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The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

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Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#51

Post by burgerbrain »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #42
burgerbrain wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not like that his taxes are of a different color than her taxes, right?" I'm not sure, but I believe that people with children in their household pay more school taxes.

It's not a tax then, but rather a teaching fee. A conditional tax is a fee. Why can't she choose a school freely and pay a fee where she wants to?

Eh, my understanding is that everybody (over a certain income level of course) pays it, but some people pay more and some people pay less. Kind of like how different people get taxed different amounts for different property.

I'll have to look into this, I'm not terribly familiar with it since I have someone do my taxes for me..

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#52

Post by gamble »

aik wrote: post #15

>> In case you needed further proof of the American education system's failings, especially in poor and minority communities, consider the latest crime to spread across the country: educational theft. I'm not sure if it is entirely fair to single out the education system here (once again), or at least batch it in with "yet another failing". I believe more is at fault here. Unless I'm mistaken, tax payers in a particu…

The problem is that American cities are structured to keep the poor and minorities in nominally independent cities or suburbs that are geographically indistinguishable from the richer areas, but just independent enough to ensure that property taxes aren't shared.

It's also hard to escape the fact that many, if not most of these suburbs were explicitly set up to keep out blacks, latinos, Jews, and other undesirable groups. Until the sixties, houses in these communities often carried a restrictive covenant that explicitly prohibited sales to non-whites.

Canada shares a lot of the basic educational structure as the US, and sadly a good share of the racial baggage as well, but our cities are far more monolithic than most American cities. There are only two school districts in my city (pop. ~1 million) and students can register in any school throughout the district. The only choice I make as a taxpayer is which district, public or Catholic, I want my property taxes to fund.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#53

Post by cafard »

burgerbrain wrote: post #41
guard-of-terra wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her father, registered in that school district, obviously pays the taxes; So there's no reason why it would not cover the tuition of her chidren. You're just dropped back from "it's fair that way" to "the rules say that way". It's not like that his taxes are of a different color than her taxes, right? So it should not matter where the children go to school, it's still fair.

"It's not like that his taxes are of a different color than her taxes, right?" I'm not sure, but I believe that people with children in their household pay more school taxes.

Schools are in general funded by taxes on real estate--which in my opinion is not a good thing, but is the way it is in the US. The couples with infants on our block and the empty-nesters pay taxes for the school system, just like the families with kids in the public schools and families with kids in private schools.

I don't object to paying taxes for schools without having a child enrolled in them. However, I think that real estate taxation is not a good way to fund the schools.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#54

Post by [deleted] »

jleyank wrote: post #40
mchusma wrote: post #21

Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers at most, preferably none at all.

If government is not involved in education "at all", then you have the situation that people pay $$ for schools and then have no say in how the money is spent. This would not go down well...

[deleted]

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#55

Post by JupiterJazz »

jleyank wrote: post #40
mchusma wrote: post #21

Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers at most, preferably none at all.

If government is not involved in education "at all", then you have the situation that people pay $$ for schools and then have no say in how the money is spent. This would not go down well...

Are you kidding me? Parents will give their money to the schools who do a good job and will stop giving money to schools that do a bad job.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#56

Post by guard-of-terra »

burgerbrain wrote: post #51
guard-of-terra wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a tax then, but rather a teaching fee. A conditional tax is a fee. Why can't she choose a school freely and pay a fee where she wants to?

Eh, my understanding is that everybody (over a certain income level of course) pays it, but some people pay more and some people pay less. Kind of like how different people get taxed different amounts for different property. I'll have to look into this, I'm not terribly familiar with it since I have someone do my taxes for me..

I afraid then, it's hard to reason whether something is "fair" or "not fair", given the sheer compexity of the system. Which is unfortunate: when you don't immediately understand what's fair and what's not, you have to apply rules first. And rules are just like violence: If they fail, add more rules.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#57

Post by potatolicious »

mchusma wrote: post #21

Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers at most, preferably none at all.

Are you seriously proposing we go back to pre-public schooling society - you know, the one where the vast major of the population was completely uneducated since education was strictly reserved for the wealthy?

Laissez-faire brings out some admirable qualities in people, but it is also an extremely unequal system with many detrimental effects on society (including the rich). There's a historical reason why we invented public schools, public libraries, public parks, etc.

I find it difficult to understand how someone with an awareness of history can support a completely laissez-faire society where the default answer to everything is "let the market figure it out". This is not a new idea, and the present state of the world only exists because we had to suffer through centuries of unbridled capitalism and classism.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#58

Post by cafard »

Forty years ago, I remember hearing from a neighbor that the Arizona school district she had worked for took some pains to see that the snowbirds didn't just drop their kids off for instruction. Her oldest child was probably born in 1951 or 1952, which suggests a terminus ad quem for her teaching days of about 60 years ago.

Now and again the New York Times will write about the efforts New Jersey districts will take to investigate suspicious enrollments. I've never read of such investigations resulting in more than a kid shipped from one school to another.

And it strikes me as utterly disingenuous for the WSJ to be going on about this.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#59

Post by lhnn »

cafard wrote: post #58

Forty years ago, I remember hearing from a neighbor that the Arizona school district she had worked for took some pains to see that the snowbirds didn't just drop their kids off for instruction. Her oldest child was probably born in 1951 or 1952, which suggests a terminus ad quem for her teaching days of about 60 years ago. Now and again the New York Times will write about the efforts New Jersey districts will take t…

How is it disingenuous for the WSJ to talk about this issue?

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#60

Post by JupiterJazz »

Volpe wrote: post #50
mchusma wrote: post #21

Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers at most, preferably none at all.

That's right, poor people shouldn't have an education! That's what you are advocating with "Government shouldn't be involved in education." Is that really what you mean?

Why would it be in the interest of private schools to hoard their products from me? I only make $18000 (about half the median wage) and food companies don't price me out of the market. Car companies don't either. Given that nearly every human being is in demand of an affordable education it makes no sense for companies to not accept low income students. The only reason private schools are expensive now is because the government monopoly makes it imposible for them to compete on the low income section of the market.
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