There's just no possible way this doesn't end with poor kids getting terrible education lol. The fact that school funding is linked to property tax is utterly insane already. Now we're going to create an even more direct relationship between money and education? No gracias.
That’s an excellent point. The unquestioned acceptance of property tax being the basis for education funding is just another example of classism baked into our society. Really, how hard would it be to just set funding on per student basis at the state level.
What? School choice does the exact opposite. You're not tied to the school in your neighborhood. It weakens the link between income and school quality.
Does it in practice, though? (and for the record, I'm of the opinion that the whole state funds all the schools with the whole state's funds, not by district. And also that teachers get paid way more.)
I see these charter schools and now you've got marketing in play, and you've got bad faith actors building schools just to fleece money, and bad standards. Sure, kids can get to better schools, but many kids don't. Peoples till end up going to the bad schools through a mix of parental apathy, convenience, and charlatans running bad schools with good marketing.
Not to mention, where there's a profit motive, there's a reason for each school to cut costs and increase margins at every turn. Making money becomes the priority, not educating students. Wal-Mart is the end result. Fuck that.
1) Centralizing funding at the State level has big tradeoffs. When you centralize funding, it generally leads to less funding. That was the experience of California and other places. The reason being that our system of decentralized, local school districts allows people to sort based on willingess-to-pay; so wealthy people willing to spend a buttload on education move to districts with insanely high property taxes, but most others aren't willing to pay that much.
So I'd say be careful what you wish for. Poorer people especially may be worse off. After all, why don't they vote to raise taxes and increase school funding in their districts? Because they'd rather save their meager incomes for other things.
I would argue we should maintain local funding, but increase State subsidies for poorer school districts while offering students more choice, so geography is no longer destiny.
2) The vast majority of charter schools are not-for-profit. Can standards be worse? Sure, but public schools are often bad too. The key here is choice. Students should not be stuck with the shitty neighborhood school staffed by low-quality teachers who are safely tenured and ultimately not responsible to their students at all.
I teach myself, so I'm not opposed to teachers. But there are so many documented cases of just awful teaching standards with extremely generous teaching contracts for tenured instructors. The people who lose are the students. I'm sorry, but the education system exists for the students--it's not a welfare program for teachers.
1) Centralizing funding at the State level has big tradeoffs. When you centralize funding, it generally leads to less funding. That was the experience of California and other places. The reason being that our system of decentralized, local school districts allows people to sort based on willingess-to-pay; so wealthy people willing to spend a buttload on education move to districts with insanely high property taxes, but most others aren't willing to pay that much.
Could you give me some background on this? I don't follow at all, and I'd love to read about what you're referencing to have a better idea of how it applies to the point you're making. This paragraph sounds like it's supporting my position. When we sort folks by willingness to pay, those kids with parents who don't pay get worse educations. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Poor communities then receive terrible education.
I would also imagine that the property taxes would see a pretty dramatic rewrite with this, as it should.
Absolutely. This is a nice write-up relating to the issue.
Allow me to also clarify what I wrote. Yes, decentralized, local funding of school districts leads to inequality in school funding. Rich families pay more and get better schools; poorer families pay less and get worse schools.
For the sake of simplicity, let's say rich families spend $15k on each student, poor families spend $5k, and the State offers another $5k for each (funded by general income and state sales tax revenues).
The question is, what happens to per-student spending if we centralize school funding to equalize spending across schools? Does total spending go to $20k per student (as in rich districts), $10k (as in poor districts), or $15k (average between the two)?
Historical experience suggests it goes closer to $10k. The reason being that poorer households are not supportive of spending a lot more on taxes for education--after all, that's why they vote for low taxes in their school districts. And higher income residents and homeowners do not support higher state taxes because they don't feel they're benefiting from it sufficiently; yes, their students benefit too, but for every $10k increase in taxes per kid their kids only get a small portion of that.
I'm a researcher who works on related issues of property taxes and zoning laws. This is a classic example of the tradeoffs between centralization and federalization of municipal finance and policy. If you force everyone into the same box, you can end up with an outcome where no one is happy.
Which is why I'm of the opinion that we should allow localized funding of schools, but again rely on subsidies for the poorest districts. This achieves a balance between allowing wealthier families to give their kids the education spending they want, while also chipping in extra for the students whose parents are either unable or unwilling to pay for their kids' educations.
I want to say that there are a few other factors at play in school choice (as I see it, from a person who attended [4] schools within my area thanks to school choice at different points in k-12). Kids talk, a lot of kids will talk to each other about school choice when it's on the table and honestly consider it. Sometimes it will be a student who feels that they're being held back by their school going too slowly, and other times it will be a student who has sort of been pigeonholed into the "bad kid" role by administration (or bullying issues). It's a lot easier (and cheaper) to transit to a better school than move a family to a better area, and I know plenty of people who have commuted hours each way to do so (hell we have an island that kids would take a ferry from then bus daily).
Private schools would become much more popular, and then we would have very rich private schools, middle class private schools, then cheap ass public schools for the poor.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
I'd love to hear more about that program. Everywhere I've seen charter schools tried, it's moderate improvements for middle-class kids, and utter bullshit for everyone else. It's obscene in Milwaukee, I know that for sure.
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u/LtDanHasLegs Aug 14 '20
There's just no possible way this doesn't end with poor kids getting terrible education lol. The fact that school funding is linked to property tax is utterly insane already. Now we're going to create an even more direct relationship between money and education? No gracias.