Story Of Obama
- Thread starter Yannis
- Start date
No, that was alright. I'm just not a big fan of Truman's, that's all. The supposedly innocent farmer boy with Hiroshima/Nagasaki and Korea on his resume, not to mention purging many of his political opponents under the guise that they were communists, where many more reasonable options were available. Oh well.
As I sit here pondering what narcotic you are on to make such a statement, it occurs to me that perhaps what you meant to say is the debt to gdp ratio has been worse.
But this might be another Ricter Riddle, so you'll have to clarify if what you meant to say was that, or you indeed believe that the debt itself has been worse.
Obama vs. Romney on Public School Jobs
by Andrew J. Coulson
In a high-profile presser on the economy last Friday, President Obamaâs central proposal was to hire more public employees. Then, in his weekly address, he argued that hiring more public school teachers would allow the U.S. to educate its way to prosperity. His Republican presidential rival, Governor Romney, has recommended precisely the opposite: reducing the size of government to boost private sector job growthâand he, too, mentions public school teachers. So⦠whoâs right?
First, letâs look at public school employment and student enrollment over time.
As the chart makes clear, enrollment is only up 8.5% since 1970, whereas employment is up 96.2%. In other words, the public school workforce has grown 11 times faster than enrollment over the past 40 years. What difference does that make in economic terms? If we went back to the staff-to-student ratio we had in 1970, weâd be saving⦠$210 billion⦠annually.
Wait a minute, though! Research by economist Rick Hanushek and others has found that improved student achievement boosts economic growth. So if the 2.9 million extra public school employees weâve hired since 1970 have improved achievement substantially, we might well be coming out ahead economically. So letâs look at those numbersâ¦
Uh oh. Despite hiring nearly 3 million more people and spending a resulting $210 billion more every year, achievement near the end of high school has stagnated in math and reading and actually declined slightly in science since 1970. This chart also shows the cost of sending a student all the way through the K-12 systemâthe total cost per pupil of each graduating class from 1970 to the present. As you can see, on a per pupil basis, a K-12 education has gone from about $55,000 to about $150,000 in real, inflation-adjusted terms.
The implications of these charts are tragic: the public school monopoly is warehousing 3 million people in jobs that appear to have done nothing to improve student learning. Our K-12 government school system simply does not know how to harness the skills of our education workforce, and so is preventing these people from contributing to our economy while consuming massive quantities of tax dollars. So what would hiring even more people into that system do for our economyâ¦
by Andrew J. Coulson
In a high-profile presser on the economy last Friday, President Obamaâs central proposal was to hire more public employees. Then, in his weekly address, he argued that hiring more public school teachers would allow the U.S. to educate its way to prosperity. His Republican presidential rival, Governor Romney, has recommended precisely the opposite: reducing the size of government to boost private sector job growthâand he, too, mentions public school teachers. So⦠whoâs right?
First, letâs look at public school employment and student enrollment over time.
As the chart makes clear, enrollment is only up 8.5% since 1970, whereas employment is up 96.2%. In other words, the public school workforce has grown 11 times faster than enrollment over the past 40 years. What difference does that make in economic terms? If we went back to the staff-to-student ratio we had in 1970, weâd be saving⦠$210 billion⦠annually.
Wait a minute, though! Research by economist Rick Hanushek and others has found that improved student achievement boosts economic growth. So if the 2.9 million extra public school employees weâve hired since 1970 have improved achievement substantially, we might well be coming out ahead economically. So letâs look at those numbersâ¦
Uh oh. Despite hiring nearly 3 million more people and spending a resulting $210 billion more every year, achievement near the end of high school has stagnated in math and reading and actually declined slightly in science since 1970. This chart also shows the cost of sending a student all the way through the K-12 systemâthe total cost per pupil of each graduating class from 1970 to the present. As you can see, on a per pupil basis, a K-12 education has gone from about $55,000 to about $150,000 in real, inflation-adjusted terms.
The implications of these charts are tragic: the public school monopoly is warehousing 3 million people in jobs that appear to have done nothing to improve student learning. Our K-12 government school system simply does not know how to harness the skills of our education workforce, and so is preventing these people from contributing to our economy while consuming massive quantities of tax dollars. So what would hiring even more people into that system do for our economyâ¦