably higher than in the middle and upper class populations, further skewing the education dollars.

It's also worth noting that the additional cost of bussing alone increased the cost per student rather drastically. (56% of students at a cost of $779 per student in 2007 or $436 per total number of students) So you can blame *fully the cost of a 1961 education on Stormfront and the KKK if you like. But... I guess _I_ can't read.

That web page shows the expenditures per district so that is a combined state and federal government. However, what it does NOT show is that in 1961 a far larger percentage of students bought their own books and materials. When it became required that students be given equal access, these costs were pushed to the state and federal budgets. They had been carried by the communities in a way that did not reflect in this data. Charitable donations by individuals to local districts also dropped rather steeply. Another non-trivial number not reflected in this data. And let us not forget all the new measures to protect our precious white middle-class students from those lowly ruffians. The War on Drugs, 0-tolerance policies, etc. Those are all added to the cost of education without providing value. Do we even need to mention the failed cost of "No Child Left Behind"?

We could continue on this path for quite a while and we would find that ultimately, you are technically correct. Due to a lot of stupid things that have been imposed by conservatives or done because of conservatives, education now has expenses that do not contribute to the quality of education but do make it cost more.

However, the conclusions you draw from this information are generally pretty shallow and poorly constructed. I could elaborate here but it's not really worthwhile.

* In unadjusted dollars, of course.