[TriLUG] OT: URGENT: H.129 to be heard in Thursday's Finance Committee!

Wed Mar 16 07:15:21 EDT 2011

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 4:12 PM, David Hostetler
<hostetler.david at gmail.com>wrote:

 "Well, good old American Capitalism has really been working a treat too.
>> Our school systems are a joke even compared 3rd world nations, our health
>> care is the most expensive in the world for average at best results, our
>> existing infrastructure hasn't been updated in > 40 years and all the jobs
>> have shipped to communist nations.  Of course we have the best damned
>> stadiums in the world and we pay a bunch of school flunkies billions to
>> run around chasing balls."
>>
> Sadly, we have[n't] been using capitalism in its purest form since the
> early
> 1900's.  (I know you meant to add the "n't")

Indeed.  U.S. health care is best in the world, and dramatically better than
(for
example) Canada <http://www.timelymedical.ca/> or the
UK<http://www.burtonsys.com/health/prostate_cancer_in_US_vs_UK.html>.
Our private schools are pretty good, too.

But our government-run K-12 schools are a colossal disaster, where less than
half the students are thriving and the *universal* practice of the educrats
is to
blatantly lie about school performance to bolster their arguments against
permitting competition (school choice).

Here's a "story problem."  Consider a small public high school, population
350,
named Local Area Universal Good High School (LAUGHS), in the Friendly Local
Ordinary Public School system (FLOPS).

Suppose 100 new 9th graders enter LAUGHS each year.   9 of them drop out
during their freshman year, leaving 91 who enter the 10th grade.  8 more
drop
out in their sophomore year, leaving 83.  7 drop out the next year, leaving
76.
9 drop out in their senior year, and 67 of the original one hundred 9th
graders
graduate.

What dropout rate does the FLOPS system report?  Is it:
A.  33%
B.  9.4%
C.  4%

BTW, these are actually pretty typical numbers (scaled down, of course) for
North Carolina public schools.

 The answer is C.

NC requires only 8th grade proficiency in core subjects to get a High School
diploma.  Nevertheless, when 12th grade graduation numbers are compared
to 9th grade enrollment numbers you can see that ~1/3 of NC children drop
out:
http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/report_n_c_dropout_rate_12th_worst

But here you can see (on p.118) NC claiming a statewide average dropout rate
of just 3.75%:
http://www.wral.com/asset/news/education/2011/03/03/9210075/2009-10_NC_school_crime_dropout_report.pdf

None of NC's school districts admit to a dropout rate of over 7%.  Call it
the "Lake
Wobegone effect."  All of NC's school districts claim to be *way, way* above
average.

Of course, the folks who give us these statistics are the same folks who
have lots
of statistics and studies to prove that charter schools and private schools
are no
better than regular public schools.  (And if you believe that, I've got a
great deal for
you on a very nice bridge in Brooklyn.)

How the government schools manage to prune an actual 33%+ dropout rate down
to
a 3.75% reported dropout rate is a bit of a mystery.  But I think I've
figured out the
general process.

Step one:  Compare apples to oranges.  Instead of comparing the number of
students who should graduate in a given year with the number who actually do
graduate, compare *four* years of students with *one* year of graduates:
(9+8+7+9) / (100+91+83+76) = 0.094 = 9.4% dropout rate.
Presto!  3/4 of the dropout rate disappears.

Step two:  That's still too high, so look at those 33 missing students
individually,
and see how many you can reclassify as something other than dropouts. E.g.,
if their mail is returned to sender, then presume that they moved away
rather
than dropped out, and that they are attending school elsewhere. If you can
reclassify 19 of the 33 dropouts as something else, then, -- voilà! -- your
30%
actual dropout rate is cut from 9.4% down to 14/350 = 4%.

Is it any wonder that they no longer expel students for cheating?  What
hypocrisy
*that* would be!

That's what 100+ years of government monopoly schools have gotten us. Now,
do
we really want government providers having monopolies on internet service,
too?

Dave

> ----
> Dave Hostetler
> M: 919.333.0591
> hostetler.david at gmail.com
>
>
>  On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM, <matt at noway2.thruhere.net> wrote:
>
> > > The first thing you need is infrastructure to support your customers.
> > > This, obviously, is not inexpensive.  If the government stepped in and
> > lets say created monopoly laws that prevent these larger companies from
> > restricting
> > > in any way competitors from using the infrastructure in place.  Who
> would
> > > put up the capital to put the infrastructure in place when they know
> that
> > > someone can just come along and use what they put in?
> >
> > This is why the concept of a regulated monopoly was created.
> > Unfortunately thanks to some bright ones in congress we have a system of
> > unregulated monopolies.  Yeah, sure free markets and competition.  The
> > thing is they only work when you have indistinguishable products.
> >
> > > Going back to your government has all the answers idea, I personally
> > don't
> > > want to pay for Bob down the street who can't keep a job for more than
> a
> > > week to have internet access.
> >
> > This is not what is being discussed or proposed.  What is at odds is
> > whether or not the govt should be allowed to compete in this market.  I
> > will hazard a guess that the vast majority of the costs associated with
> an
> > ISP are fixed infrastructure costs.  If you distribute this around to all
> > of the residents of a community everyone will pay less.
> >
> > I also don't want to work my ass off so some idiot can fly around in a
> > private jet making 300x my salary off my labors either!
> >
> > I promise you that the moment you start
> > > giving things away for free that other people work hard for that the
> > house
> > > of cards will come down hard and fast.  You should read up on socialist
> /
> > > communist governments and how they all implode before you suggest such
> > > silly
> > > things.  Take a look at Greece, UK, Italy, and several others in Europe
> > to
> > > see how well the socialist idea is working out for them.  People will
> not
> > > continue to work themselves to death for someone else to sit on their
> > butt
> > > all day and get all of the same benefits.  Like wise, 30-40% of the
> > > population cannot work to support the other 60-70%, the money runs out
> at
> > > some point.
> >
> > Well, good old American Capitalism has really been working a treat too.
> > Our school systems are a joke even compared 3rd world nations, our health
> > care is the most expensive in the world for average at best results, our
> > existing infrastructure hasn't been updated in > 40 years and all the
> jobs
> > have shipped to communist nations.  Of course we have the best damned
> > stadiums in the world and we pay a bunch of school flunkies billions to
> > run around chasing balls.
> >
> > > P.S. Social Security is the biggest rip off I've ever seen.  Let me
> keep
> > > my
> > > own money and invest it for my future.
> > >
> > Invest?  I would LOVE to see INVESTMENT.  I keep hearing "investors this"
> > and "investors that".  I haven't seen INVESTMENT in over a decade.  All I
> > see is betting and speculation in the stock market.  F'ing day-traders
> but
> > NO investors.  You put your funds in there and some trader makes it go up
> > and down, sucking your money off in the process.  I will take my social
> > security, thank you very much - and give me some socialized medicine
> while
> > your at it.  You can have your health insurance.
> > --
> > This message was sent to: Dave Hostetler <hostetler.david at gmail.com>
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“If anyone thinks the words ‘government’ and ‘efficiency’ belong in the same
sentence, we  have counseling available.”
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