Public school problems

[danoconnor249]

"This, then, is the dread that seems to lie beneath the fear of equalizing. Equity is seen as dispossession. Local autonomy is seen as liberty - even if the poverty of those in nearby cities robs them of all meaningful autonomy by narrowing their choices to the meanest and the shabbiest of options. In this way, defendants in these cases seem to

Comments

[tjfourth]

well, since the way we achieve equity is via dispossession I can understand why people would equate the two. But that does not mean that the best answer is to stop taxing, since, for instance, people are not going to give money to the government to fund education voluntarily (or at least not enough). Thus, I feel like taking it is the only pragmatic solution

[danoconnor249]

Yeah, equity equals dispossession in the immediate. But 90% of prison inmates are high school dropouts, and they cost the state about $60,000 a year to jail. Or they did in 1991. Whereas it costs about $12,000 a year to give a top rate education in a system with a solid infrastructure. Though it costs more to get the facilities and staff to the point where they're top level. And good schools have fewer drop outs. You pay now or you pay later. And despite what some people would have us think, money is directly connected to how well the school does. Money poorly used doesn't equal good education, but you can't tell me that class sizes of 15, full libraries, extensive facilities, clean structures, a selection of courses, trained parent coordinators, cutting edge technology, and extracurricular activites (which can all be bought with money) wont attract excellent teachers, and wont engage children. They will. My school somehow landed the best new school construction contract of $30 million, and we get our pick of teachers.

[tjfourth]

You know what would make me want to teach? Dancing monkeys. I think we need a dancing monkey budget for schools.

[kepharel]

rather than being all smart like tom (with whom i agree), i'm just going to say... TAG! YOU'RE IT! *runs away*