(no subject)

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Comments

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Free rape (http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-montana-rally-20130829,0,4024235.story), too.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

That is sad.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I heard something interesting the other day. Prisons have found that providing free cable TV reduces the agitation levels in the prison to the point where you can hire less guards, so it's actually *cheaper* to give prisoners free cabe TV.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

It makes sense - boredom is the number one enemy of anyone institutionalized.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Not a real quote (http://richardlangworth.com/arts).

[404.livejournal.com]

A false quote, in this community? Shocking!

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

"The arts are essen­tial to any com­plete national life. The State owes it to itself tosus­tain and encour­age them….Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the rev­er­ence and delight which are their due."

Nice.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

Prison spending is mainly due to what amounts to graft. That money is mostly paid to private or quasi-private corporations that award themselves handsome profits for the "service" of incarcerating us. Let people pay for private school tuition with subsidized vouchers, and watch spending per student skyrocket. (Not that this would necessarily be a good thing...)

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Let people pay for private school tuition with subsidized vouchers, and watch spending per student skyrocket. (Not that this would necessarily be a good thing...)

That was tried. In Louisiana. Bobby Jindal's private state-subsidized voucher program was hailed as being the ultimate voucher solution for America by many on the conservative and libertarian side. It didn't work out so well; here's what I posted elsewhere as to why:

One of the various outside-LJ conservative train wrecks that I've been watching is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's school voucher program (http://cenlamar.com/2012/08/20/a-users-guide-to-governor-bobby-jindals-school-voucher-program/). Signed into existence in April 2012 (http://www.bastropenterprise.com/article/20120419/NEWS/304199993), it was considered to be the most ambitious school voucher program ever put into place. It quickly gained a lot of controversy due to its proposed funding: Kingfish Jindal was just going to divert money from the public school system to fund the vouchers, causing several teacher layoffs. Better yet, there were essentially no qualification strictures in place to make sure the private/religious teachers could properly teach (http://www.labudget.org/lbp/2012/02/gov-bobby-jindals-school-voucher-plan-gets-an-f-for-accountability/). And when I say NONE, I mean NONE. Nor did the private/religious schools have to adhere to any core curriculum set by the state; they could just teach whatever they wanted however they wanted. This worked out as well as you think it would. (http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/photos-evangelical-curricula-louisiana-tax-dollars)

Well, the Louisiana Supreme Court finally ruled that the funding mechanism of taking money from public schools was unconstitutional according to the state constitution (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/7/la-gov-bobby-jindals-landmark-school-voucher-progr/) Unsurprisingly, they're having trouble finding the money for it without raising taxes. (http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/05/shakeout_of_high_court_school.html)

And now the real results are in: the voucher students, 92% of whom are in new religious private schools, are scoring inferior to the public school students (http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/05/louisiana_voucher_students_sco.html). Seven of the schools were so bad they've banned from receiving new students from the voucher program. They get to keep their current students, though.

All in all, a train wreck...one that's going to have some bad impact on the future of the children of Louisiana.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

Like I said... not necessarily a good thing. But what happened to spending per student? And what does this say about spending per student as a metric of quality or value?

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

But what happened to spending per student?

Per the law for the vouchers, the amount of the vouchers cannot exceed $8800, which is what the state spends on public students.

And what does this say about spending per student as a metric of quality or value?

It says to me that we cannot look at the amount as a metric of quality or value, but instead must look at what is being spent on, as the cartoon above does. I think the emphasis is rather important. For example, one notorious instance of the Jindal vouchers was a school that spent the voucher money on a) the warehouse they use for the school, b) loads of Bible-related DVDs for the kids to watch and "learn" and the hardware to view it, and c) their own administrator salaries. No teachers were hired. You can guess where the majority of that money went - into their own salaries.

Thus, a standard should be developed and mandated that examines what is needed to provide a decent education, both primary and secondary factors, and the money spent allocated to that. Which won't happen, because states and counties have no real interest in that.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

people who rob banks to get healthcare have noticed what the second cartoon is saying...../sadpanda