Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Incredibly low-priced private schools

boston.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 62 posts

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#51

Post by smallblacksun »

jimbokun wrote: post #29
arethuza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_pri_sch_stu-sp... the US spends about $6K per child for primary education. I don't know about the US but private schools here in the UK are rather more than that (we pay a total of about $15K a year).

"the US spends about $6K per child for primary education." The cost for our children at a Catholic elementary school here in the U.S. is about half that.

Religious schools are frequently subsidized by the sponsoring religious group, and Catholic schools tend to employ a lot of nuns, who cost the school very little.

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#52

Post by anamax »

jbooth wrote: post #49
DrSprout wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this was 50 years ago when such schools were widely funded by local sources This is really the only significant part of the equation. The system is basically designed to fail. You pass a tax levy for X mills, which brings in X amount of money for the school system, and never a dollar more. Property values go up, but property taxes do not. The budget therefore shrinks every year due to inflation, and every 10-15 year…

++ In Massachusetts, there's a cap of 2.5% for property tax increases without a ballot measure. This means that almost every year, local budgets are shrinking relative to inflation. You know what the most common complaint I heard was when these issues went to ballot? "Screw those councilmen, they want to raise our taxes so they're holding these services hostage." What's the phrase about it being impossible to make pe…

> In Massachusetts, there's a cap of 2.5% for property tax increases without a ballot measure. This means that almost every year, local budgets are shrinking relative to inflation.

Doesn't MA reassess on transfer? CA does, so property tax revenues grow faster than the cap.

Note that CA also does "catchup" - the bill goes up by the cap whenever the difference between the assessed and real value is greater than the cap, no matter what's happened to the real value. That's why property tax bill is going up this by the cap year even though the value of my house took a 30% hit last year. It's the same for anyone who has owned for more than 5 years.

Note that housing inflation has been more than other inflation, so trailing housing inflation doesn't imply that the local govt is losing ground.

> "Screw those councilmen, they want to raise our taxes so they're holding these services hostage."

Since that's how govts actually behave....

Look at what they do and don't threaten to cut and ask yourself if those are rational priorities. Or, do those two lists tell you that they're using the "cut" list to keep funding for the "don't cut" list.

Note - you have to look at both lists, not just the "cut" list. And you have to look at the amounts for the various items.

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#53

Post by _delirium »

amalcon wrote: post #12
_delirium wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are private schools in the US regulated to prevent similar situations (if they are at all)? In practice, market forces do a decent (though not perfect) job: most private schools want to produce students who have a chance of getting into a good college, and one of the more effective ways to convince colleges you aren't insane is to: 1) have your students do well on standardized tests like the SAT; and/or 2) be a…

The caveat is that this works now because most parents who pay to send their children to a private school do so to improve academic outcomes, and because getting into a good college is considered a very positive academic outcome.

Yeah, that's true, and there's also a possible negative feedback loop if strongly religious colleges that weren't as interested in secular education made a revival. Super-Christian private high schools feeding into super-Christian colleges won't have the same sort of check on whether the student got any sort of decent secular education, because right now, the need to look good to a college with a mostly secular admissions process (even schools like BYU look at secular academics in the admissions) is one of the main motivators for religious high schools to do a decent job on their secular education.

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#54

Post by sitmaster »

jbooth wrote: post #48
grellas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local caring and local responsibility are key to any system of quality education. The public schools I grew up with in the American midwest (all lower middle class) were uniformly good but this was 50 years ago when such schools were widely funded by local sources (e.g., property taxes from the community), did not have to account to the distant bureaucracies or have to focus on prepping kids to meet minimum proficien…

RE: unions, there are 2 issues I think. A) (perception), unions are more concerned with benefits for their members than educating their kids. Uh... so? Who else is going to advocate for them? They have to eat too, and every small town in America trots out a bunch of reaganish bullcrap about how the school system should be able to do more with less but they all expect a raise in their private sector job if they're doi…

No one would complain about unionized teachers if they were doing a good job. All people see is vast sums of money going in and functionally retarded children coming out.

This could be because of bad teachers, bad parents, stupid/unteachable children, etc, but the unions' only solution is always "more money." Is it unreasonable to think, then, that the unions are acting in bad faith? The teachers are the only ones who get to elect the union leaders so they are responsible, directly or indirectly.

There's a huge shortage of qualified teachers because of the nonsense teachers ed requirements for certifying teachers. You've probably seen many articles on how ridiculous and shoddy these curricula are. These requirements exist at the behest of the unions to protect their members from competition.

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#55

Post by jbooth »

anamax wrote: post #52
jbooth wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

++ In Massachusetts, there's a cap of 2.5% for property tax increases without a ballot measure. This means that almost every year, local budgets are shrinking relative to inflation. You know what the most common complaint I heard was when these issues went to ballot? "Screw those councilmen, they want to raise our taxes so they're holding these services hostage." What's the phrase about it being impossible to make pe…

> In Massachusetts, there's a cap of 2.5% for property tax increases without a ballot measure. This means that almost every year, local budgets are shrinking relative to inflation. Doesn't MA reassess on transfer? CA does, so property tax revenues grow faster than the cap. Note that CA also does "catchup" - the bill goes up by the cap whenever the difference between the assessed and real value is greater than the cap…

Are you kidding me?

There was no money. It was a choice between raising taxes or cutting services.

And people like you respond to that with "You're such jerks for holding our services hostage!"

Arithmetic is not a jerk. It's just a fact. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

RE: the percentages, the deal is that the total local property tax take goes up by 2.5% a year. If your property increases in assessed value, you might see personal increase of more than that but someone else saw an increase of less to make up for it.

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#56

Post by anamax »

jbooth wrote: post #55
anamax wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Massachusetts, there's a cap of 2.5% for property tax increases without a ballot measure. This means that almost every year, local budgets are shrinking relative to inflation. Doesn't MA reassess on transfer? CA does, so property tax revenues grow faster than the cap. Note that CA also does "catchup" - the bill goes up by the cap whenever the difference between the assessed and real value is greater than the cap…

Are you kidding me? There was no money. It was a choice between raising taxes or cutting services. And people like you respond to that with "You're such jerks for holding our services hostage!" Arithmetic is not a jerk. It's just a fact. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? RE: the percentages, the deal is that the total local property tax take goes up by 2.5% a year. If your property increases in assessed v…

> > There was no money. It was a choice between raising taxes or cutting services.

0 money? Really? I'll bet that it was really just not enough to pay for what the pols wanted to do.

If the latter, they could fund some services. That's why I said to look at what they protected and what they said that they'd cut if they didn't get more money.

If you do that, you'll discover that they're protecting some things that should have a lower priority than things that they put on the "cut" list.

> And people like you respond to that with "You're such jerks for holding our services hostage!"

Since they're saying that they don't have enough money for police and fire protection but do for lesser things, why is it wrong to characterize that as "holding our services hostage"? What is an acceptable way to criticise that behavior?

Or, are you claiming that they should always get enough money for whatever they want?

> Arithmetic is not a jerk. It's just a fact.

Yup, it's a fact. If you have $100 and what you want costs $200, you need to scale back your wants.

The "jerk" behavior is to spend the $100 on lower priorities and whine that you don't have enough money to pay for higher priorities.

> Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Huh? The fact that some govt wants to do something does not obligate me to pay for it.

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#57

Post by jbooth »

anamax wrote: post #56
jbooth wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding me? There was no money. It was a choice between raising taxes or cutting services. And people like you respond to that with "You're such jerks for holding our services hostage!" Arithmetic is not a jerk. It's just a fact. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? RE: the percentages, the deal is that the total local property tax take goes up by 2.5% a year. If your property increases in assessed v…

> > There was no money. It was a choice between raising taxes or cutting services. 0 money? Really? I'll bet that it was really just not enough to pay for what the pols wanted to do. If the latter, they could fund some services. That's why I said to look at what they protected and what they said that they'd cut if they didn't get more money. If you do that, you'll discover that they're protecting some things that sho…

I was one of the pols. I agonized over the budgets. What we "wanted to do" was continue to pay our teachers. There wasn't enough money for that.

It was simple arithmetic, a choice between letting teachers go or raising taxes.

What many people did for selfish reasons, and you're doing for ideological purity reasons, is attempt to change the debate to some abstract notion of "government spending my money". Hey buddy, it's your kids in the schools, and you even get to vote on the tax increase. Just don't call me a jerk or a liar -- I'm giving it to you straight.

Quote anamax : The "jerk" behavior is to spend the $100 on lower priorities and whine that you don't have enough money to pay for higher priorities.

Which lower priorities was I wasting money on here, exactly? You're the expert. And I'm sure there weren't any state or federal mandates involved, legal obligations or anything like that. "jerk" behavior is refusing to educate yourself on things and hand-waving away instead so you can keep your nice simple universe. Mental shortcuts will always lead to uninformed opinions.

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#58

Post by anamax »

jbooth wrote: post #57
anamax wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > There was no money. It was a choice between raising taxes or cutting services. 0 money? Really? I'll bet that it was really just not enough to pay for what the pols wanted to do. If the latter, they could fund some services. That's why I said to look at what they protected and what they said that they'd cut if they didn't get more money. If you do that, you'll discover that they're protecting some things that sho…

I was one of the pols. I agonized over the budgets. What we "wanted to do" was continue to pay our teachers. There wasn't enough money for that. It was simple arithmetic, a choice between letting teachers go or raising taxes. What many people did for selfish reasons, and you're doing for ideological purity reasons, is attempt to change the debate to some abstract notion of "government spending my money". Hey buddy, i…

> It was simple arithmetic, a choice between letting teachers go or raising taxes.

Somehow I doubt that teacher salaries were your only expense. I doubt that teacher salaries were even your only not-mandated expense. (As to "mandated", I've found that some of the "mandates" are an excuse. Yes, I've done this exercise before.)

A 20% reduction in income can be painful, but in a world where lots of people are taking a bigger hit....

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#59

Post by jbooth »

anamax wrote: post #58
jbooth wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was one of the pols. I agonized over the budgets. What we "wanted to do" was continue to pay our teachers. There wasn't enough money for that. It was simple arithmetic, a choice between letting teachers go or raising taxes. What many people did for selfish reasons, and you're doing for ideological purity reasons, is attempt to change the debate to some abstract notion of "government spending my money". Hey buddy, i…

> It was simple arithmetic, a choice between letting teachers go or raising taxes. Somehow I doubt that teacher salaries were your only expense. I doubt that teacher salaries were even your only not-mandated expense. (As to "mandated", I've found that some of the "mandates" are an excuse. Yes, I've done this exercise before.) A 20% reduction in income can be painful, but in a world where lots of people are taking a b…

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, I guess.

Re: Incredibly low-priced private schools

#60

Post by anamax »

jbooth wrote: post #59
anamax wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was simple arithmetic, a choice between letting teachers go or raising taxes. Somehow I doubt that teacher salaries were your only expense. I doubt that teacher salaries were even your only not-mandated expense. (As to "mandated", I've found that some of the "mandates" are an excuse. Yes, I've done this exercise before.) A 20% reduction in income can be painful, but in a world where lots of people are taking a b…

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, I guess.

Which reminds me, I like your assumption that govt spending, specifically teacher salaries, are the most important priority.

Your tax base took a hit because people took a huge hit, yet for some reason you think that teachers should be spared. Other folks take a pay cut and lose jobs, but ....

Which reminds me, do those teachers have defined benefit pensions? Are they fully funded? Few folks in the private sector have such pensions and none of them have taxpayer guarantees.

And yes, I noticed that you ducked my questions about budget components. As I wrote, I've gone through this before.

Post reply on HN