The Fact Checker column at the Washington Post awards Jon Stewart four Pinocchios for this:
“If we are spending a trillion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan’s schools, we can’t, you know, put a little taste Baltimore’s way. It’s crazy.”
— Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, April 28, 2015
It’s not close to being true, Alex Tabarrok explains:
Baltimore schools spend 27% more than Fairfax County schools [which are among the best in the country] per student and a majority of the money comes not from the city but from the state and federal government.
Baltimore schools spend more than $17,000 per student per year.
Where the heck does all this money go? Administrative salaries?
Not only that, via iSteve:
“The Baltimore school system ranked SECOND among the nation’s 100 largest school districts in how much it spent per pupil in fiscal year 2011, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.”
In fact almost double the money is spent on minority students… thats why such stories are so funny, classic straw man argument.
It’s like the misleading parroting that women only make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes.
Maybe at this point white men should just whip them-self bloody on TV and start groveling down every time a black person stubs his toe.
You know, mortification of the flesh, the institutional expiatory act of a person or group’s penance for atonement of sins and path to sanctity.
Syllogism:
Students of Baltimore schools do worse than schools in the suburbs
Lack of school funding / underpaid teachers is the reason for this
Therefore:
Baltimore schools have a lack of funding / underpaid teachers
Seems perfectly consistent to me.
Baltimore teachers make about 60k a year, compared to 55k nationally, before benefits, which I imagine are substantial, and, if I remember correctly, they have a very low student-to-teacher ratio.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_12580.htm
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/high-school-teachers.htm
As a lifelong resident of the Baltimore area, while there is significant bureaucratic bloat and ridiculous salaries at all levels (hazardous duty pay?), a major problem is the frequency with which very large chunks of federal/state money just disappears. And never seems to be found, nor is anyone punished for losing it.