Public Education: Vital for modern society or a scam?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

And gained nothing. Swing miss.

[DaShi]

Nonsense. I get a dollar every time you respond.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Who says it was actually Ogie responding? He is on vacation.

[DaShi]

Ogie's been on vacation most of his life, if you get my meaning.

[Imran Siddiqui]

As if that has anything to do with it. It's a public high school.

As if living in one of the richest parts of the United States has nothing to do with the quality of your public education.

Seriously. It's like HC has never heard that US public education is paid by local property tax, so that when you live in a high property value area... well we all can do the math.

[Elok]

A parent who is willing to sit through all their kid's classes is going to homeschool them.

I wasn't suggesting that any parent/s would sit in on every one of his/her/their child's classes. Even one day of one parent sitting in on one period would likely prove a terminal disruption--the teacher's not going to get diddly-squat done for that class. Compared to parent-teacher meetings, which merely waste the teacher's time and not twenty to thirty students' as well, that's a bad deal. It won't even achieve the desired effect of showing how classes typically go, since the teacher is bound to act differently with parents around.

Oversharing is the best way to cut down on that crap.

What do you mean by oversharing? Oh, and WRT TAs, some of them may be useless (I had one today who literally abandoned me in a class with some emotionally-sensitive special ed kids he was supposed to be watching), the concept is far from intrinsically flawed. A TA can explain difficult concepts to kids who are having trouble while the teacher is watching the class as a whole, or run errands, provide an extra set of eyes for problem classes...and that's assuming there aren't any special-needs kids who require a para.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Ogie's been on vacation most of his life, if you get my meaning.

You have yet to have meaning.

[Al B. Sure!]

Seriously. It's like HC has never heard that US public education is paid by local property tax, so that when you live in a high property value area... well we all can do the math.

Check it:

In Philadelphia, the School District spends $2,215 less per student than the average suburban school, and six districts are spending over $5,000 more per student than Philadelphia. The gap with the 20 percent high spending schools in the state was $2,709 per student or $572 million for the entire district each year. By the end of 12 years of schooling the average student in the high spending districts receives $32,000 more in education spending than Philadelphia teens--the equivalent of three years of schooling.

That's a pretty huge gap between schools in the city and just outside.

[Al B. Sure!]

And lying about residency can end you up like this woman:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-mom-jailed-sending-kids-school-district/story?id=12763654

Kelley Williams-Bolar was convicted of lying about her residency to get her daughters into a better school district.

"It's overwhelming. I'm exhausted," she said. "I did this for them, so there it is. I did this for them."

Williams-Bolar decided four years ago to send her daughters to a highly ranked school in neighboring Copley-Fairlawn School District.

But it wasn't her Akron district of residence, so her children were ineligible to attend school there, even though her father lived within the district's boundaries.

The school district accused Williams-Bolar of lying about her address, falsifying records and, when confronted, having her father file false court papers to get around the system.

Williams-Bolar said she did it to keep her children safe and that she lived part-time with her dad.

"When my home got broken into, I felt it was my duty to do something else," Williams-Bolar said.

While her children are no longer attending schools in the Copley-Fairlawn District, school officials said she was cheating because her daughters received a quality education without paying taxes to fund it.

The school officials asked her to pay $30,000 in back tuition.

Williams-Bolar refused and was indicted and convicted of falsifying her residency records.

She was sentenced last week to 10 days in county jail and put on three years of probation.

Ironically, the woman was 12 credit hours away from an education degree but this felony conviction will bar her from becoming a teacher.


I guess HC will say but she wasn't paying the taxes to support that education so she deserves it but how can you criticize a woman for trying to provide a better education for her children when a better education is so contingent on mere geography?

[Al B. Sure!]

The property tax rate in Philadelphia is approximately twice the PA average rate, by the way. So higher tax rate than the suburbs but deflated urban home values means significantly less is spent per capita on students. Of course, mere money doesn't solve all education woes but et ceteris paribus, more money spent would presumably increase the value of the education, including with respect to perception from college application boards.

The current inequities in the system clearly contribute to a cycle of disparity in education quality between the cities and the rich areas. And since education is the single biggest variable determining life-time earnings, it is evident that this is a problem with a generational effect.

[giblets]

The current inequities in the system clearly contribute to a cycle of disparity in education quality between the cities and the rich areas. And since education is the single biggest variable determining life-time earnings, it is evident that this is a problem with a generational effect.

Some people call that "freedom"

If we tax the people with high earnings in order to give a quality education to the poor kids, it's SLAVERY!

[Docfeelgood]

Some people call that "freedom"

If we tax the people with high earnings in order to give a quality education to the poor kids, it's SLAVERY!

Here in Texas they call it " Robin Hood ". lol

[Agent Sox]

Whoa, I don't even think public education is a scam. I think it's good for us to be smart so that we can uncover the secrets of the universe.

[Hauldren Collider]

Some people call that "freedom"

If we tax the people with high earnings in order to give a quality education to the poor kids, it's SLAVERY!

Hang on, isn't that what we do right now?

Yeah so some jurisdictions don't have as many rich people they can tax but what the hell do you want to do about that? Wave your magic wand and make all places equally rich? As it is the state funds a substantial portion of education, it is not simply local property taxes.

[Hauldren Collider]

Oh yeah, one more thing. I've never heard anyone seriously suggest that we shouldn't subsidize education for the poor. The only debate is whether the government should fund college educations, which is really quite different.

Furthermore, good schools often drive up local property values, so while schools are funded by the property taxes, the taxes themselves are dependent on the schools being well-run. It's not perfect, but it provides some level of competition and market forces to the system which I think is probably a good thing.