Public Education: Vital for modern society or a scam?

[giblets]

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.

It is what's done now, in general, although local property values still have more influence than they should. But some people get really upset about being taxed in order to pay for education for poor kids. And think being forced to pay a tax is 'slavery'. And want to slash state funding for education.

[Dinner]

As long as we're talking about taxing rich people I'd like to point out how utterly full of **** Republican talking points are. They claim that if we tax rich people at a progressive rate (Reagan literally had rich people paying a lower rate then the rest of us) that they will move to avoid the taxes. California has had either one of the highest or the highest state income taxes (for the very wealthy though regular people pay very little to nothing) since the 1950's yet currently California has around 50% of the top 5% of tax payers in the country. That percentage has actually gone up over the last 20 years. Yet not only are these rich people not fleeing California, as the right wing nut jobs claim they should, their numbers are rising and the billionaires seem unwilling to exchange their Malibu beach homes for low tax havens in the Oklahoma. Imagine that, reality doesn't jive with political spin and rich people, like everyone else, want to live in highly desirable places with good consumer and business ammenities even if it means Californians pay two percentage points more of income then Texans. I can't say I blame them since no one who can afford to do better wants to live in Texas.

[Dinner]

The hard truth is there are consumer services, things like museums, sports teams, fancy restaurants, great theaters, and quality of life things like national/state/regional parks, etc... which people really want to live near. Rich people especially want to live near and take advantage of such amenities (because part of living the good life is having such things at your finger tips). That means the Republican talking point about taxes being the end all and only deciding factor just doesn't equal reality. Billionaires keep living in Manhattan because Manhattan has tons of consumer services rich people and poor people all want. The same goes for coastal California. Yes, taxes are part of the equation but when you can afford to live any where people often decide taxes aren't the only thing on their mind and they are willing to pay more to live in extremely desirable places. That's why Omaha can drop their taxes to nothing yet few truly rich people move there from outside the area yet NYC and California can have high taxes and still have rich people move there.

Republicans propagandists just never acknowledge this reality.

[Imran Siddiqui]

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.

Fund all local schools by state governments. Take property taxes for education and pool them at the state level.

And that's not even close to making all places equally rich.

[DinoDoc]

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

It's amazing how little seemed to have been done in the wake of this report.

[DinoDoc]

Very irrelevant for the US being on the cutting edge of science...

However did we get to the cutting edge of science before 1977?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

However did we get to the cutting edge of science before 1977?

Couple of big time governmental programs sping to mind, namely Manhatten project yielding advances in nuclear power and weaponry. Missile race and Space race also spring to mind with advances in a vareity of fields. The industrial military complex made for a pretty strong component of technological superiority and had the advantage of keeping the superiority relatively unique to the US due to the top secret nature of the information.

The genie pops more readily out of the bottle and becomes more available to other nations and the market as a whole via private sector innovations and the rather limitted patent time periods or for that matter even observance of patent law.

[The Mad Monk]

Right wing conservatives are constantly calling for the abolition of the department of education and all Federal education spending,because it is the job of stae and local authorities.

ADDENDED.

[DaShi]

It's amazing how little seemed to have been done in the wake of this report.

For good reason

[DaShi]

Right wing conservatives are constantly calling for the abolition of the department of education and all Federal education spending,because it is the job of stae and local authorities.

Oerdin, this is probably the dumbest thing you've ever posted. It's exactly the type of ignorant rightwing thinking that you rant against. While the issue of whose job it is is debatable, it completely over looks important considerations that require actual critical thought. The better question than Whose job is it? is Who could do a better job and why?

Simply stupid.

[Al B. Sure!]

Oerdin, this is probably the dumbest thing you've ever posted. It's exactly the type of ignorant rightwing thinking that you rant against. While the issue of whose job it is is debatable, it completely over looks important considerations that require actual critical thought. The better question than Whose job is it? is Who could do a better job and why?

Simply stupid.

Oerdin's quote was changed by The Mad Monk, you know, right?

[DaShi]

What?! Who would do such a reprehensible thing as misrepresent someone's own statements? Especially so blatantly. It's one thing to disagree agree with someone, but to outright edit their statements to support your agenda is despicable and illegal. In fact, so much so that I cannot believe that it happened.

[Al B. Sure!]

What?! Who would do such a reprehensible thing as misrepresent someone's own statements? Especially so blatantly. It's one thing to disagree agree with someone, but to outright edit their statements to support your agenda is despicable and illegal. In fact, so much so that I cannot believe that it happened.

Why are you being sarcastic at me for? I just thought you might have glossed over that fact.

[Dinner]

Yeah, I didn't write that.

[DaShi]

Why are you being sarcastic at me for? I just thought you might have glossed over that fact.

Because I wanted to make sure you could understand sarcasm?