Towns tame taxes by keeping children out
Here's an interesting article. What interrests me is not so much the general thrust of the article but the cost of educaton. It costs over $12,500 per student per year. This has been a long pet peeve of mine. What makes for such an exuberant cost? A typical class is around 30 students. $12,000 times 30 equals $360,000. A class is eesentially one teacher. Now a teacher makes at most $80,000 and when you figure overhead (medical benefits, paid vacation, management, building and maitenence, supplies) that is typically 50% of the base salary, so it costs the employer $80,000 plus $40,000 to support a classroom. That's $120,000. Where does the rest of the money go? Every election year politicians keep saying that we need more money to educate our children. BUT WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO? Two thirds of it doesn't go directly to a classroom.
Quote:
Towns tame taxes by keeping children out
By Bob Ivry
BLOOMBERG NEWS
January 20, 2007
Lee Farber, left, talks with town councilman Irwin Nalitt, outside Farber's home at Clearbrook, an 55 and-over age-restricted housing community in Monroe Township, New Jersey. (BLOOMBERG NEWS)
New Jersey towns have figured out a way to sidestep the highest property taxes in the U.S.
Keep children out.
Educating a child in New Jersey costs an average of $12,567 a year, the most in the nation and more than double the property tax parents typically pay. So local governments have hit upon a way to expand the tax base without the expense of higher enrollment: age-restricted housing.
New Jersey developers have responded by building an estimated one-fifth of the country's adults-only housing, making the state the leader in a national trend spurred by baby boomers seeking new homes after their children move out.
In New Jersey, where schools can command two-thirds of a municipal budget and state officials have failed to provide tax relief, building communities that don't allow children has as much to do with reducing taxes as it does with serving older home buyers.
"It's frustration on the part of some communities," said New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat. "The real problem is we have too much reliance on property taxes in how we finance public education."
Nationwide, 2.8 million households were part of age-restricted communities in 2005, up 29 percent from 2001. The number in New Jersey grew 37 percent in the same period. More than half the housing units started in the state in the past two years have excluded children, according to data compiled by the New Jersey Builders Association.
In one New Jersey town, Monroe Township, population 28,000, half the housing units are limited to senior citizens.
As many as 95,000 such units will be built in the U.S. in 2007, according to an estimate by the National Association of Home Builders. New Jersey developers will build about 20,000 of them.
Exclusionary zoning is legal in the U.S. A 1998 exemption to the federal Fair Housing Act allows age restrictions if homes in a development are intended solely for residents age 62 and older, or if 80 percent of the units are occupied by one person who is at least 55.
New Jersey towns support their school systems mostly with property tax revenue, pushing the average tab to $5,153 in 2004, the highest in the U.S. New Jersey residents are older than in most states -- 12.5 percent are 65 and older, compared with the 12.1 percent average in the U.S.
Some home builders see age-restriction housing as protection against the wider housing slump. The National Association of Homebuilders estimates that profit from age-restricted housing was $1.2 billion in 2006.
I didn't paste the entire article. You can read it here: http://www.washtimes.com/business/20...4741-5143r.htm
Boys can make the grade, if they're not bored
I came across this in my morning reading and I thought you teachers might be interested.
There was a time when extra effort had to be made to help girls in school, and rightly so. But I think the pendulum (just check college grad rates between guys and gals in the US) has shifted the other way. I think some extra attention needs to be given to boys now.
Quote:
Boys can make the grade, if they're not bored
May 21, 2007
BY PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI
There's a big difference in Pamela Dean's English 9 class at Salem High School when Grammar Bowl begins.
The boys clamber over desks and race for the chairs, sitting with shoulders hunched forward, buzzers clutched in hand. On a recent day, the boys beat the girls to the buzzer for 42 out of 45 questions.
That level of engagement doesn't usually happen in English classes, where girls typically far outperform boys on testing. But turn it into a sport, and suddenly the boys get it.
Plymouth Canton Community Schools is one of the few districts in the metro area making a dramatic effort to change how boys are taught in response to research showing they learn differently than girls.
"You can teach boys anything as long as you don't do it in a boring way," said Sharon Strean, assistant principal for curriculum and instruction at the district.
The district is encouraging more competition in the classroom and finding ways to make lessons more hands-on, all rooted in studies that suggest physiological differences in the brains of boys and girls are the main reason an acheivement gap between genders exists in some subjects.
[SNIP]
You can read the rest of the article here.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article.../705210325/1001
Google bans essay writing adverts
Quote:
Google is to ban adverts for essay writing services - following claims that plagiarism is threatening the integrity of university degrees.
There have been complaints from universities about students being sold customised essays on the internet.
The advert ban from the Google search engine has been "warmly welcomed" by university authorities.
But it has angered essay writing firms which say this will unfairly punish legitimate businesses.
From next month, Google will no longer take adverts from companies which sell essays and dissertations - and the internet company has written to advertisers to tell them about the policy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6680457.stm
:thumbs_up
