Once again, I spent the morning with my head buried in a spreadsheet, and once again, you can see the results over on Slog. (For example, did you know it costs $46,202 to educate one K-12 student in the tiny Benge school district, but only $11,839 here in Seattle.)
Shit, man! You’re on a roll!
Be sure to click the slog piece. How Goldy framed this is worth reading and internalizing.
Coprolite,
Goldy is making a fool out of you. Point to an analysis from the right wing side that refutes anything Goldy has said.
Unfortunately, I doubt ANYBODY from Benge is going to check this website out. Maybe Goldy you should go to Benge and point this fact out at a school board meeting. The look of firmly (and often right-wing) Republican faces when this dawns on them would be priceless!
They wouldn’t get it of course. A week later they’d get it, but not agree with it. And a week after that there would probably be a good ol’ boy argument about they’d be fine without the money if Seattle D’s would quit screwing with local curriculum and making it so expensive to comply with urban laws.
They’d probably even invite ‘ya to pheasant hunting so dust off your 12 gauge Goldy!
Fixe verhead & facilities expenses, greater bus distances traveled per student, etc. A few high schools in the more urban Puget Sound area share some athletic facilities or use public ones (football stadiums, etc.), but that’s not practical in more rural areas.
I guess the basic fact that it costs more in rural districts doesn’t surprise me, but the extent of the disparity does seem more than expected.
But what the heck is the deal with Skamania County? Wikipedia says it has a population of only 10,800 people (in 2009), but the 2000 census said that 26% were under 18. Yet despite being rural, it has the least amount of money spent per student?
They’ve got one school district that only has one combined elementary-middle school consisting of 74 students. That can’t be very efficient. I’m trying to figure out what other school districts are also in the county.
That should be “Fixed overhead & facilities”. I’ve got no idea how the missing letters got dropped on that post.
Fucking socialist farmers are bleeding us dry — school subsidies, road subsidies, crop subsidies, irrigation water subsidies, electricity subsidies. None of them would make a dime if they had to pay their own way.
It would be interesting to see that broken down both by district and by how the money gets spent. Transportation has got to be a huge expense for rural schools. Looking at transport costs might also help save neighborhood schools in places like Seattle, Tacoma, & Spokane.
The real question is how will Democratic State candidates in the East wage their next campaign against the Republicans. It’s doubtful that this West side talk will make East-side voters (and sitting politicians)introspective enough to raise taxes and say thank you. But, there’s probably a way to use this for advantage by the East-side Dems.
Michael @8,
I provide a link in the Slog post to the underlying OSPI data. Download the spreadsheet and look for yourself. It’s all there.
And I’m certainly not making either a moral or policy argument against our state’s wealthier households shouldering a disproportionate share of the cost of providing state services.
Goldy, you better than anyone knows that it’s not the wealthiest households that pay for services in WA. Unless we have major tax reform, it’s the urban/suburban poor and middle class who are paying a disproportionate amount to keep the rest of the state afloat.
Trying to pretend that those in rural areas can live like they are an urban area is where the costs have gone through the roof. You can’t afford the overhead of a separate administration, teachers for every grade, and fancy sports facilities when have you such a small school age population.
How about:
One room schoolhouses? Combine lower grades and use 2 teachers. It’s successfully done in many other countries.
Older students can take advantage of online learning supplemented with a couple days a week actually in the classroom. Thus cutting down on the commute.
Boarding schools where the students go home for a 3 day weekend.
@12 Now there’s an idea! We should take their kids away from them, put them in Seattle schools, and at age 18 send them back home as Democrats. If you substitute “Christians” for “Democrats”, that’s what the Bureau of Indian Affairs did 100 years ago
@ Goldy,
Hey, it is there! I missed when I read the Slog piece earlier.
Thanks.
@ Goldy again.
Holy mother of God that’s a lot of data.
Transportation cost per student:
Benge: $14,650.945
Peninsula (Gig Harbor and Key peninsulas) $682.11
Seattle: $2,728.49
Spokane: $1,429.77
Hmm… Any guesses why suburban/exurban Gig Harbor comes in cheaper than Seattle and Spokane?
@12
We have a few of these in Washington. One of my aunts teaches in a two room school outside of Ellensburg. I think she teaches 4-6th grade.
yes MOAR money for failed government indoctrination centers!
@12
fancy sports facilities?
huh? have you ever been to eastern washington?
Most schools over there already used a combined campus and building approach.
fuck man, go for a drive sometime(that is, if you own a car).
@16: MORAN!
Excuse me, @18, re @20.
We can afford better education. All we have to do is cut defense spending and spend that money on education instead. Think defense can’t be cut without compromising security? Guess again. It’s not only possible, it’s easy, because defense spending has been allowed to grow in an undisciplined manner, like dandelions spreading through a lawn.
“U.S. military missions and the defense budget that supports them have grown without discipline over the past decade …. Various administrations and Congresses have neglected the imperative of setting priorities. This has allowed the Department of Defense to undertake an ever-growing array of tasks …. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review reinforced this trend by overstating the world’s dangers and advocating the elimination of all possible risks. …
“The national defense budget accounts for 56 percent of all U.S. federal discretionary spending. Defense is now one of the country’s ‘Big Four’ accounts, consuming roughly the same share of federal spending as do each of Social Security, income-based entitlements (such as welfare), and the total nondefense discretionary budget … the United States is expected to spend … twice as much [on defense] as it spent in 2001 ….”
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/.....er-defense
Roger Rabbit Commentary: It simply isn’t necessary to undertake all these missions and spend this much. Nor can we afford it. If Republicans are serious about cutting spending they’ll take a hard look at the Pentagon’s mission profile and budget. We’ll see if they do. If they don’t all their fiscal rhetoric is just empty talk.
It’s The Politics, Stupid
A new book, “Winner-Take-All Politics,” by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, challenges the conventional wisdom that the tremendous concentration of wealth in the U.S. during the Wingnut Era (Reagan to Bush43) resulted from globalization, technology, and irresistable market forces. That’s crap, these authors say; it resulted from the policies of the conservative governments that have run our country since the Dawn Of Reagan.
“Hacker and Pierson refreshingly break free from the conceit that skyrocketing inequality is a natural consequence of market forces and argue instead that it is the result of public policies that have concentrated and amplified the effects of the economic transformation and directed its gains exclusively toward the wealthy. …
Labor policies have made it harder for unions to organize workers and provide a countervailing force to the growing power of business; corporate governance policies have enabled corporations to lavish extravagant pay on their top executives regardless of their companies’ performance; and the deregulation of financial markets has allowed banks and other financial institutions to create ever more Byzantine financial instruments that further enrich wealthy managers and investors while exposing homeowners and pensioners to ruinous risks.
“In some cases, these policy changes originated on Capitol Hill: the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts, for example, and the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a repeal that dismantled the firewall between banks and investment companies and allowed the creation of powerful and reckless financial behemoths … were approved by Congress, generally with bipartisan support ….
“The dramatic growth of inequality … is the result not of the ‘natural’ workings of the market but of four decades’ worth of deliberate political choices. Hacker and Pierson amass a great deal of evidence for this proposition, which leads them to the crux of their argument: that not just the U.S. economy but also the entire U.S. political system has devolved into a winner-take-all sport. They portray American politics not as a democratic game of majority rule but rather as a field of ‘organized combat’ — a struggle to the death among competing organized groups seeking to influence the policymaking process. Moreover, they suggest, business and the wealthy have all but vanquished the middle class and have thus been able to dominate policymaking for the better part of 40 years with little opposition.”
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/.....ing-richer
Roger Rabbit Commentary: So how do we stop this? Well, for starters, by not electing any more wingnut governments.
@22
how about cutting foreign aid instead…that money should be used here, not overseas.
@24 As Israel is the largest beneficiary of U.S. foreign aid, I don’t think your Republican buddies will go along with that. In fact, they may send you to one of their re-education centers to get you back on their page. As a wingnut, you’re not supposed to think for yourself, you know. You’re expected to know what the Wingnut Central program is.
In Texas, a Republican-run state facing budget shortfalls that dwarf those of Washington, Gov. Rick Perry’s solution is to eliminate public schools.
Want to know what it’s like to live in a wingnut-dominated state? This will give you a taste:
“Thousands will lose jobs. Schools will be closed. The elderly on Medicaid will likely get kicked out of their nursing homes. Students won’t be able to get loans to go to college. Students who have loans and are in college will have to drop out. School children will [have] bigger classes and fewer teachers. Impoverished sick children will remain sick. The hungry will starve to death. Some doctors that treat Medicaid patients will have to close their practices. …
“Where Republican economic policies are concerned it always come down to the same thing: more for the greedy, less for the needy.”
http://www.texaskaos.com/diary.....SS+Feed%29
Hmmm, wait a minute, if as (the late?) Mr. Cynical claimed Washington’s budget crisis was caused by Gov. Gregoire and our Democratic legislature, then how come Texas, which has a Republican governor and legislature, has a budget shortfall 8 times larger than Washington’s?
@25
Well here’s a thought, Rabbit, let’s cut drastically our military spending including that for our venture in Afghanistan that you’ve been such a big proponent of.
@24
Works for me, but only if the money’s spent on literacy programs fronted by one of Barbara Bush’s kids.
@27
It’s Ann Richards, Mark White, Dolph Briscoe, Preston Smith, John Connally, Price Daniel, Allan Shivers, Beauford H. Jester, Coke R. Stevenson, W. Lee O’Daniel, James V. Allred, Miriam A. “Ma” Ferguson, Ross S. Sterling, Dan Moody, Pat Morris Neff, and William P. Hobby’s fault!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....s_of_Texas
@13 – That’s an idea, throw out a strawman when you can’t contribute to the conversation.
@19 – My crowded K-6 school in a mid-western suburb had a combined lunchroom/auditorium/gym/meeting room. Here’s the latest in Lincoln county – Davenport school construction.
Here’s a good resource on school districts and schools by county.
@25
STFU you old fart…you got lost 30 years ago.
Breaking: Whiny Winnefred get pwned by das Kaninchen. Whiny Winnie whines.
@27 Mr. Cynical claimed Washington’s budget crisis was caused by Gov. Gregoire and our Democratic legislature, then how come Texas, which has a Republican governor and legislature, has a budget shortfall 8 times larger than Washington’s?
—
Let’s see if we can decipher rabbit logic . . . the Dems couldn’t have caused the crisis in this state because Republicans caused the crisis in Texas?
It’s no wonder Goldy had to request online donations . . . advertisers took one look at his core fan base – all 12 or 20 of them – and ran the other way . . .
Let’s see if we can decipher wingnut logic. A budget crisis of any size in a Democratic controlled State excuses a Republican caused crisis of any greater magnitude.
No wonder the Republicans did well in the last election. Magical thinking is back in vogue.
@36
Heh, heh. Yea, it’s amazing how well they did and how poorly HA did – just two years after the HA faithful were trumpeting the progressive “earthquake.” That sure petered out, and HA – donations two years in a row was asking just a bit much – will really suck once Goldy takes that modest job with a print rag! Well, at least he can say he it wasn’t the Seattle Times, who probably would have given him a really modest job on graveyard!
Too damn funny!
@28 Listen, I’m not crazy about the war in Afghanistan, especially given that I have an 18-year-old niece over there right now. But I don’t see how giving that country back to the Taliban makes sense. After they re-establish al Qaida’s training camps, then what? Send our troops back there again? I don’t see how we’d have a choice. As a Vietnam veteran with personal experience of war, I hate the idea of making our soldiers pay for the same ground twice.
@30 Why did you leave out Rick Perry?
@33 “STFU you old fart”
Come to my burrow and make me. Make sure you bring a gun so I can claim self-defense.
@35 Since you’re such a dunderhead, I’ll spell it out for you. (Most third graders wouldn’t need this explanation, so you must not have gotten beyond second grade.)
If Washington’s budget shortfall was caused by local mismanagement, then it would not be replicated in 47 other states.
(As I recall, there are only 3 states, 2 of which have large oil revenues, that don’t have shortfalls. I might be off by 1 or 2 states, but at least 45 states have shortfalls.)
What are the odds that 47 states all had budget shortfalls at the same time, for the same reason?
Actually, those odds are 100%. It should be obvious to anyone except a dunderhead like you that this problem has a NATIONWIDE cause, namely, the recession that started during a REPUBLICAN administration as a result of REPUBLICAN policies and REPUBLICAN mismanagement of the economy.
I merely picked out Texas as an example of a Republican-run state that also has a budget shortfall for the same reason Washington has a budget shortfall, namely, that we’re in a nationwide recession.
Except theirs is a lot worse, which suggests that maybe, just maybe, there really is some local mismanagement in Texas.
Sheesh.
Of course I didn’t expect him to get it. Any reasoning that requires more than one simple step or involves more than single-digit numbers naturally is beyond the processing capacity of a birdbrain.
@37 You really think the 2010 election settled anything? The latest polls I’ve seen clearly indicate the electorate hates both parties. How again does that make you feel so smug?
@39
The Dullard only listed the Democrats that served as governor of TX.
@37
And the progressives didn’t do too bad. Most of the 2010 losers were Blue Dogs.
Amazing indeed seeing that they have no ideas other than serving the greedy by punishing the needy.
HA has done magnificently. Wingnut ass was kicked steadily since the blog began. Rossi was defeated three times. Brownie was fired. I-912 – the revenge of the wingnuts – was rejected. The woman beater Irons was sent into political exile. The Hutchison pretender was defeated. All we had to do was call her what she was and what she was trying to pretend to the voters that she was not – a Republican.
The two coasts resisted the fantasies of the right wing and the South and the Midwest succumbed yet again to false promises. Obama is all but assured re-election with yet another ugly crew in the House to rival the Gingrichites of old reminding people of what they should avoid and none other than Karl Rove has all but admitted this.
All in all, it’s been a good run.
And ylb the tool he is thinks all that “success” is due to HA.
Whatamoron. So let’s get local on the things trumpeted here.
Ditzy Darcy Moonbat DEFEATED Twice
Suzan DelBene DEFEATED
Shorter version – Dave Reichert Reelected!
McGinn elected. Yeah that’s working out great!
Your favorite parade exposed
Initiative 1098 DEFEATED
All those and I didn’t need a copy of the HA databaze to remind myself!
You give me such a good laugh this morning, Puddles. “Exposed” could certainly apply to the Folsom Street Fair, but not in the way you intend. Linking to a fringy anti-gay site that quotes Michael Savage – you really are a parody of yourself, Pudster.
So, what did you like best about the Americans for Truth about Homosexuality website? Was it the Michael Savage bigotry, or the reproductions of ad for the street fare with the leather-clad macho men? The one at the bottom, reproducing da Vinci’s “Last Supper” was really artfully done, and “Jesus” was HOT – didn’t you think so?
re 47: Your side has a long and, I guess, proud history of stymieing progress in favor of a ruling elite.
It takes a member of the elite (both Roosevelt’s) to take off the green shades and look behind the drape.
Here is an interesting oraganization and web site that attempts to demonstrate “return on investmeent” for every school district in the nation. From a cursory look it pretty well confirms Goldy’s data analysis. Puget Sound area district’s are have a better ROI than those outside the area….with a few exceptions.
Check it out:
Sorry…
http://www.americanprogress.or.....oductivity
@46 HA has done magnificently
—-
What planet are you on? Ever since the election and grandiose assurances and bravdo that we had entered a new age it’s been ALL DOWN HILL FOR PROGRESSIVES. And HA? With all that wind behind it back you would have expected it to flourish. Instead? Goldy was advertising for donations a mere one year after the election, and just two years after the election took a job for a “modest income” with a print rag! Obviously, potential advertisers were finding plenty not to like in Goldy’s viewship – what there was of it. Of course, anyone who reads HA for more than a day or so quickly concludes this viewship isn’t exactly money making material. I mean, every day Goldy would check his mailbox for checks towards that $25,000 SOS fund. What was coming in? YLB: $5 Proud Leftist: IOU $10 Don Joe (of the three homes): $0.
You get the idea?
You know, these criticisms of HA are horseshit – expected and tedious, but shit nonetheless. But we’ve come to expect that from our local trolls.
I’ve had occasion the last few days to check out an analogous site on the right – Sound Politics. Had never been there before, and got engaged in an abortion debate (there was much righteous indignation over a WA legislative move to regulate faux Crisis Pregnancy Centers run by enforced-birthers)
What I noted was that there were a few tin-horn amateur logicians over there (Pudge?) and a more than a few knuckle-draggers. But not much else. Timmeh Eyman seems to post regularly – and his last post got 3 responses! Most of the posts got 5-10 responses, from the usual cast of characters. Boring.
This site is fantastic and a fabulous community. I would love a reasoned and intelligent voice(s) from the right – would make and excellent and lively exchange. Alas, the rightward voices over here are mostly illiterate and dishonest, with a large measure of psychopathology thrown in. Oh to dream…
47 – Yawn, a few setbacks, yes, mixed in with the same old right wing fantasies.
52 – Downhill for progressives? We’re just people who believe that government programs have their place and in some cases should be bolstered, not discarded in some weird fantasy about some imaginary utopian prosperity.
Bush’s disaster of a carny show over Social Security should have been ample evidence that most people are “progressive” in that regard.
The absurdity of John Boehner just recently calling for more tax cuts after whining for months about deficit control shows that the other side isn’t the least bit serious about anything aside from making their rich patrons even richer.
Check out this AP story. Sort of follows Goldy’s posts on which counties are givers and which counties are takers
Lawmaker wants to merge some Washington counties
A Washington state legislator has proposed a law that would allow counties to merge to make them financially stronger.
Rep. Glenn Anderson of Fall City told The Seattle Times that when more counties are self-sufficient, the overall state economy would improve.
The bill would allow the Legislature to dissolve and reorganize counties that receive at least twice as much in state funds as they generate in tax revenue.
That would currently apply to Adams, Asotin, Ferry, Stevens, Lincoln, Garfield, Yakima and Wahkiakum counties.
Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/201.....z1CLyubr3f
That’s correct ylb quite a few. If I had a copy of the blog, I could easily hash sort quite a few more. Yep, quite a few more ylb. You know this cuz you see them everyday. But, alas, my three quad core systems are performing actual analysis not ANALyses. Looking at a 12-way with 48 Gig RAM but damn it’s expensive.
BTW little doggie, Don Joe is looking for HA links p=32077 and P=32084. Somehow he “lost” them. Do your progressive bud a favor and place them on your “blog” so he can review them since they were removed here.
Oh really? How about Cass Sunstein or John Holdren or Van Jones’ imaginary utopian prosperity? Did you listen to Obama’s speech ylb? Did you read it? It was full of those imaginary utopian prosperities.
But I have to say it’s been a good week. This week we learned
1) Keith Olbermann was on the chopping block B4 Comcast arrived.
2) Clinton had basically NOTHING to do with 1990s prosperity
3) Chris Matthews knows absolutely nothing about the history of the US Constitution.
4) The health care bill funds abortions
5) Don Joe doesn’t understand much about WordPress Blogging
6) Roger Dumb Rabbit is still a moron
7) GE and Apple continue to jock strap the sadministration while continuing to send jobs overseas. GE cut tens of thousands of US jobs and Obama keeps rewarding this fool. Apple makes all it’s products overseas. But becuz they are Obamabuds nary a peep from the HA moronic class.
@7 – When you consider that farmers are, professionally speaking, a minority, the Rightwing meme of “minority culture of entitlement” starts to make sense…
Oh, Puddles, you are precious.
@23 – I’m not sure it’s the wingnuts’ fault. The wingnuts want to castrate gays, set fire to flag-burners and keep women barefoot and pregnant (as well as being microchipped with the entire old testament). But a lot of them distrust big business as much as any old hippie.
My first reaction to what you wrote is to suspect a different culprit. Seems to me that while the wingnuts have caused major distractions, and the liberals have spent much of their time apologizing for existing, the “centrists,” while pretending to be the adults, have acted as the wholly-owned subsidiaries of big business. That’s the group that passes one legislative present to big business after another. I see the Democratic “centrists,” like Clinton and, yes, Obama, as being just as guilty in this way as the “centrist” Republicans.
I need to look into the history of the major business-friendly legislation; but my theory is that the culprits are not who we’ve often tended to assume they were.
@38 “Listen, I’m not crazy about the war in Afghanistan, especially given that I have an 18-year-old niece over there right now. But I don’t see how giving that country back to the Taliban makes sense.”
Uh, Roger…don’t you mean “giving that country back to the Taliban again?“
@56-58 Will someone please get Puddy to take his meds?