« February 2005 | Main | April 2005 »

March 29, 2005

[Education] Per Student spending in Utah

[Utah Schools, Utah Public Schools, Utah School Districts - SchoolMatters] When I moved from Alabama to Utah I thought I had arrived in a public education utopia. Students did better on standardized tests, AP tests, reading, everything. So you can imagine my surprise when all I heard was whining about per student spending rates (which are low in Utah) and student to teacher ratios (which are high in Utah).

But this website confirms my suspicions and makes me really wonder what all the whining is about. In Alabama, they spend $6,857 per student (which is below the national average of $8,848). In Utah, we spend a paltry $4,900 per student. Alabama's reading proficiency is 22% (national average is 30%). Utah's reading proficiency is 32%.

The conclusion to make here is that Utah spends less per student than Alabama but gets much better results on standardized tests. Shouldn't other states be trying to figure out how we can educate students better than they can on almost half the money per student? I still don't see the problem with Utah education, and, by the way, I still think we should spend more on education in Utah.

Posted by jones at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2005

[Misc.] The first two balsa planes

Here are my reviews of two balsa airplane kits from two different companies. Regular readers may recall that I've been reliving the days of buiding model airplanes. But this time in balsa and paper rather than plastic.

Guillows supermarine spitfire (27 1/2 inch wingspan) This was the first and last non-laser-cut parts kit that I'll buy. The whole process of extracting parts from the wood was a pain. The instructions were quite good. There was plenty of supplies. Unfortunately, the suggested method for sticking the nose to the airplane was stupid (cement it on). Also, the kit required a piece of paper to be attached as the fairing between the fuselage and wing. This was difficult and lame. I was not overly impressed with the kit.

Dumas 24 inch hall's bulldog. Laser cut parts extremely easy to work with. Really quite a difficult model to assemble due to the gull wing design but the balsa implemetnation makes sense and went together just fine. Does not require any paper parts as fairings etc. An intriguing replica of a goofy looking airplane.

Posted by jones at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)