<p>I would not have said so myself but now having seen it said I will defer to the one wearing the foam mustache:
Truly, you are cruel…but fair.</p>
<p>[but</a> does caffeine make you smarter?](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/01/11/caffeine.smarter/index.html]but”>CNN.com - A smart way to start the day - Jan 11, 2006)</p>
<p>MA will go the way of CA (down the tubes). It is only a matter of time, since our funding problems with Prop 2 1/2 mirror the Prop 13 ones very closely. It isn’t a crisis yet, but it’s looming.</p>
<p>Might not those latte-lipped liberals be the same ones who think that the border between the U.S. and Mexico shouldn’t, in practice, be more than a line on an Atlas—that minutemen bearing binoculars, and the Bush guest worker plan constitute nothing more than racism?</p>
<p>California problem: Proposition 13. </p>
<p>My brother in Southern CA pays less property tax each year on his million dollar home than we do in the rural west on our $110,000 home!!</p>
<p>Specifically, as quoted from Wikipedia: “Some of the biggest losers under Proposition 13 were California Public Schools and city services (i.e. firefighters and police.) California Public Schools, which in the 1960’s had been ranked #1 nationally in student achievement.”</p>
<p>Well, it’s not quite as simple as that… We made up for a lot of the property tax revenue loss by doubling the sales tax, and we have a pretty healthy income tax (in a state with relatively high incomes) which makes up for some of the property tax losses as well. So California ends up being a middle of the pack overall tax revenue state - in a higher than average governmental services demand state (majority of population in urban areas, large number of immigrants, etc.) So what we’ve basically done is lower our taxes overall a little bit, and shifted a big part of the tax burden from property owners to workers and consumers (largely overlapping groups, of course.) And then we indulged in ballot box budgeting with a variety of goofy laws since Prop. 13, and the end result is, of course, a big mess.</p>
<p>But the bottom line remains: the schools are cash-starved, and will continue to be, as long as the facile excuses and sly arguments of the proponents of “it’s the undeserving other guys who are feasting off those tax dollars - I get nothing, so cut my taxes again” mentality continue to fool enough of the people enough of the time.</p>
<p>41st! That’s a huge jump from our 50th ranked SAT scores.</p>
<p>The district in CA in which my children went to elementary school (we opted for private school for MS and HS) has seen a steady decline in public school education. I as experienced it this began with forced bussing in the mid '70’s. White middle and upper-middle class families began to move their children out of the district. These were the most politically active families and as the bas of advocacy for public education began to dwindle, so did the quality of the schools.</p>
<p>Prop 13. Property taxes were the traditional source of education funding. in 1970 CA spent above the national average per pupil k-12. Now it is ranked 40 something.</p>
<p>Ca schools deal with a large number of non-english speaking immigrants (don’t start on illegal immigration please, it is only part of the problem). In addition, our schools are now called upon to deal with an ever increasing number of social problems.</p>
<p>An interesting study detailing some of our problems. </p>
<p><a href=“News Releases for 2005 | RAND”>News Releases for 2005 | RAND;
<p>Low per pupil funding, large classes, low teacher salaries - excuses, excuses! Ask the carefully coached parrots of the right: “You can’t solve problems by throwing money at them.” “I know better how to spend my money than the government does.” “All my taxes go to waste, fraud and inefficiency.” </p>
<p>The idea that the direct correlation between declining academic performance and declining funding of education is anything but a meaningless coincidence has to be dismissed out of hand, and the blame placed squarely where it belongs: It’s the latte sipping liberals’ fault!</p>
<p>Thanks to you, Audiophile, Oregon (40) is going to get more Californians (47).
Vermont (1) is similar nicer than Oregon. So is Washington (33)</p>
<p>Connecticut is interesting in the terms of we have one of the nations wealthiest cities 10 miles from one of the nations poorests cities. so i guess it balances out to having one of the smartest states?</p>
<p>I was just glad Florida made the top 50! :)</p>
<p>Hey, I’ve lived in <em>three</em> of the top five smartest states. Do I get extra credit? ;)</p>
<p>This was in the Arizona Republic today…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/1019notdumb1019.html[/url]”>http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/1019notdumb1019.html</a></p>
<p>Interesting that NONE of the factors included anything beyond high school. If everyone graduates high school and you spend a lot of money getting there, then you live in a “smart” state.</p>
<p>The funny thing is that per-pupil spending is high in two very distinct cases: wealthy towns with highly educated parents and high-acheiving kids and underperforming inner-city schools. </p>
<p>As for California… geez. You think that Prop 13 covers the problems? Let’s start there. Let’s move onto the fact that the wealth is concentrated in LA, San Diego, and San Francisco. I heard that some 90% of the state taxes come from LA and everything south of it. I’m not sure if any state can put together a cohesive education plan when it’s filled with 37 million people, several million illegal immigrants and their children (whom, under Supreme Court rulings, CA is required to educate) and everyone from the super-wealthy in LA to the poor rural illegals. </p>
<p>Cali is also one of the few places that really seems to have a split between education and wealth. The wealthy suburbs of DC are also among the most educated (in terms of college grads and people with advanced degrees); Massachusetts and New York are also tops on the list of highly educated people, and are very wealthy areas. Cali has money but doesn’t seem to have the same focus on education.</p>
<p>I was reading another CC thread, <a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/ushvm[/url]”>http://■■■■■■■.com/ushvm</a> , when this thread also caught my eye. As I posted over there, I am trying to reconcile two contradictory pieces of information. PA is ranked the 10th smartest state as indicated in the first post on this thread. But less than half the students in the largest city, Philadelphia, in the 10th smartest state complete high school, as pointed out in the thread linked above. If they are so smart…</p>
<p>In 2004 the average graduation rate for PA state wide was 78.4%, the national average was 69.7%, with the lowest graduation rate belonging to Nevada at 50.7%. Philadelphia sounds like a disaster. <a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/yxtcqs[/url]”>http://■■■■■■■.com/yxtcqs</a></p>