Free healthcare Free education (1 Viewer)

[Ramblin Wreck]

Wtf are you talking about. Why should a harder AP class grade be equal to an easier non AP class grade. Sounds like a sensitive parent wanting their dumb kid to have the equal gpa as a smarter kid.

 

[parasaurolophus]

Wtf are you talking about. Why should a harder AP class grade be equal to an easier non AP class grade. Sounds like a sensitive parent wanting their dumb kid to have the equal gpa as a smarter kid.

The shift to weighted grades caused more problems than it solved. How much harder is an AP class? How much harder is it in one district compared to another? What if your school only offers AP Chem and Calc? Should kids that excel in math have an advantage GPA-wise over kids that excel at writing or history? How about honors classes? How do you really know how they stack up? Is it really 25% harder? 

The benefit of taking AP classes was to take the AP exam and get a good score and earn college credits. Obviously this looked better on your transcript as well. 

 

[Ilov80s]

Like. The public school model hasn't changed very much in nearly 100 years. It's a legitimate concern, imo, of those who think that giant entrenched bureaucracies are the worst places to advance innovative techniques that could hugely enhance our educational results. Communities have largely settled on formats that work just good enough to discourage experimentation, or even the adaptation of concepts proven elsewhere. Even at the next level, I work for a small university; the president is a great guy, really smart, but his mission isn't to educate students as well as we possibly can. That's only a part of his greater mission, which is the survival of our school. Any innovation we initiate is designed first and foremost to attract more students.

At the public school level I see the struggle to innovate being mostly tied to lack of funds and especially federal/State regulations. We are just hamsters on a wheel trying to keep things going. $7000 a kid for a school with almost all kids from low SES just doesn’t get the job done.

 

[Ilov80s]

FYI - both of my kids were in the top 10% of their class.  Two problems today - teachers grading is easier based on the parental, kids and administration pressures.   In addition, kids that live in rural areas, like mine, don't have they same opportunities and access to AP classes so they have no way to achieve these high GPAs   I'll let that dumb comment pass this time....

I agree with you but it’s not just rural. School funding and opportunity is not fair in this country. Urban and rural are getting screwed. Teacher might easier on kids but school is more challenging that it used to be as well. Kids are required to learn a lot more before they get a diploma.

 

[Ilov80s]

The shift to weighted grades caused more problems than it solved. How much harder is an AP class? How much harder is it in one district compared to another? What if your school only offers AP Chem and Calc? Should kids that excel in math have an advantage GPA-wise over kids that excel at writing or history? How about honors classes? How do you really know how they stack up? Is it really 25% harder? 

The benefit of taking AP classes was to take the AP exam and get a good score and earn college credits. Obviously this looked better on your transcript as well. 

You could make all the same arguments that can be made against GPA in general. What you are calling for is the elimination of the GPA.

Also AP classes require training, monitoring and pre-set lessons/tests. It’s way more standardized than any other type of class. 

 

[bagger]

The shift to weighted grades caused more problems than it solved. How much harder is an AP class? How much harder is it in one district compared to another? What if your school only offers AP Chem and Calc? Should kids that excel in math have an advantage GPA-wise over kids that excel at writing or history? How about honors classes? How do you really know how they stack up? Is it really 25% harder? 

The benefit of taking AP classes was to take the AP exam and get a good score and earn college credits. Obviously this looked better on your transcript as well. 

Actually I am old enough where my high school didn’t give additional credit for what few AP classes I took; which created a different set of issues of why take a harder class if it can negatively impact your GPA. So I did the reasonable thing and applied to a school where none of that mattered so I could play Madden 92 and drink.

 

[parasaurolophus]

You could make all the same arguments that can be made against GPA in general. What you are calling for is the elimination of the GPA.

Also AP classes require training, monitoring and pre-set lessons/tests. It’s way more standardized than any other type of class. 

I am not advocating eliminating gpa, even though i acknowledge it has its own issues. I am saying weighted grades didnt solve anything. 

If AP classes are so standardized why do some districts have so many students get an A and still fail the test? See baltimore. 

 

[Henry Ford]

I am not advocating eliminating gpa, even though i acknowledge it has its own issues. I am saying weighted grades didnt solve anything. 

If AP classes are so standardized why do some districts have so many students get an A and still fail the test? See baltimore. 

Really?  Baltimore is bad?  Maryland in general has been the best in the country at passing AP tests for years.

 

[parasaurolophus]

Really?  Baltimore is bad?  Maryland in general has been the best in the country at passing AP tests for years.

According to this article baltimore doesnt seem so good. Thats not a one off either. There is a baltimore sun article from maybe a year or tow earlier that says same thing.

 

[Shula-holic]

I was including room and board.

And hey don’t diss Chapman too much. I didn’t know nearly anything about it, but it appears to be quite excellent for my daughter’s preferred major (elementary education) and she may very well go there. (She would have preferred the UCs, but so far she hasn’t gotten in, though we’re still waiting to hear from Irvine.) 

In all seriousness I have sympathy for your situation.  My wife was an elementary ed major, got her masters and then went and got her PhD.  So she's at the top of her pay scale by teaching in an elementary school, she could have taught at a university but that just wasn't for her.  It's staggering at these figures and how many years she would have to work just to recoup these costs for four years.  

I know this is something you have likely considered, but have you looked at out of state alternatives and the cost of those?  Also, how willing/lax they are on letting you buy a small property and establishing residency there?  Granted, I've been out of college for over 20 years but the college I went to was near the GA line and around 1/3 of the student body came from GA.  It was pretty common for parents to buy a place rather than having their child pay rent or room/board and then after a year they were considered a resident of the state and got in-state treatment.

 

[Henry Ford]

According to this article baltimore doesnt seem so good. Thats not a one off either. There is a baltimore sun article from maybe a year or tow earlier that says same thing.

 The rate of Maryland seniors who passed at least one AP exam hit 31.8 percent in 2014, but according to The Baltimore Sun, in some of the state’s schools like Woodlawn Elementary, failure rates are commonly as high as 75 percent

There are definitely some editing failures in that article, so I’d love to see the raw numbers but that definitely doesn’t sound good.

 

[Ilov80s]

According to this article baltimore doesnt seem so good. Thats not a one off either. There is a baltimore sun article from maybe a year or tow earlier that says same thing.

Arguing that the College Board and standardized tests is also a scam? Yes I partially agree. However, AP classes are tougher than regular classes relative to the school which makes the GPA numb worthwhile. 

 

[Henry Ford]

In all seriousness I have sympathy for your situation.  My wife was an elementary ed major, got her masters and then went and got her PhD.  So she's at the top of her pay scale by teaching in an elementary school, she could have taught at a university but that just wasn't for her.  It's staggering at these figures and how many years she would have to work just to recoup these costs for four years.  

I know this is something you have likely considered, but have you looked at out of state alternatives and the cost of those?  Also, how willing/lax they are on letting you buy a small property and establishing residency there?  Granted, I've been out of college for over 20 years but the college I went to was near the GA line and around 1/3 of the student body came from GA.  It was pretty common for parents to buy a place rather than having their child pay rent or room/board and then after a year they were considered a resident of the state and got in-state treatment.

Also in CA highly recommend two years of community college.  You do really well you get priority transfer to state universities. 

 

[Ilov80s]

Also to the comment that I think alluded to teaching at university being better paying. Not always- lots lecturers get absolute garbage pay. 

 

[Shula-holic]

Also to the comment that I think alluded to teaching at university being better paying. Not always- lots lecturers get absolute garbage pay. 

Could be correct.  It all depends on the specifics.  My wife's dad was a college professor but he was in computer science so he was on the higher end where he was.  Certainly on the scale of things he would have a higher pay grade than she would.  She also teaches in AL where teacher pay isn't all that great, even though she's in one of the better systems within the state.  I think in her specific case she could probably do a little better but having done a lot of that type work while getting her PhD she just didn't like that environment as much.

 

[-fish-]

Past time for Dems to take on the defense budget. We have to stop treating it as untouchable.

Um, we're gonna use to to build a wall now.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

If it's government funded, what happens when there's a government shutdown? No school? No healthcare? No free lunches for school kids?

Asking because I have no idea, but are government shut-downs a thing places other than here.

Man I wish I could do this at my job. 

Wife: Hey honey, why aren't you dressed for work yet?
Me: Don't have to go in this week!
Wife: Why?
Me: CIO wanted to upgrade to Oracle.
Wife: Uh, so?
Me: CEO wants to save money and stick with MySQL, so they just agreed to shut the whole company down until one of them budges.  Let's go to Vegas today.  We'll have to drive though, Delta is closed this week.

 

[Gopher State]

Free cheese and cash for clunkers should be the dems platform in 2020!!!!

 

[Ilov80s]

Could be correct.  It all depends on the specifics.  My wife's dad was a college professor but he was in computer science so he was on the higher end where he was.  Certainly on the scale of things he would have a higher pay grade than she would.  She also teaches in AL where teacher pay isn't all that great, even though she's in one of the better systems within the state.  I think in her specific case she could probably do a little better but having done a lot of that type work while getting her PhD she just didn't like that environment as much.

The non-tenured staff at Loyola are getting ready to strike as claims of adjunct professors making less than minimum wage circulate. This may not be true,  but I have read several stories like this. 

 

[Calvitron Johnson]

Free healthcare you say?

Here's your free healthcare: UnitedHealth's net earnings attributable to shareholders rose to $2.84 billion. That's a 30.6% increase in profits over the previous quarter.

 

[The Z Machine]

According to this article baltimore doesnt seem so good. Thats not a one off either. There is a baltimore sun article from maybe a year or tow earlier that says same thing.

My kids will be going to a Baltimore City school for Kindergarten next fall. :thumbsup:

 

[Ilov80s]

If we eliminate welfare, could we pay for health care and education? How much would those 2 things cost?

 

[the rover]

If we eliminate welfare, could we pay for health care and education? How much would those 2 things cost?

No.  Health care is a huge budget item.  Welfare is a sliver of federal spending.

 

[Ilov80s]

No.  Health care is a huge budget item.  Welfare is a sliver of federal spending.

What about corporate welfare though?

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

What about corporate welfare though?

That’s about 10% of regular welfare. (About $1 trillion for regular welfare compared to about $100 billion for corporate welfare, as of 2012-1013. Health care costs more than $3 trillion. There’s some overlap, though, because Medicaid is both welfare and health care.)

 

[Ilov80s]

That’s about 10% of regular welfare. (About $1 trillion for regular welfare compared to about $100 billion for corporate welfare, as of 2012-1013. Health care costs more than $3 trillion. There’s some overlap, though, because Medicaid is both welfare and health care.)

And defense is what? $650 billion. I just don't see where the money for health care and education comes from. How big would the tax increase on the wealthy have to be to cover it?

 

[jonessed]

And defense is what? $650 billion. I just don't see where the money for health care and education comes from. How big would the tax increase on the wealthy have to be to cover it?

It depends on how you define wealthy.

I don’t think you could ever do it with wealthy income tax alone. You would have to tax assets and hit the middle class pretty hard.

 

[Ilov80s]

It depends on how you define wealthy.

Anyone not on welfare?  LOL

Let's say top 3 brackets which is like ~$233k and up.

 

[roadkill1292]

And defense is what? $650 billion. I just don't see where the money for health care and education comes from. How big would the tax increase on the wealthy have to be to cover it?

A lot of it will come from employers, who will pay new income and/or head taxes (or even taxes based on their levels of automation) in lieu of kicking in on employee health insurance premiums. I figure the personal brackets will also get a little bump way down the income line. This really doesn't have to entail much of a change. The money comes from a combination of individuals, employers and government now.

 

[Ilov80s]

A lot of it will come from employers, who will pay new income and/or head taxes (or even taxes based on their levels of automation) in lieu of kicking in on employee health insurance premiums. I figure the personal brackets will also get a little bump way down the income line. This really doesn't have to entail much of a change. The money comes from a combination of individuals, employers and government now.

Any idea how much money private businesses are currenty contributing to health care costs?

 

[Henry Ford]

Democrats are introducing a bill to allow anyone to buy into Medicare, and to allow employers to purchase Medicare for their employees.

 

[IC FBGCav]

Love we have to find money for healthcare but for needless war the coffers are always full.

 

[IC FBGCav]

Tax cuts for the most profitable companies in history.....money is always there.

 

[Henry Ford]

Love we have to find money for healthcare but for needless war the coffers are always full.

Just consider the Syria strikes a $225 million stimulus package for arms dealers.

 

[stlrams]

what does everyone propose to stop Syria from gassing its own population?

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

Any idea how much money private businesses are currenty contributing to health care costs?

There are roughly 150 million with ESI [1].  The average premium (for an individual) is about $6700 (a tad under 3 times that for family) [2].   The average employer pays 82% for individual and 69% of family [3].

So to keep numbers simple just ballpark at  150 million x 5000 will probably slightly overstate it.

Or, to really keep it simple just use the often stated number that providing healthcare is about 8% of a typical business' operating expense.  [4]  Though the plan redesigns that most hate in the past decade lowered that from about 9%.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

It depends on how you define wealthy.

I don’t think you could ever do it with wealthy income tax alone. You would have to tax assets and hit the middle class pretty hard.

This is true, but in terms of being hit hard, we need to consider the net effect rather than the gross effect.

I'm paying around $590/mo for health insurance. If the government taxed me an extra $700/mo and provided my insurance for me, it would really cost me $110/mo rather than $700/mo, in a net sense.

 

[roadkill1292]

This is true, but in terms of being hit hard, we need to consider the net effect rather than the gross effect.

I'm paying around $590/mo for health insurance. If the government taxed me an extra $700/mo and provided my insurance for me, it would really cost me $110/mo rather than $700/mo, in a net sense.

It may also be possible for someone with a lower income to only owe an additional $480 in monthly taxes and come out $110 ahead. That may be the more likely scenario if the overall costs are lowered to something close to that of other western industrialized nations.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

It may also be possible for someone with a lower income to only owe an additional $480 in monthly taxes and come out $110 ahead. That may be the more likely scenario if the overall costs are lowered to something close to that of other western industrialized nations.

Yes, but I suspect that last part is impossible. Path-dependence matters, and I don't think there's any realistic way to get to Europe from here. (Maybe a rope boat.) I think reducing health care costs in the U.S. is a pipe dream, and we should instead just try to reduce the rate of growth while acknowledging that we'll probably never be as efficient as Europe currently is in this particular domain.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Megan McArdle has written about that last point in ways I find persuasive. Here's a recent article that is behind a pay wall:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-21/does-the-u-s-overpay-for-health-care-not-really

Here's a public one from years ago:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/10/controlling-healthcare-costs-the-american-way-not-doing-it/28132/

I'm sure googling would turn up many more.

 

[Sinn Fein]

I have a question, or two, for those that are more versed on this subject than me:

Setting aside the minor difference between plans that would pay for everyone, v. plans that would not pay for wealthy families - do any of the plans that have been floated account for the potential increased capacity in state colleges? 

I don't know how close schools are to capacity now - I assume pretty close - but are we considering the added infrastructure costs - more professors, more class space, more Dorms, etc.

It seems to me one of the biggest failures of Obamacare was in not anticipating the additional healthcare costs created by adding more people to the system.

Or, are we saying that there will be no, or little, increase in students, but those that do attend will pay less?  (This seems to disadvantage kids who come up through underachieving schools).

Is there a sense of how many more kids would attend college if not for the cost, and whether those students would be in addition to the existing college kids, or would they supplant a percentage of current college kids?

 

[KarmaPolice]

I would assume that colleges would still have a max capacity and requirements to get in, just once the students qualified, tuition is taken care of.  

I dont think people suggesting these plans are saying that every HS grad should go to college now.  

 

[Sinn Fein]

I would assume that colleges would still have a max capacity and requirements to get in, just once the students qualified, tuition is taken care of.  

I dont think people suggesting these plans are saying that every HS grad should go to college now.  

Well, it certainly seems as though the plans are designed around the notion that people are not going to college due to cost, and that we should have a more educated work-force overall.

That suggests, to me, either more students, or that we are saying the colleges are currently accepting students who are not qualified.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Well, it certainly seems as though the plans are designed around the notion that people are not going to college due to cost, and that we should have a more educated work-force overall.

That suggests, to me, either more students, or that we are saying the colleges are currently accepting students who are not qualified.

Maybe I have a wrong read on it then.   My take was that for those who qualify for college and are going, it shouldn't put them in crushing debt to do so.  I am guessing that there are many who have the intellect and skills to be at a better school but can't because of financial reasons, so I think it would help the cream rise to the top a little more in that sense.  

I honestly don't know how it would be reasonable to expect a college to now accept 1000s more after a plan like this would be implemented.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I don't know how close schools are to capacity now - I assume pretty close -

This varies tremendously from school to school.  Many of the household-name public universities are at capacity and turn away well-qualified students every year.  But not all.  The University of Missouri, for example, has the capacity to add quite a few students because their enrollment has take a hit the past several years.

When you get away from the flagships and start looking at regional and "directional" schools (e.g. Northeast State University, University of State -- Satellite Campus), most of those are under-enrolled throughout the northeast, midwest, and south.  Again that's a very broad generalization and it would be easy to find exceptions. 

 

[MAC_32]

There was a decrease in number of babies born in the late 90's into the 2000's. The pool of potential students went down and will stay there for years. I dont recall off hand when/if those trends changed.