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Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
21–30 of 101 posts
Re: Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
False. Taking tax dollar funding away from public schools only exacerbates the issue. School choice is a scam to fund private Christian schools to brainwash the youth and maintain a conservative voter base
The cost per student in the US is higher than every country in the world (save Luxemburg if I recall correctly). The problem isn't a lack of money, the problem is the money is misused. Private schools are just better stewards of the students dollars. I mean the teacher's unions have been screaming about smaller class sizes for decades, let's give it to them.
The cost-per-student of private vs public education is not an apples-to-apples comparison because the public school system is also obligated to provide transportation and special needs education, both of which are very expensive and neither of which are in scope for most private schools.
Re: Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
#23The pandemic showed students that adults treat them and other adults as chattel. The response has been further dehumanization. The older generations who don't have school-age children have been continuously draining education in order to have lower property taxes. The wealthy parents sent their kids to private schools and try to defund public education, actively harming the children in their community. I don't blame…
That's why we need school choice, give the working poor the same opportunity to abandon the public schools like the wealthy have.
The problem with "vote with your dollars" is that the more dollars you have, the more votes you end up with. The wealthy can already do this anyway: having those resources means you can live wherever you want, and thanks to the fact that school funding is primarily done via property taxes, the wealthy can move where they like to a school of their choice that will then benefit from that funding.
Unsurprisingly this means schools with a lot of wealthy students already attract other wealthy students due to their successes largely brought about by funding, and poorer schools get even poorer as the few remaining people try their best to leave, because the school sucks.
As I've gotten older I've become incredibly skeptical at the almost knee-jerk reaction to "give people choice and let them self select." What if the choice is difficult? What if it requires knowledge most people don't have? What if people don't need to live with the consequences of the choice? What if the choice affects not only them, but others who have no choice?
Re: Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
#24The pandemic showed students that adults treat them and other adults as chattel. The response has been further dehumanization. The older generations who don't have school-age children have been continuously draining education in order to have lower property taxes. The wealthy parents sent their kids to private schools and try to defund public education, actively harming the children in their community. I don't blame…
I think it's unfair to say that wealthy parents send their kids to private schools as a way to actively defund public education. Parents are making this choice to give their kids a better education, and anyone with the same opportunity would do it too.
> The wealthy parents sent their kids to private schools and try to defund public education
They didn't say sending kids to private school was a way to actively defund public education just that wealthy parents do both which is true. What's your motivation to vote and support politicians that advocate for better funded public schools when it doesn't effect your kids but raises your taxes?
Re: Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
#25Given the number of adults who will only wfh I imagine there's some percentage of kids who just can't imagine going back to school after they've tasted school from home.
Re: Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
#26The pandemic showed students that adults treat them and other adults as chattel. The response has been further dehumanization. The older generations who don't have school-age children have been continuously draining education in order to have lower property taxes. The wealthy parents sent their kids to private schools and try to defund public education, actively harming the children in their community. I don't blame…
> continuously draining education in order to have lower property taxes
This is so provably false that I'm amazed anyone could have this opinion. The US spends huge amounts on education. More than almost any country. Neither education spending nor property taxes have declined.
Government current expenditures: Education
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/G160291A027NBEA
Personal Current Tax Receipts: State and Local Government: Property Taxes
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/S210400
US education spending is one of the highest in the world, and is also increasing 2010-2019 faster than almost any country:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...
Re: Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
#27Everyone feels it. In-person is not necessary with the online tools we have rolled out. My kids can do all, or almost all, of their schoolwork from their district issued devices. They're more likely to take a health day, or a trip with me, and still maintain their straight As.
There's also a cohort that fell behind in pandemic lockdowns, and just has never caught back up. Those kids may decide to exit the school-system entirely.
Re: Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
#28The pandemic showed students that adults treat them and other adults as chattel. The response has been further dehumanization. The older generations who don't have school-age children have been continuously draining education in order to have lower property taxes. The wealthy parents sent their kids to private schools and try to defund public education, actively harming the children in their community. I don't blame…
America does have big problems with public education, but funding is not it. Even grossly underperforming schools are often funded at per-student rates well above the OECD average and even the US average.
It's a frequent talking point in the US that underperforming schools are simply underfunded because they're in poor areas and thus don't get enough property taxes, but that's not what the data actually shows. For example, you may have heard of the mass-failure of Baltimore public schools, where not a single student in 23 of the district's schools exhibited even minimal math competency.
It's the third highest-funded large school district in the US. Last year, the district was funded at 21k/student, compared with the OECD average of 12k.
America spends enormous sums of money on education and gets less bang for the buck than probably any country in the world.
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/update-balti...
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/state-test-r.... https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/baltimore-ci...
Re: Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cost per student in the US is higher than every country in the world (save Luxemburg if I recall correctly). The problem isn't a lack of money, the problem is the money is misused. Private schools are just better stewards of the students dollars. I mean the teacher's unions have been screaming about smaller class sizes for decades, let's give it to them.
The cost-per-student of private vs public education is not an apples-to-apples comparison because the public school system is also obligated to provide transportation and special needs education, both of which are very expensive and neither of which are in scope for most private schools.
The EU and Canada have those costs too... and are still spending way less per student than the US.
Re: Why aren’t America’s students showing up?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wealthy people don't like to pay taxes which funds the public education
According to the 2020 IRS tax report, the top 1% of American earners pay 42% of all income taxes, the top 10% of earners pay 74%. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1304.pdf In California, property tax revenue has been increasing steadily YoY... a $3.2Bn increase in 2020 alone. https://www.boe.ca.gov/legdiv/2021-2022/pub306.pdf
Because the middle class is shrinking. The wealthy also use their money to lobby against new taxes that would fund public education.