26 replies to this topic

[goldswinger]

Kansas City closes nearly half of its schools to save $50M per year...

link

Wealth concentration is a very good indicator of a declining society. Just for instance, take Mexico where Charles the skinny has more wealth than Bill Gates or Wareren Buffet, the difference is that Gates made his money by selling his wares to every country in the planet while Slim made his money out of only one relatively poor country, Mexico. There are maybe 10 to 20 families in Mexico that control at least 80% of the wealth in that country. And it is sinking fast, some people already calling it a failed state. Wealth concentration is very bad!! Russia is another bad example, among many others and the US is already in the xpres train to achieve that goal.

GS.

[zman]

agree with all the posts...I try to be positive on the future, but when we see states closing schools, the debt loads, and the wealth grab by the 1% of the population, our country is headed down a slope that is very very scary....

[vitaminm]

providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Kansas City closes nearly half of its schools to save $50M per year...

link

[Trendy]

For years KC, MO spent more money per student than any school system in the country and the scores kept falling. The notion that money fixes everything and the "now we feel better cause we're spending more" crowd has been derailed. Now with the funds drying up, their empire of stretching and flexing excesses has ended.

[zman]

providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Kansas City closes nearly half of its schools to save $50M per year...

link

great link, thanks for posting that...

[IndexTrader]

The Kansas City school problem really is more than simply a financial one in my opinion. The schools in Kansas City are only partially occupied with students. This has occurred because like many cities, Kansas City has seen an outflow of population to the suburbs where the perception is that the schools are better and the neighborhoods are safer. This has left partially occupied schools with too big an overhead. This closing of schools helps to remedy that problem. IT

[OEXCHAOS]

I can't see how anyone can fault a school district with nearly half the students it once had for downsizing. If you are, I hope you're getting your checkbook out because it's not right to expect others to pay for uneconomic education. Arb, this country has always given short-shrift to the best and brightest in public schools. It was that way 35 year ago. I'd love to see that change, but it won't so long as the system allows such massive sums to be spent without accountability. Meanwhile, this is OT, and while civil, I'm moving this to S&H.

[arbman]

What I fail to understand here is why they didn't gradually downsize the number of schools over the years as the enrollment dropped and now they are cutting back so sharply as they ran out of money even though they think they know the number of schools that need to go down. I think cutting down nearly half cannot be a natural progress of anything, these people could see the progress of other cities and population changes, it doesn't happen overnight... I hope this is not mainly a degression of the education quality because of budget constraints...

[Trendy]

What I fail to understand here is why they didn't gradually downsize the number of schools over the years as the enrollment dropped and now they are cutting back so sharply as they ran out of money even though they think they know the number of schools that need to go down. I think cutting down nearly half cannot be a natural progress of anything, these people could see the progress of other cities and population changes, it doesn't happen overnight... I hope this is not mainly a degression of the education quality because of budget constraints...

KC just 3 hours drive from me so we get news about them at times. Based on news reports over past few years, their expenditures were what I consider 3 std. dev's above the norm of the country as money was being thrown at the district by the truckloads. From such heights, the plunge is big. Another bubble burst playing out.

[Rogerdodger]

Another example of the government removing market forces and judges legislating from the bench. Intentions are good, educational results are sub-par.