"charlieb" wrote in message
...
Stewart Schooley wrote:

snip

It's time to separate students into different schools according to their
motivation and to give up the idea that if we spend enough money we can
save
everybody.


Well since we've tried, and are still trying, to spend a BUNCH of money
to keep THEM in jails and prisons, and away from US (last I heard it was
about $40,000 per year per inmate), it seems like the ROI on education
would be a great deal better than the ROI of incarceration - which,
coincidently, works like a criminal college. And some of our
"institutions"
graduates learn really, really well - and apply what they've learned.
They're not as good as the "real college educated", like the ENRON
folks, but still pretty good.

Wonder what would happen if we paid the best teachers the most money
to teach in the "worst areas" - AND provided them with the resources
they'd need. At $150,000 per year in salaries and overhead, it'd only
take four Not Bound For Prison Graduates per teacher per year to
become cost effective.

charlie b

Charlie,

You present some intering twists so I'll take one last shot at this thread
by offering you the example of the East St. Louis school system.

A Federal judge forced the city to spend 3 billion dollars on new schools,
equipment, and programs.The ROI on that money was that test scores went down
and the school system was offering free daily taxi rides to suburban
students who would transfer to the city system.

Allow me to present a personal example. I started 1st grade in 1937 in
Fairmont, WV. What kind of financial shape do you think the WV schools were
in during the Great Depression?

A memory I have is that the text and library books were plastered with
Scotch tape. That early tape was not transparent, but had a milky
translucent quality that forced you to tilt the book in order to read
through the tape.So we tilted and read and learned because we knew our
parents expected us to.

Charlie, looking for new ways to spend money as you suggest is not the
answer.

Stewart