Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Does more money mean better education?

This article by the NPRI talks about Nevada's pupil per teacher ratio. It explains how $83 million will be available to K-12 education in Nevada would decrease the ratio only by 1.4 students per class if all the money went to saving teachers who would be fired.
According to U.S. Department of Education figures, Nevada's pupil per teacher ratio was 18.3 in 2006-07. Losing 1,660 teachers, the ratio would rise to 19.7 — or just 1.4 additional students per teacher. Not exactly the end of the world.

Of course, all the money will not go to teachers. Almost 50% of the educational budget goes to administration so it stands to reason that 50% of the additional money will also go to administration.

However, according to this article, the pupil per teacher ratio doesn't have any effect on the education of the students.

I believe that we need to split the budget into administrative and teaching so that the legislature can have some control over the educational spending. We need to cut the administrative budget and put the money were it will do the most good. We need to start emphasising teaching.

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