Which is worse, a belly up school or a new tax to prevent it?

Education is an investment that repays the community over and over and over.
It is more valuable than widening streets or rebuilding city hall.
It is about having the right priorities.
Reallocate existing funding to what is most important.

New taxes, these days, is a bad thing to turn to. Don’t get me started on how many ways the government taxes you without you even noticing.

As far as school goes, using generic blanket taxes to build generic blanket schools goes against my principles. I used to work in a public school, and I hate the system. I’m almost willing to say let the school fail, but I know that will only lead to those kids getting shipped off to a more distant school, larger class size, and underpaid, overworked teachers.

How about split the money evenly. There are neighborhood schools that don’t rate the same funds of some other schools because they are in a poorer neighborhood. The poorer neighborhood schools get less of what they need to fund thier schools and the schools in richer neighborhoods get larger buildings. New books and computers every year and have less students in each class.
Or send some of the kids from the over crowded schools to the schools that don’t have that issue.
Also get rid of most of the idiots on top and higher more teachers with the money they save from firing people who just sit in board rooms making decisions about things they have no experience in.

That’s what we elect people to decide. Personally, I think education is so important that I don’t mind raising taxes for that at all.

@wundayatta I don’t mind paying more taxes either but I’m beginning to resent that some schools seem to get better that don’t really need the funds and others get poorer. Everytime there are cut backs, its the schools most in need that make the biggest sacrifice by losing teachers. Mean while the big wigs that make all these decisions have no problem finding money for their pay increases yearly. Can’t help but feel everytime they raise taxes it just means more money for the school board and less money for student education.
I’ve known teachers who would help pay for supplies while the school pay thousands in repairing the football field or putting in candy machines in the cafeteria. Or paying for a 600 dollar expresso machine for board member meetings but art teachers have to raise funds for art supplies.

We need to rethink how schools are supported. Public schools in affluent areas do well and are well kept and staffed, schools in poor areas usually reflect the same problems.

We pay property tax to support schools and poor people don’t have property. I think that taxes should go into a pool and each school should share. The way that republicans deal with is insist on school vouchers. That insures that their kid are well educated and it kills the public school. I completely reject that solution. To me the choice is pay for a good public education or pay for jails later. We have been using the jail solution for way too long.

@Ron_C ”The way that republicans deal with is insist on school vouchers. That insures that their kid are well educated and it kills the public school.” There lays one of the largest detriments to vouchers, people do not really understand them, they believe it leaves the rich in better schools at the sake of the poor.

The wealthy already have better schools even if they are public because they have more tax revenue in their districts. Those really wealthy send there kids to private schools. Why are most private schools better than public? The answer is not too hard to find, aside from the money (and that is a large part) private schools can afford the best talent when it comes to educators. They can pay teachers and professors what the public end even in districts with money could ever hope to match. Private schools can give their teachers a better deal on incentives, retirement, benefits, etc.

Putting all the cash in one big educational pool would float as well as a petrified log chained to 3 battle ship anchors; it was liked with health care and it would not be liked for education. Joe Blow out there busting his hump working 65 hour weeks to keep food on the table and a roof over head will only see that his hard earned money is not going to making his kid’s school that much better but that extra money is being given to the kid of some welfare mom so he can have better books a new chem. Lab and a take home laptop. In this great benevolent charity and good natured sharing only goes so far, and usually not when one believes something is being taken from them and given to someone who has not earned it.

Vouchers done right is the only way to go. To make vouchers work every school has to use them, public and private. Don’t attaché the money to the district (which we see don’t work) attach the money to the child. If that is done it really makes no difference where the child lives because the areas income potential is taken out of the equation. Now schools can’t just cruise along but they have to get better in every area if they want to compete. If you have school Big Bucks, school Working Stiff, school Boring, and school Wrong Side of The Tracks all going to vouchers and school Big Bucks and Boring did no changes while school Wrong Side of The Tracks made changes to have a smarter more exciting curriculum geared to college prep and school Working Stiff axed their poor performing and uninspiring teachers for better teachers who could motivate students better as well as did some modernization now that the kids and their families have a choice many who might have gone to school Big Bucks or Boring will now desire to get into Wrong Side of The Tracks because the course work is not only more exciting but also geared to college prep. What would that do for Wrong Side of The Tracks? Garner them more revenue, because their enrollment ranks will swell, bring in more money because the money is attached to the child and not the district. Wrong Side of The Tracks can hire more teachers, invest in more school infrastructure. Instead of having a school get crammed with more and more students and having to stretch X amount of dollars between them or go begging the state for more money the student population will take care of that and cut out the mucky mucks in Sacramento (or whatever state you are in capital). If school Boring did not respond, make their class work better they will see the money dry up as families moved their kids to better schools. Healthy competition will not only cause all schools to get better because they have to compete for the students but those better schools will attract better talent which in turn will attract more students which in turn generate more cash for the school.

Will there still be poor schools? We have many cell phone providers and not all are grate but people for whatever reason still purchase the service because maybe they could not get into other service. Same with fueling stations, you see 3 surrounding one intersection and the one with the better deal for a particular customer will get that customer. Maybe a person will go to the station that charges 4 cent more a gallon because the service is better. Maybe people go to the lousy station that is not as modern or clean because they can get their gas for 5 cents less a gallon. Vouchers will not eliminate all lousy schools (at least not right away) but it will make all schools up their game and the kids can’t help but benefit from that.

@Hypocrisy_Central I can attest to the the quality and pay for public school teachers. Yes, it is true that some private schools can afford and do pay teachers more thane public schools but that is not the reality of it all. Those schools make a token show of providing scholarships for the dis-advantage but the majority of private schools are Catholic schools..Of them, I am very familiar. I was a “dis-advantage” youth, son of a single father and union worker whose frequent strikes kept us on the lower end of the financial spectrum. The school was taught by nuns whose promised commitment to poverty kept the cost for teachers very low.

As a teacher in Catholic High Schools, I had colleagues with years of experience in higher math and science teaching for approximately half of their public school’s counterparts.

So this isn’t about healthy competition and the “free marked”, it is about philosophy. The reason for the vouchers is to allow a greater portion of middle school kids to go to schools that propagate their parent’s philosophy. Mostly that philosophy is based on extremely conservative values and partly for punishing public schools for their liberal outlook. Further much of it is that the voucher requesting parents just don’t like their kids going to schools that have a majority of non-white students.

The conservative agenda is clearly based in exclusivism whether in authoritarian politics or in the education of what they believe is their “privileged” children.

The main reason for the success of private schools is their insistence on parental involvement. In the Catholic system that includes regular church attendance and “donations” when the basket is passed around. They have the power to expel children whose parents fail to meet these criteria.

@Ron_C ” Mostly that philosophy is based on extremely conservative values and partly for punishing public schools for their liberal outlook. Further much of it is that the voucher requesting parents just don’t like their kids going to schools that have a majority of non-white students.” If all schools were run off vouchers those “liberal” schools would still be what they are. And if they had a great curriculum parents would send there kids there for it. Not every person in the student body of BYU, or Notre Dame is Mormon or Catholic, I am sure there are students there who follow no religion at all, they are there because of what they can learn.

The reason why there are schools with less than 50% white students are the same as there are schools with more than 60% white students; the areas in where those schools lie. The students go to schools nearest where they live in their district, so if the district has more minorities then the school in that district will have more non-white or minority students. But if the money follows the child and not the district then a school in minority laden areas can still have equal white to non-white students if said school has great classes and fantastic teachers.