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RIPR is a (paper) newsletter
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that affect life here in the Ocean State. Each issue focuses on
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Available Back Issues:
- Oct 07 (28) - Choosing the most
expensive ways to fight crime, bait and switch tax cuts, review
of Against Prediction, about the perils of using statistics
to fight crime.
- Aug 07 (27) - Sub-prime mortgages
fall heaviest on some neighborhoods, biotech patents in decline, no photo
IDs for voting, review of Al Gore's Against Reason
- Jun 07 (26) - Education
funding, budget secrecy, book review of Boomsday and the Social
Security Trustees' Report
- May 07 (25) - Municipal finance: could citizen
mobility cause high property taxes?
What some Depression-era economists had to say on investment, and why
it's relevant today, again.
- Mar 07 (24) - The state budget
disaster and how we got here. Structural deficit, health care,
borrowing, unfunded liabilities, the works.
- Jan 07 (23) - The impact of real
estate speculation on housing prices, reshaping the electoral college.
Book review of Blocking the Courthouse Door on tort "reform."
- Dec 06 (22) - State deficit: What's
so responsible about this? DOT bonding madness, Quonset, again,
Massachusetts budget comparison.
- Oct 06 (21) - Book review: Out of
Iraq by Geo. McGovern and William Polk, New rules about supervisors
undercut unions, New Hampshire comparisons, and November referenda guide.
- Aug 06 (20) - Measuring teacher
quality, anti-planning referenda and the conspiracy to promote them,
affordable housing in the suburbs, union elections v. card checks.
- Jun 06 (19) - Education report, Do
tax cut really shrink government?, Casinos and constitutions, State historic tax
credit: who uses it.
- May 06 (18) - Distribution
analysis of property taxes by town, critique of RIEDC statistics,
how to reform health care, and how not to.
- Mar 06 (17) - Critique of commonly
used statistics: RI/MA rich people disparity, median income, etc.
Our economic dependence on high health care spending. Review of
Crashing the Gate
- Feb 06 (16) - Unnecessary
accounting changes mean disaster ahead for state and towns, reforming
property tax assessment, random state budget notes.
- Jan 06 (15) - Educational equity,
estimating the amount of real estate speculation in Rhode Island,
interview with Thom Deller, Providence's chief planner.
- Nov 05 (14) - The distribution of
affordable houses and people who need them, a look at RI's affordable
housing laws.
- Sep 05 (13) - A solution to pension
strife, review of J.K. Galbraith biography and why we should care.
- Jul 05 (12) - Kelo v. New London:
Eminent Domain, and what's between the lines in New London.
- Jun 05 (11) - Teacher salaries,
Veterinarian salaries and the
minimum wage. Book review: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
- Apr 05 (10) - Choosing a crisis: Tax fairness and school
funding, suggestions for reform. Book review: business location and
tax incentives.
- Feb 05 (9) - State and teacher
pension costs kept artificially high. Miscellaneous tax suggestions for balancing the state budget.
- Dec 04 (8) - Welfare applications and the iconography of welfare
department logos. The reality of the Social Security trust fund.
- Oct 04 (7) - RIPTA and DOT, who's really in crisis?
- Aug 04 (6) - MTBE and well pollution, Mathematical problems with property taxes
- May 04 (5) - A look at food-safety issues: mad cows, genetic engineering, disappearing farmland.
- Mar 04 (4) - FY05 RI State Budget Critique.
- Feb 04 (3) - A close look at the Blue Cross of RI annual statement.
- Oct 03 (2) - Taxing matters, a historical overview of tax burdens in Rhode Island
- Oct 03 Appendix - Methodology notes and sources for October issue
- Apr 03 (1) - FY04 RI State Budget critique
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Responsibility:
 Tom Sgouros
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Thu, 15 Jun 2006
The Shape of the Starting Line
The policy review on improving education in Rhode Island can be found
here (or
here).
Executive Summary
It is widely acknowledged that education in Rhode Island isn't
working well for all children. Even partisans of the public education
system acknowledge that the costs are high and performance seems low
for the investment. This is especially true in the kinds of
comparisons to other states that are commonly made. A litany of
statistics makes the point: teacher salaries here are high compared to
the median wage, school test scores are low compared to national
averages and so on. The statistics are made familiar by endless
repetition on talk shows, in political speeches and in the newspaper.
Under this blizzard of numbers lie some troubling truths. Yes, it
is true that many urban schools in Rhode Island do not perform up to
national averages. And yes, it is true that schools in Rhode
Island are on average more expensive to run relative to many other
places.
Unfortunately, these facts, in combination with the preconceptions
of the legislature, city and town councils and the public, have helped
to create an environment where the schools that need the most help get
less and less of it every year, creating, in essence, two Rhode
Islands. In one Rhode Island, high property values and relatively
lower taxes allow the schools to get the support they need, or at
least close to it. In the other Rhode Island---where 35% of our
children live---a dwindling tax base and concomitant high property
taxes combine to create a situation where schools struggle to provide
the basic services, let alone perform to the high standards enshrined
by new laws like No Child Left Behind. In recent years, school
performance all over Rhode Island seems to be improving, if slightly,
but the gap between the richest school districts and the poorest is
not shrinking, and the urban districts remain far below the state
average while the wealthier districts are above the national averages.
Read more here.
11:19 - 15 Jun 2006 [/y6/jn]
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