Roughly 1,000 miles away in Wyoming, the developers of what would be the nation’s largest on-shore wind farm quickly caught word of the proposal.

 

California has long represented the holy grail for the Power Company of Wyoming, the Anschutz Corp. subsidiary that has proposed building the 3,000 megawatt Chokecherry Sierra Madre wind farm in Carbon County.

 

California [already had] a mandate that requires 33 percent of its power come from renewable sources by 2020. And with almost 39 million residents in need of electricity, that represents a potentially hefty sum of green electrons.

 

The problem for wind developers in Wyoming, is Brown and other California policymakers have insisted the Golden State meet its 33 percent mark with power generated from inside the state. California is projected to reach its 2020 benchmark on time.

 

But Brown’s inaugural address left many wondering if the four-term governor was coming around to the idea of out-of-state renewables.

 

“They’ve always said if they raised their renewable portfolio, Wyoming would have a place in that new demand,” said Loyd Drain, the executive director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority.

 

Drain has spent the last five years lobbying California policymakers on the virtues of Wyoming wind.

 

“They’re going to look to us, I do believe,” he said.

Wind patterns in two states are opposite

Wyoming’s interest in supplying California is backed up by a pioneering study that looks at wind patterns, an important factor, given the great concern about renewable energy being erratic and unreliable as a 24/7/365 source of power.

A new University of Wyoming study further demonstrates that combining the strengths of Wyoming wind with California wind and solar will reduce the intermittency of renewable energy and smooth the power supply — leading to benefits for utilities and energy consumers alike.

 

It turns out that Wyoming’s and California’s wind patterns are rather opposite, and that means that they’re complimentary. When one is active, the other isn’t. Based on a yearly average, California wind is strongest at night, while Wyoming wind is strongest during the day and peaks in the afternoon — coincident with the time when the sun is beginning to set while the electric load is still increasing into the evening hours.

 

“Although the benefits of geographic diversity to renewable energy have been suggested for some time, only recently have there been attempts to quantify these benefits,” says the study’s author, Jonathan Naughton, a UW professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Wind Energy Research Center. “The renewable energy quality metrics proposed in this study are a start at being able to characterize different combinations of renewable energy sources. The result of applying these metrics to energy produced from Wyoming wind and California renewables provides a quite compelling case for geographic diversity.”

But whether this intriguing study and Wyoming’s strong interest will translate into the state becoming a California energy supplier is very much up in the air. Solar power is expanding so quickly in California that utilities are making what appear to be barely disguised attempts to make it a less attractive option for homeowners and businesses considering installing solar panels, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday. If solar panels keep coming down in price, Wyoming officials’ assumption that their wind power supplies would be attractive to California on cost grounds appears shaky.

In the chart, redder is higher taxes, greener is lower.

Below are some of the states and the District of Columbia, with the ranking on the left and the median taxes paid on the right.

And what does the money buy? Education dominates state budgets. And in California, Proposition 98 even mandates that 40 percent of the state budget must go to education. Local school districts spend billions above that through taxes and bonds.

So in the list, to the right of the tax amount I’ve included each state’s 2013 score (in parentheses) from the 4th grade math test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

1. Wyoming, $2,365 (247)

2. Alaska, $2,791 (236)

3. Nevada, $3375 (236)

4. Florida, $3,648 (242)

6. Washington, $3,823 (246)

7. Texas, $5,193 (242)

37. District of Columbia, $8,034 (229)

50. California $9,509 (234)

51. New York $9,718 (240)

No correlation

What the numbers show is that there is, basically, no correlation between school spending and student achievement. California and New York spend the most, but have the same dismal scores as Nevada and Alaska, which spend among the least.

Wyoming and Washington State spend among the least, but enjoy some of the highest scores.

Florida and Texas spend little, but score in the middle of the pack on tests.

Taxes are high in California and New York, not because they purchase student achievement, but because public-employee unions are strong and can muscle state legislators, local politicians and school districts into providing high worker pay, perks and pensions.

Washington State is an anomaly because it’s now a heavily Blue State, heavily voting Democratic. Yet it still has no state income tax and government remains comparatively frugal. Maybe it’s all that rain.

Editor’s note: This is cross-posted from our friend Larry Sand. The NEA is the parent union of the powerful California Teachers Association.

July 24, 2012

By Larry Sand

The teachers union uses bogus numbers to con the public into believing that education needs more funding.

The National Education Association is relentless in its quest to raise taxes. In its latest gambit — “Massive Budget Cuts Threaten America’s Children” — the union claims that “…America’s schools have added 5.4 million students since 2003.” The only documentation for this outlandish number – an 11.1 percent increase – is a link to another article where they state the same fiction.

However, the National Council for Educational Statistics, an organization without an agenda, tells a far different story. NCES says that in 2003-2004 there were 48,540,375 K-12 students enrolled in the nation’s pubic schools. In 2010-2011, that number climbed to 49,484,181, an increase of just under 944,000 students – a 1.9 percent gain.

NEA also tries to convince us that severe spending cuts are dooming our children to an inferior education. But Mike Antonucci offers a realistic look at spending data culled from the U.S. Census Bureau. He came up with a chart which shows that between 2004-2005 and 2009-2010 per student spending increased 22 percent nationwide (9.3 percent after correcting for inflation.)

However, as Antonucci points out, the spending flattened out toward the end of that five year period. And in all likelihood we will be in for a decrease in the near term. But, what must be determined is how spending correlates to student achievement.

Compared to other countries around the world, we are fourth in spending after Luxembourg, Switzerland and Norway. Yet,

“The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics.”

Not much of a correlation there. What about individual states? A recent study about the U.S. failure to close the international achievement gap released by Education Next finds nothing at all convincing.

“No significant correlation was found between increased spending on education and test score gains. For example, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey posted large gains in student performance after boosting spending, but New York, Wyoming, and West Virginia had only marginal test-score gains to show from increased expenditures.”

Class size

The spendthrift teachers unions and their fellow travelers insist that we need more teachers because small class size is an essential component to a good education, but there is no evidence to back up this assertion. In fact, in a wonderfully contrarian op-ed, Cato Institute’s Andrew Coulson makes his case that “America Has Too Many Teachers” and other school employees.

“Since 1970, the public school workforce has roughly doubled—to 6.4 million from 3.3 million—and two-thirds of those new hires are teachers or teachers’ aides. Over the same period, enrollment rose by a tepid 8.5%. Employment has thus grown 11 times faster than enrollment. If we returned to the student-to-staff ratio of 1970, American taxpayers would save about $210 billion annually in personnel costs.”

Referring to the NAEP tests, also known as the nation’s report card, Coulson says that in spite of the increased workforce,

“These tests, first administered four decades ago, show stagnation in reading and math and a decline in science. Scores for black and Hispanic students have improved somewhat, but the scores of white students (still the majority) are flat overall, and large demographic gaps persist. Graduation rates have also stagnated or fallen. So a doubling in staff size and more than a doubling in cost have done little to improve academic outcomes.”

Ah, but what about the kids who do get lost in larger classes? A story in the Huffington Post addresses this, focusing on a sweet eight year old girl in New York City who is having a tough time in school because, due to budget cuts, her 3rd grade class now has 32 students. To be sure some students are hurt by being in bigger classes. But despite the appeal to sentiment, it is hardly a universal truth.

Teacher-pupil ratio

Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek has devoted much of his time studying this issue. In 1998, he released the results of his impressive research.

“Examining 277 separate studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement, he found that 15 percent of the studies found an improvement in achievement, while 72 percent found no effect at all—and 13 percent found that reducing class size had a negative effect on achievement. While Hanushek admits that in some cases, children might benefit from a small-class environment, there is no way ‘to describe a priori situations where reduced class size will be beneficial.’”

In our fiscally tough times it is more important than ever not to be swayed by emotion, demagoguery, and plain ol’ BS. Americans must do their due diligence and not be conned by the hucksters. And be especially wary of the teachers unions; the snake oil they sell is particularly venomous.

About the author: Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network  — a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.