Survey says: We have had stupid people making decisions about how money is spent in California.
How else do you explain this idiocy:
  • According to multiple recent news reports, more than $50,000 is spent each year to keep an inmate in state prison in California.

  • According to other news reports, California spent about $7,500 per K-12 student in the past school year.
    As a child, getting a first glimpse at multiplication tables in second grade and then mastering them the next year, I always was taken by the "7s."
    Maybe it was a football thing -- touchdown and extra point equals seven. The "7s" always were my favorite part of multiplication tables.
    Let's really go out on the proverbial limb here and say it's stupid, idiotic, inane, dumb and short-sighted to spend SEVEN TIMES AS MUCH PER YEAR ON AN INMATE AS WE DO ON A PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENT ... AND, YES, I'M USING ALL-CAPITAL LETTERS IN BOLD-FACE TYPE FOR SUBTLE EMPHASIS.
    The court system -- recently all the way up to the United States Supreme Court -- seems very intent on fixing any inequities that exist for those who broke the law and are now incarcerated.
    A spacious prison hospital complex, after much debate, is being built near Highway 99 in Stockton.
    The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 recently that California must reduce the population in its state prisons by more than 33,000. The state's chief prison official
    trotted out his plans for doing so last week.
    By all means, let's take care of the prisoners.
    But, first, let's revisit those annual spending figures listed above and take the multiplication a few more steps.

  • If the state continued to spend $7,500 per K-12 student, that means an incoming kindergartner would be "worth" $97,500 over the course of his/her 13 years in public schools.

  • But if that same kindergartner would have as much spent on him as the average state inmate, that would be $650,000 over 13 years.
    So let's apply the old chicken-egg litmus test. If the state spent seven times as much on public school students as it does now, what would happen to test scores, graduation rates, and the number of students who are able to go on to college?
    And what would happen to crime rates and the need for more prisons and prison hospitals if California's purse-string holders would push more of this money toward education?
    It'll be interesting to see if elected leaders truly have the guts and fortitude to tackle this issue before things ... well ... multiply even more in the wrong direction.
    The benefits of preschool
    Survey says, Part II: The positive benefits of preschool endure into a person's adulthood, according to one of the most in-depth studies on the issue ever.
    The survey, based in Chicago, found overwhelmingly that those children who spent time in preschool ended up with better jobs, less drug abuse and fewer arrests than those who did not attend preschool.
    More grist for the mill of the importance of early education.