Germany has high taxes, but maybe they get excellent services for that money, e.g. superb education, infrastructure, etc.
Now California's state government is hurting for money. Should we raise taxes to pay for all of those excellent services we are getting? Well, let's review where we stand. We shall use Texas as a benchmark, because they are also a large border state. California of course will kick the shit out of Texas.
State Ranking, Taxes per Capita
California: 10th (US$ 2,724.31 per capita)
Texas: 49th (US$ 1,434.16 per capita)
Therefore, according to our hypothesis, California should get much better returns from these investments our tax dollars are funding. Let’s check out education, probably the most important service provided by the State.
California: 47th
Texas: 25th
WTF? Dude, Louisiana and Alabama beat California, and we are just above, shudder, Mississippi.
Well, I am going to guess that Texas somehow skews its money into education and California does not, which would explain this weird result.
California: 1st (US$ 59,825)
Texas: 34th (US$ 41,744)
Now, to be fair, we will note that Vermont is #1 in Taxes, #1 in education, and # 19 in teacher’s pay. So the theory that high taxes could deliver high levels of public goods has not been disproven.
What has been shown is that Californians are not getting much “Value for Money” and that we are no Germany on the Pacific. Hell, we are not even a Texas on the Pacific.
7 comments:
The statistics from the Morgan Quito site are about as accurate as the statistics I learn from my Magical Spirit Guide. You can't just go and link to any old site that has numbers that support your position. Unless you are me. Then it's perfectly acceptable.
Actually, I looked around thinking there must be something better than that - but the other choice was some pay website about schools, and they also ranked CA at 46 in 2003, so I left it at that. If you could show me an alternative ranking that reveals CA to have excellent schools, I will be glad to change this...who wants to lose to Texas!
http://www.psk12.com/rating/USthreeRsphp/STATE_US_level_Elementary_CountyID_0.html
This was the other choice.
Key question, if you are CA, do you try to force the quality up while keeping the high taxes or do you lower the boom on costs and then get a better system that could ratchet up?
Or just be like TX and keep low taxes and medium outcomes?
Maybe its my a priori, but I cannot see improving the system in time - we're going bankrupt. Better hit reset and try again.
Remember the discussion about the poor struggling family that was the poster child for some legislation Dems were trying to pass? I said that you can't just look at an annual income figure out of context and draw any useful conclusions from it. I think the same thing is happening here. By your chart, California's average teacher salary is $59,825, and Texas' is $41,744. But there are counties in California where you are starving if you are making that salary. I don't think there are any counties in Texas where $41744 is all that bad.
I looked at the Morgan Quitno methodology, and think now that those number might be very accurate, but not in a way that you will like. One of the factors to be a 'smarter' state is to spend more on education *adjusted for state income*, and pay teachers more *as a percentage of average pay in the state*. So CA's low ranking is probably because they pay proportionally much less than Texas.
If'n it was me rating the states, I'd weight it the other way. The graduation and dropout rates and standardized test scores would be weighed against how *little* money the state spent on education and teacher salaries (adjusted for cost of living and state average wages). I think it's a mistake to assume "more money is better" on education, but that is the dominant view.
Keep in mind these are STATE AVERAGE salaries - they may in fact include variance in pay depending on location within the state.
For example, Palo Alto's teachers' pay is negotiated with the school district, and their average pay in 2003-2204 was 70,000+. Starting pay was 44,000+ - more than the average pay in Texas which includes both starting teachers and experienced ones!
http://www.campaignforexcellence.org/issue_teacher_compensation.pdf
Thanks Karl. Actually, Texas and California make good comparisons. Excellent choice, Red A
NCES has massive databases with comparisons to averages which I think is better.
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/profile.asp
Unfortunately there is no category for "uneducated right-wing teabagger maroons who think Obama is a MuslimKenyanSocialist Dictator", so the full range of Texan stupidity goes uncaptured.
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