THE PROBLEM OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

I attended public schools in Puerto Rico, Texas, Oklahoma, Washington State, Florida, France and Georgia.

Today, most kids attend government schools.

"What's the difference?" you ask.

The difference is in how you view core subjects such as basic arithmetic and mathematics (you think they are the same thing? Guess again).

In public school I learned that to find the unit cost of something, you divide the total cost of the entire project by the number of units in questions.

For instance, if you purchase a herd of 10 cows for $7,000.00, you can find the cost of each cow by dividing $7,000.00 by 10. Using public school math, that comes to $700.00 per cow.

Government schools don't work that way.

In our county, if you divide the total education budget by the number of students enrolled, you arrive at a cost of $15,000.00 per student.

The teachers' union, however, says the cost is much lower per student because the cost of buses, administrators, janitors (sorry: ministers of maintenance), and the like do not count in the cost of actually educating students.

Government employees think that what taxpayers actually pay for schooling is not related to the cost of educating a child.

The federal government thinks the same way.

According to the White House, after several revisions downward due to faulty statistical analyses, the "stimulus package(s)" have created or saved nearly a million jobs at a cost of $160 billion.

Those jobs include "the waitress who's still on the job," according to VP Joe Biden.

Using that logic, every job in America was saved by the "stimulus package," which is just absurd. But since when has absurdity been an issue with this administration?

A public school graduate would divide $160 billion by the number of jobs "created or saved" to arrive at the total cost per job, which is $160,000.00 per job.

Jared Bernstein, chief economist and senior economic advisor to the vice president, called that "calculator abuse."

He prefers the government school approach.

He said the cost per job was actually $92,000 -- but acknowledged that estimate is for the whole stimulus package as of the end of 2010.

So you see, if you were educated in government school, actually using the correct formula to solve a mathematical problem is "calculator abuse."

Instead, you should interpolate the results with such things as good wishes and good intentions, factor in unintended consequences and draw a conclusion that you HOPE satisfies the expectations of the electorate, being ready to CHANGE the result if you need to.

Giving Jared Bernstein the benefit of the doubt, and accepting the $92,000.00 per job "saved/created," let it be noted that ONLY A RANK LIBERAL could accept that figure as a reasonable cost to "create/save" an above the poverty level job, and many of the jobs "created/saved" did not qualify for even that.

Once again our elected officials have taken the approach that, "...we will do what we want to do, when we want to do it, where we want to do it, how we want to do it, and the citizen's wishes for honesty and integrity be hanged."

What do you know about Jared Bernstein? You don't know much, because there is little about him anywhere, birthplace, early life, state he's from, etc. Here's all we know: He is reported to be 53 years old, but that is not known for sure. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts from the Manhattan School of Music; a Masters Degree in Social Work from the Hunter School of Social Work; a Masters Degree in Philosophy and Ph.D. in Social Welfare from Columbia University. He has also taught at Howard University, Columbia University and New York University. Bernstein is on the Congressional Budget Office's advisory committee and has been a contributor to the financial news station CNBC. He is an extreme leftist and does not believe in a free economy. You can find out a little more about him HERE.