First failed state?

[alanschu]

Not familiar with California classroom sizes? So my 6 year old who is in school and is with what 30-40 kids 1 teacher should suffer because maybe in the long term the illegals might be productive members of society? mmm ok

 

 

That's an anecdote and even less valuable than the information provided in the very link you gave.

 

You provided the link that states the idea of long term benefits, NOT me. You can't just pick and choose the information in it because of what you think the situation is.

 

 

Large classroom sizes can be a hindrance indeed, but at the same time a large classroom size increases the chances of a sufficiently heterogeneous classroom.

 

Here's a link describing the benefits to students learning math in a heterogeneous classroom.

 

Results showed that probability of completion of advanced math courses increased significantly and markedly in all groups, including minority students, students of low socioeconomic status, and students at all initial achievement levels. Also, the performance of initial high achievers did not differ statistically in heterogeneous classes relative to previous homogeneous grouping, and rates of participation in advanced placement calculus and test scores improved

 

 

Since I'm not biased: Here's a large study that [EDIT: THIS IS ACTUALLY WRONG...MY BAD...KEEPING IT HERE TO KEEP POST RELATIVELY INTACT] shows that "teachers who have classes more heterogeneous than homogeneous in ability levels are at a distinct disadvantage in producing effects on student learning and subsequent achievement, particularly as inferred from standardized test scores." (58) Though this same article cites that heterogeneity is probably overrated, they also say the same for classroom sizes. In this study, it's the teacher that makes the biggest contribution.

 

 

EDIT: Whoops, I misread the quote on page 58. My bad. It's actually: As the argument typically proceeds, teachers who have classes more heterogeneous than homogeneous in ability levels are at a distinct disadvantage in producing effects on student learning and subsequent achievement, particularly as inferred from standardized test scores.

 

This makes more sense given their comments about how heterogeneity is overrated. Whew.

Edited October 7, 2009 by alanschu

[Gfted1]

EDIT: Screw it, that would have got me in trouble with Fio.

Edited October 7, 2009 by Gfted1

[alanschu]

.... All of my posts in that thread deal with my not wanting to pay for someone else. ....

 

Your posts became incoherent .... once you started saying stuff like this

 

 

.... Whats 6 billion + 640 million? Go ahead and get a calculator, Ill wait. ....

 

Directly from the article: "State officials estimate that they add between $4 billion and $6 billion in costs." You pick $6 billion simply because it makes your number look higher. Which is pretty much just being dishonest about the situation.

 

Furthermore, how much of the $4 billion and $6 billion in costs cover child care? Is the $640 million mentioned for US born immigrants completely separate from the $4 billion and $6 billion? Who did the estimates and did they double count any numbers? Heck, did they MISS any numbers?

 

 

Oh, and attacking its credibility because it a blog from someone who lives in LA while you live in Canada is just sad man. Try harder.

 

I attack it because it's a blog period, not where it's from. I openly criticize the citation of Canadian blogs too.

 

Heck, newspapers in general are not particularly good sources.

 

[Gorths edit note: Removed some of the personal stuff in the quoted lines, lets see if we can't make mkreku's dragon repellant unnecessary]

Edited October 7, 2009 by Gorth
Edited quotes

[~Di]

Are we arguing that illegal immigration is the problem in California?

There is no argument, it's a problem, period end of story if you don't think it is well good on you but it's a huge issue.

 

 

Though hasn't it always been a problem? Or has it gotten worse?

 

It's gotten much, much worse. Twenty times worse since Reagan declared amnesty to the then-1/2 million illegals in the USA. Now there are between 15-20 million illegals, and it hits the border states hard. The cost of required bilingual education has skyrocketed. Over 60 hospitals closed in California alone from 1993-2003, bankrupted by the enormous cost of providing services to illegals. It's estimated that more than 70-80% of hospital births in some border states are to illegals, and the cost is not reimbursed. Illegals have jobs in all areas of the economy, but because they are using stolen green card or social security numbers, they don't pay state or federal income taxes... and in fact make life a nightmare for the real owners of those stolen numbers, who are charged with taxes on income they never received.

 

And half of the prisoners in our over-crowded prison system are illegals. The cost of housing them is enormous. Nobody wants to do anything about it because they're afraid of losing the Hispanic vote. Thing is, there are a hell of a lot of legal immigrants who resent those who didn't wait their turn. The legal immigrants are suffering the backlash for problems caused by the illegals.

 

Yeah. It's a big problem. Big. Problem.

[taks]

sorry, but that's nonsense. anything that is more socialist will bankrupt itself eventually. every where else in the world that has socialized healthcare either has sub-standard care, or they're dropping benefits in order to be able to afford it. there's a reason people come to the US for their healthcare in dire situations... it's just plain better.

 

taks

 

mkreku, you do realize your post sort of lends evidence in favor of my point, right? yeah, yeah, this is sort of a reading comprehension plus situational awareness, i know, a bit much to ask from the juniors around here.

 

taks

[~Di]

But then you have a problem with seasonal workers, which is a major part of the ag industry.

 

I'm not saying it's a perfect system, there are a lot of changes I would like to see made, but closing up shop is not one of them.

 

Seriously, that's a myth. About 20 years ago a legal Mexican immigrant named Ceasar Chavaz organized the farm workers, unionized them and finally achieved his goal of decent wages and working conditions. Chavaz was death on illegals, because he knew they would be exploited, work for less and be too intimidated to complain, so he made sure that all members of the farm workers union had legitimate green cards. For decades, these legal immigrants took care of all our agricultural needs.

 

Then illegals began entering at higher and higher volumes. Soon what Chavaz feared had happened. Illegals took the labor from his legal union pickers, exploitation and poor working conditions exploded, the union workers found less and less work (I think it eventually disappeared entirely), and the big ag corps are again saying that without illegal labor, their industry will fail.

 

No, it won't. They'll just have to treat legal green card workers fairly again, and they don't want to do it.

[taks]

Taxes, like any price point, are going to have an optimal point where either increasing or decreasing the taxes will result in a net decrease in total incoming cash.

that's called the laffer curve and it has nothing to do with economic growth, and everything to do with revenue generated for the government from income taxes.

 

It's easy, simplistic, and wrong, to simply say that lower taxes cause economic growth, which causes higher revenues in the long run, just like it's easy, simplistic, and wrong, to simply say that lower prices will cause increased sales,w hich causes higher revenues in the long run.

given that you got the basic concept wrong, not a whole lot of credence to your comment here, either. you are right that it is not as simple as "more money in your pocket means more sales," but that's a pretty good summary.

 

There's always an optimal point and the tough part about economics in practice is finding that point.

yeah, zero progressive (income) taxes. pretty simple, actually.

 

taks

Edited October 8, 2009 by taks

[Guard Dog]

 

This thread had great potential but it kinda fell down into one of the old thread sinkholes that pops up around here and everyone takes the usual, predictable, and God knows tired old positions. Ho hum.

 

In fact reading some of the posts here I get the strangest feelings of deja vu. I could swear we've all said the exact same things before.... and after a quick forum search...we all have!

 

I think I'll go pour a drink and wait for the Coyotes to show up.

[taks]

Enoch is probably one of the most well-read and knowledgeable people on these forums when it comes to economics, while you are... yeah.

because he tends to agree with you... yeah, whatever. as if you have some relative knowledge base to draw from. sorry, michael moore films don't count.

 

taks

[~Di]

Illegals are indeed an immense drain on California's economy, but the bigger drain are California's public service unions. California's state employees are the highest paid in the nation. Our prison guards are also the highest paid in the nation. And since they're all unionized, California is stuck with contracts that prohibit the kind of cuts we need to balance our budget. Add to that a completely whacked out, spend-spend-spend ultra-liberal legislature that lavishes itself with dozens of highly-paid staffers, junkets around the globe at state expense, and new automobiles for all every danged year... THAT is why California is struggling and nearly bankrupt.

 

There is enough money to give Californians what they need; there just isn't enough to give the unions and spend-thrift legislators what they want for themselves as well. Not any more.

[taks]

Seriously, though, the reason the state has larger than average unemployment issues is because it was one of the regions where the housing bust had its most pronounced effects. Areas like Las Vegas, parts of Florida, and parts of Arizona were similarly hard hit.

**** hoc ergo proctor hoc. tsk tsk.

 

CA is indeed 4th, but FL is down at 12th now and 1st is MI, which did not play much of a part in the housing crisis. CA and FL also have some of the most burdensome overall taxes in the country.

 

(Fun fact: Texas, which you'd normally think of as one of the more free-market-minded states, has been largely spared from the housing bust because the state had some of the most stringent regulations on the mortgage market during the boom years, capping all lending on real estate at an 80% loan-to-value ratio.)

in other words, they didn't abide by the federal recommendation/requirement to give out bad loans to people that couldn't afford them. hmmm... seems i said that was part of the problem how long ago?

 

taks

[Wrath of Dagon]

Actually I'm not sure that 20% is true. I think that's only for a conventional loan, unless that got changed recently. We haven't really had a real estate bubble because a) We got tons of empty land to build on b) No one really wants to move here unless they badly need a job

[Hurlshort]

Short-term costs with long-term positive effects?

Not familiar with California classroom sizes? So my 6 year old who is in school and is with what 30-40 kids 1 teacher should suffer because maybe in the long term the illegals might be productive members of society? mmm ok

 

As a teacher in California with an average class size of 36, I'm really disappointed to read this post. I would never dream of turning away one of my students, and the idea that your son's education is being harmed by the presence of illegals is fairly repugnant.

 

These are children. We should try to help educate every last one of them, regardless of their parent's history.

[alanschu]

Taxes, like any price point, are going to have an optimal point where either increasing or decreasing the taxes will result in a net decrease in total incoming cash.

that's called the laffer curve and it has nothing to do with economic growth, and everything to do with revenue generated for the government from income taxes.

 

But everything to do with Wrath of Dagon's comments about revenue.

 

Hence, the rest of your post has become irrelevant.

 

 

If you want unmitigated economic growth then yes, set taxes to zero. But that'll still net you zero revenues.

 

 

Look at what I was quoting, since you're being disingenuous:

 

Lower taxes cause economic growth, which causes higher revenues in the long run.

 

Cheers junior.

Edited October 8, 2009 by alanschu

[Kelverin]

Short-term costs with long-term positive effects?

Not familiar with California classroom sizes? So my 6 year old who is in school and is with what 30-40 kids 1 teacher should suffer because maybe in the long term the illegals might be productive members of society? mmm ok

 

As a teacher in California with an average class size of 36, I'm really disappointed to read this post. I would never dream of turning away one of my students, and the idea that your son's education is being harmed by the presence of illegals is fairly repugnant.

 

These are children. We should try to help educate every last one of them, regardless of their parent's history.

You can do a better job with less kids in the classroom bottom line, who said anything about turning people away. They should not be here in the first place. We should do this and that but utopia is not economically feasible no matter how much we dream it is.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Kelverin

[alanschu]

Are we arguing that illegal immigration is the problem in California?

There is no argument, it's a problem, period end of story if you don't think it is well good on you but it's a huge issue.

 

 

Though hasn't it always been a problem? Or has it gotten worse?

 

It's gotten much, much worse. Twenty times worse since Reagan declared amnesty to the then-1/2 million illegals in the USA. Now there are between 15-20 million illegals, and it hits the border states hard. The cost of required bilingual education has skyrocketed. Over 60 hospitals closed in California alone from 1993-2003, bankrupted by the enormous cost of providing services to illegals. It's estimated that more than 70-80% of hospital births in some border states are to illegals, and the cost is not reimbursed. Illegals have jobs in all areas of the economy, but because they are using stolen green card or social security numbers, they don't pay state or federal income taxes... and in fact make life a nightmare for the real owners of those stolen numbers, who are charged with taxes on income they never received.

 

And half of the prisoners in our over-crowded prison system are illegals. The cost of housing them is enormous. Nobody wants to do anything about it because they're afraid of losing the Hispanic vote. Thing is, there are a hell of a lot of legal immigrants who resent those who didn't wait their turn. The legal immigrants are suffering the backlash for problems caused by the illegals.

 

Yeah. It's a big problem. Big. Problem.

 

 

Do you have any idea where I could get the prison numbers? The best I found was this document from this page. The page seems to have a bit of a left slant during my brief look this evening, though the document itself has been referenced on a couple of sites now. Unfortunately it doesn't do an analysis of illegal immigrants.

 

Wikipedia (ugh) certainly agrees with your position that illegal immigration is much higher now than it was. By my findings the Amnesty in the 80s applied to roughly 3 million illegal immigrants, but the wiki link shows 12 million illegal immigrants entered the United States from 2000 to January 2006. Three million of them into California specifically. I don't know what the rates were prior to that though.

 

 

 

EDIT: I found a different document that addresses just immigration and incarceration.

 

I will preface this by saying I have NOT yet read it in its entirety, but I did find a comment on page 7:

 

In 2005, there were 28,279 foreignborn adults and 139,419 U.S.-born adults in California prisons.

 

According to the article, foreignborn counts both citizen and noncitizen, and they define "noncitizen" as "A foreign-born person who is not a naturalized U.S. citizen. Noncitizens may be in the country legally on a permanent or temporary visa (tourist, business, or student) or may be in the country illegally."

Edited October 8, 2009 by alanschu

[Humodour]

Well, they can't print money, which I guess has something to do with their credit worthiness. But then again neither can any of countries using Euros.

 

And frankly, I think that's going to be a problem for the Eurozone. In fact, I've heard it already is, given the disparity between the developing Eastern and the developed Western countries in the Eurozone.

 

I'm all for the EU and free trade and common financial regulations and ****, but I don't see how merging currencies was ever a bright idea.

 

I think California's problems are due to their soft headed liberal government

 

I see. I have heard that a large part of the problem is that the Dems need a supermajority to pass tax increases to meet their budget, which of course the Republicans reject every time, leaving the state with a choice between either stagnation, or cutting funding to social, cultural and environmental programmes (I believe they recently had to close down half the state's national parks).

 

but make no mistake about it, it's still one of the richest places on earth and the richest state in the US.

 

Indeed. I think people blow California's problems out of proportion.

[Humodour]

Hades/Killian's criminal arguments are just silly because the legal system is not black and white.

 

I doubt think Visceris even knows the difference between civil and criminal law. You expect too much from him.

[alanschu]

You can do a better job with less kids in the classroom bottom line, who said anything about turning people away. They should not be here in the first place. We should do this and that but utopia is not economically feasible no matter how much we dream it is.

 

 

I was curious so I looked into things a bit more. The first link I found here concluded that the effects of classroom size were minimal, particularly compared to the teacher.

 

I found a textbook here that has a chapter dedicated to classroom size.

 

The results were interesting so I thought I'd share them.

 

Biddle and Berliner state in the chapter abstract that research paints a mixed picture about the relationship between class sizes and student performance. According to them there have been studies that both show the correlation between smaller classroom sizes and improved student performance, and studies that have been inconclusive. The authors also give a brief analysis of many of the errors done by early research on both sides that didn't properly account for potential confounding variables.

 

Things get interesting with an analysis of the Tennessee Project STAR which involved setting up a program to ensure a variety of classroom setups for kids to be taught in. These included a "normal" classroom, a larger classroom with a teacher's aide, and a classroom with a single teacher and less than twenty students. Results did not differ much between the teacher's aide group and the normal group, but there was a significant improvement in the smaller classrooms, particularly for students typically considered to be 'disadvantaged' in the educational system (students from poor families, as well as from visible minorities). The gains also carried on once students left the program (grade 4 and beyond), with longitudinal studies showing that the students from small classes in early school tended to do better throughout their educational careers.

 

Biddle and Berliner are quick to temper the results of the study though, recognizing that the sample size was not a random distribution of the United States based on Tennessee's demographics, and that there could be additional confounding variables from the fact that the study was conducted on a volunteer basis with no additional funding provided outside of money to hire teachers and teacher's aides. On the whole though, Biddle and Berliner support the idea. Here's a synopsis of their bullet points:

 

• With good planning and funding, small class sizes have substantial gains, and the gains are more pronounced the longer the student is exposed
  
• The gains are seen in a variety of academic disciplines (math, languages, etc.)
  
• The gains are retained once the student moves into larger classes
  
• All students benefit, but the ones that benefit most are those that have traditionally been disadvantaged
  
• The gains apply equally to boys and girls
  
• Evidence for the advantages of smaller classes in later grades is inconclusive
  

 

 

My suppostion (i.e. guess ) is that many of the studies that have found class size research to be inconclusive probably performed the studies on older students.

 

 

I just thought that was interesting and felt like sharing it.

[Humodour]

Enoch is probably one of the most well-read and knowledgeable people on these forums when it comes to economics, while you are... yeah.

because he tends to agree with you... yeah, whatever. as if you have some relative knowledge base to draw from. sorry, michael moore films don't count.

 

taks

 

I disagree with Enoch more than I agree, but his posts are very well thought out and justified. He's clearly put a lot of thought into his ideas, rather than drawn them directly from the American Republican Party's website or an Ayn Rand book.

 

As I've said before, I've never seen a Michael Moore film, but what little I've heard of him leads me to dislike him. I imagine one day it'll get through that head of yours, taks.

[Killian Kalthorne]

Hades/Killian's criminal arguments are just silly because the legal system is not black and white.

 

I doubt think Visceris even knows the difference between civil and criminal law. You expect too much from him.

 

I know the difference. I just don't care.

[Killian Kalthorne]

As a teacher in California with an average class size of 36, I'm really disappointed to read this post. I would never dream of turning away one of my students, and the idea that your son's education is being harmed by the presence of illegals is fairly repugnant.

 

These are children. We should try to help educate every last one of them, regardless of their parent's history.

 

I disagree. If the child is here illegally then that child should be deported. If the parents are here illegally and the child was born here, the parents should be deported and given a choice to take their chiold with them or not. You cannot enforce the law on one and not on another, regardless of the age, race, or gender of the individual.

[Gorgon]

I gotta say I detect some degree of exaggerations and posing of problems that aren't real (illegal drunk drivers ?) here and there when you lot talk immigration and immigrants, but that is nothing new I suppose.

 

I think it's pretty sad that you have come to regard them as a kind of second class citizen (illegal citizen, but the distinction is not important). Whether you like it or not they live and work for decades in the US, part of its economy and its demographic, but without political representation because they don't vote. Given the high birth rate of Hispanic families there might well be more of 'them' than there are of 'you', in specific states. That kind of situation tends to necessitate political change.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Gorgon

[Killian Kalthorne]

If they are illegal they aren't a citizen.

If they are illegal then they don't respect our laws and are criminals. They deserve to be treated as such.

[Humodour]

Hades/Killian's criminal arguments are just silly because the legal system is not black and white.

 

I doubt think Visceris even knows the difference between civil and criminal law. You expect too much from him.

 

I know the difference. I just don't care.

 

You don't care about the difference between civil and criminal law? Seriously?

 

My god, people like you are the reason millions of America's taxpayer dollars are wasted cramming prisons chock full of people who did nothing more than burn a plant and inhale the smoke rather than on pursuing prosecuting real crimes like rape and murder.