Poor literacy doesn't bode well for our future (day care, lawyers)

[DAXhound]

Who votes for bonds, when the money never makes it to the classroom. Wyoming spends double per student..very poor results. I was subbing a big class of first graders..not a single one of them could tie their own shoes. Most went to Headstart, most went to PK, and all went to Kinder... We have private prisons, why not private schools. Government could not survive without contracting out the most difficult, critical problems to private contractors. "Siphoning"..but those schools have been verifiably horrible for fifty years..enough is enough.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by DAXhound

Who votes for bonds, when the money never makes it to the classroom. Wyoming spends double per student..very poor results. I was subbing a big class of first graders..not a single one of them could tie their own shoes. Most went to Headstart, most went to PK, and all went to Kinder... We have private prisons, why not private schools. Government could not survive without contracting out the most difficult, critical problems to private contractors. "Siphoning"..but those schools have been verifiably horrible for fifty years..enough is enough.

I vote NO on every school bond & every education tax increase on the ballot. Problem is, I'm usually outvoted, seeing how most of the bonds & other similar initiatives pass by a rather large margin. Based on the way people vote, and how the vast majority of kids attend public schools, it appears that the public system will not be going away & replaced with privatization anytime soon. I think the least we can do is make the ones who actually use the public system pay all the taxes for it, and leave the rest of us alone. I have better things I could be doing with thousands of my hard earned dollars besides throwing it away on property taxes to support public schools which I have no use for.

[Hschlick84]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

I vote NO on every school bond & every education tax increase on the ballot. Problem is, I'm usually outvoted, seeing how most of the bonds & other similar initiatives pass by a rather large margin. Based on the way people vote, and how the vast majority of kids attend public schools, it appears that the public system will not be going away & replaced with privatization anytime soon. I think the least we can do is make the ones who actually use the public system pay all the taxes for it, and leave the rest of us alone. I have better things I could be doing with thousands of my hard earned dollars besides throwing it away on property taxes to support public schools which I have no use for.

Time to repeal the 19th Amendment. That would solve a lot of problems.

[KurtAZ]

Originally Posted by Hschlick84

Time to repeal the 19th Amendment. That would solve a lot of problems.

Why would repealing suffrage solve this? Sounds like VN needs to move into a 55+ neighborhood and then wouldn't have to worry about property taxes going to schools.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

Absolutely! There have been statistics showing that kids who are private schooled are much more likely to be college graduates and have successful careers. Public schools have had more than their chance with the amount of tax money poured into them, but the output has always been mediocre at best. Also, it's not exactly fair to make those without children in the system pay the taxes to support this beast. Let parents decide how to educate their children, and make them pay for it themselves.

Looking at averages, we certainly agree that private schools have better results than public schools. ESPECIALLY, the expensive private K-12. Those outlier schools are world-class. Like everything in life, money correlates to quality (and the law of diminishing returns is alive and well).

Unfortunately, there is a lot of wa$te, especially in public schools. Plus, there are family cultures that literally don't care. When that happens with (50%??) of non-caring students, you could spend as much as you want, and shy of an outlier child, you will get terrible test scores.

The solution is to give more dollars only when kids/families care And roll back special ed costs. Obviously, both of those solutions will be tied up in court. You know our country is in trouble when a "Social media star" has become the fourth-most popular career aspiration. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-...r%20personally

But we are where we are. Talking about banking thousands in waste. I'd also like to fix our POS healthcare system. Where I pay $18K in premiums for a couple. Plus, we each have a $9K deductible (and we have a 20% unlimited deductible out of state). Someone who promised the wall to be paid for by Mexico also promised to fix healthcare too. 0-2.

So even though I pay school taxes for two homes, I'm willing to pay more so that schools are well funded for that 10 - 15 % of motivated students. And I recognize waste happens. Just like the military, and every single other government program.

But remember, quality education is certainly a Hell-of-a-lot more than just benchmarking standardized test scores. If all I cared about was standardized scores, we would have homeschooled. But for us, we are not a fan of that concept. So I want motivated teachers as well as fantastic funding for the gifted and talented. Never forget the 80-20 rule.

Anecdotally speaking, I went to the same HS as our kids. Our parents were not motivated and the results spoke for themselves (HS dropout brothers and I'm the only one to attend college out of 6 kids). My K-12 standardized test scores were slightly above average. But I finally figured it out in the workplace and went back to college (I finished 12 years later in electrical engineering: Honeywell paid). Our kids in the very same HS, as I attended, cared a lot more than my parents. And those test scores were stellar. Hence, family culture matters! That's how it works. Maybe there should be some mandatory parenting classes!!!

So if I voted no to referendums, I understand expensive advanced placement classes, "free" college during HS, music programs, and teachers' salaries will also be impacted. It's a trade-off. I'll take spending an extra $3K-$5K a year on waste. YMMV. But I'm doing so with open eyes.

[Galeana]

Originally Posted by Oklazona Bound

Public schools will get worse but people now have a choice. Home schooled and private school students have higher test scores than public school students. More opportunity for school choice should improve test scores. Public schools have had their chance. Your stats above show they have failed horribly.

If the private voucher program was ended, those big bucks will go back to supporting public schools. Siphoning those funds off was a bad idea and much of it is based on racial bias.

Let's go back to basics: IN-person public schools. If parents want a private education for their kids, it's on their dime.

[Galeana]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

I vote NO on every school bond & every education tax increase on the ballot. Problem is, I'm usually outvoted, seeing how most of the bonds & other similar initiatives pass by a rather large margin. Based on the way people vote, and how the vast majority of kids attend public schools, it appears that the public system will not be going away & replaced with privatization anytime soon. I think the least we can do is make the ones who actually use the public system pay all the taxes for it, and leave the rest of us alone. I have better things I could be doing with thousands of my hard earned dollars besides throwing it away on property taxes to support public schools which I have no use for.

School taxes are paid for the Common Good. Same with road taxes...everyone pays, even non-drivers.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by Galeana

School taxes are paid for the Common Good. Same with road taxes...everyone pays, even non-drivers.

You're comparing apples to oranges because roads are funded differently than schools. Roads are paid for through sales taxes (namely fuels), as well as a portion of our car registration fees. Public schools have multiple funding sources, and the most burdensome to homeowners is the property tax. When I fill up the gas tank, the amount of taxes collected for transportation projects are barely noticeable. My car license fees this year were several hundred dollars. Compare that to my property tax bill which is in the thousands, and over 60% of it goes to public education. You do the math. Also, everybody uses & benefits from roads to a certain extent, even those who don't own vehicles & don't drive. Not everybody uses public schools, and those who don't utilize them aren't reaping any benefits.

[hindsight2020]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

Not everybody uses public schools, and those who don't utilize them aren't reaping any benefits.

Sure we do. High school completion makes it so that the individual in question is statistically more likely to pay for my social security and medicare, than be the one to assault me on the street over precarity-driven property crime. We all "use" public education.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by hindsight2020

Sure we do. High school completion makes it so that the individual in question is statistically more likely to pay for my social security and medicare, than be the one to assault me on the street over precarity-driven property crime. We all "use" public education.

I'm not arguing that education isn't important, but K through 12 can (and should) be privatized. We know that likely won't happen, so a more compromising alternative would be to have the users of the public schools pay the taxes, and those without children in the public system can be left alone without that costly burden.

If you want to talk statistics, here's one for you: there is overall greater academic success among private school children when compared to the ones who attend public school (specifically in reading and math). Here's another one for you to ponder: children who attend private schools are more likely to become college graduates, and learn trades that achieve greater success & higher incomes. You're more likely to be assaulted on the street by somebody who went to public school ... and the private school graduate will very likely be financing your Social Security + other benefits far more than the person who coasted through public school.

https://www.studyinternational.com/n...es-successful/

https://www.nordangliaeducation.com/...%20to%20public.