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You're greatly overestimating the ability of developers to build high-rises anywhere. There'd have to be huge zoning changes to make any of these changes take place and there'd be humongous resistance from NIMBY factions on every front, with whom I would agree with for once on this issue. This stuff will never happen in a political climate even faintly resembling the current one.
Well, they're both, but just because something is a national concern, that doesn't mean the Feds need to get involved in it. The Feds are good for uniform solutions, but don't see that such solutions are needed here. I'd prefer to see everything handled at a lower level of government unless there is a good reason for a higher level to do it.
Property tax based educational funding system. How's that working out for us as a whole? If Illinois tried to do the right thing and fix that, the middle and upper middle classes would just move to Indiana or Wisconsin, destroying our tax base and preventing reform. That's one thing that'll have to be resolved on a national level. Transportation infrastructure is also largely Federally funded.
Property tax based educational funding system. How's that working out for us as a whole? If Illinois tried to do the right thing and fix that, the middle and upper middle classes would just move to Indiana or Wisconsin, destroying our tax base and preventing reform. That's one thing that'll have to be resolved on a national level. Transportation infrastructure is also largely Federally funded.
If we're talking about the future, I don't see any reason that a majority of spending on transportation couldn't be devolved.
I may be alone on this, but I think property tax based education funding is fine- it should be up to local authorities to decide how much in taxes they want to levy, and how they want to spend that money. They're in the best position to know what the community needs. I think local control is also important to community support for public education, since it gives people a sense of ownership.
I'm not a fan of federal or even extensive state involvement in K-12. That's what got us NCLB and that Common Core BS. The only useful thing I can see higher levels of government doing in K-12 are things like private tuition tax credits. As you say, a federal policy can thwart people voting with their feet. I'd say being able to vote with your feet easily is the last line of defense- knowing that you're neighbor can take his tax money and leave if you don't come up with a mutually acceptable approach to an issue is a good incentive to compromise.
If we're talking about the future, I don't see any reason that a majority of spending on transportation couldn't be devolved.
I may be alone on this, but I think property tax based education funding is fine- it should be up to local authorities to decide how much in taxes they want to levy, and how they want to spend that money. They're in the best position to know what the community needs. I think local control is also important to community support for public education, since it gives people a sense of ownership.
I'm not a fan of federal or even extensive state involvement in K-12. That's what got us NCLB and that Common Core BS. The only useful thing I can see higher levels of government doing in K-12 are things like private tuition tax credits. As you say, a federal policy can thwart people voting with their feet. I'd say being able to vote with your feet easily is the last line of defense- knowing that you're neighbor can take his tax money and leave if you don't come up with a mutually acceptable approach to an issue is a good incentive to compromise.
It's not fine because poorer communities have the kids who need the most resources, but they get the fewest because their property EAV's are lower. Comparison? Calumet City D155 spends $5,637 per pupil on instruction. Winnetka D36 spends $11,035! That's a ridiculous disparity, expecially since the kids in the latter district need fewer resources to excel than those in the former.
To say letting people "vote with their feet" will shame school districts (or bad parents) into improvement runs completely counter to common sense and actual experience. For one thing, voting with feet lowers property EAV's still further and results in less funding, creating a downward spiral and ultimate concentrations of undereducated poor, which is making our region less competitive over the long haul. For another, I don't think the administrations of these schools, or the bad parents, particularly care one way or other if the middle classes leave. Chet and others have provided a litany of examples of perpetually bad school administrations in various discussions on here.
I may be alone on this, but I think property tax based education funding is fine- it should be up to local authorities to decide how much in taxes they want to levy, and how they want to spend that money. They're in the best position to know what the community needs. I think local control is also important to community support for public education, since it gives people a sense of ownership.
I don't think local authorities really know as much about what's good for kids as they claim to. If there's no science or critical thought involved in deciding curriculum and whatnot, just "carrying on tradition" (i.e. teaching kids false history and worthless skills like cursive) and responding to pressure from parents who know nothing about how a child's brain works, then it's just a crapshoot. And there's definitely something inefficient about 100,000 school boards making the same decisions vs. one federal.
It's not fine because poorer communities have the kids who need the most resources, but they get the fewest because their property EAV's are lower. Comparison? Calumet City D155 spends $5,637 per pupil on instruction. Winnetka D36 spends $11,035! That's a ridiculous disparity, expecially since the kids in the latter district need fewer resources to excel than those in the former.
To say letting people "vote with their feet" will shame school districts (or bad parents) into improvement runs completely counter to common sense and actual experience. For one thing, voting with feet lowers property EAV's still further and results in less funding, creating a downward spiral and ultimate concentrations of undereducated poor, which is making our region less competitive over the long haul. For another, I don't think the administrations of these schools, or the bad parents, particularly care one way or other if the middle classes leave. Chet and others have provided a litany of examples of perpetually bad school administrations in various discussions on here.
I'm not concerned about the disparity in education funding. I don't think that above a certain level, it makes that much of difference. Chicago spends something like $12,000 per student. Are its results any better than Winnetka's? I'm not even sure if they're better than Calumet's. Adjusted for inflation, we spend around twice as much on public schools per student in this country as we did in 1980, and it seems to me that results haven't changed much.
I think you misunderstood my point about voting with your feet. I wasn't saying that it improves school districts, just that, in general, handling things on the state or federal level makes it that much harder to get out from under the jurisdiction of policies you don't like.
I don't think local authorities really know as much about what's good for kids as they claim to. If there's no science or critical thought involved in deciding curriculum and whatnot, just "carrying on tradition" (i.e. teaching kids false history and worthless skills like cursive) and responding to pressure from parents who know nothing about how a child's brain works, then it's just a crapshoot. And there's definitely something inefficient about 100,000 school boards making the same decisions vs. one federal.
Most teachers who care would kill to have the parental pressure, LOL! They don't get it. That's why the schools in these impoverished areas will have to effectively fill in for the absent parent in order to have any chance of success. I'm sure this will invoke self righteous outrage about how Grampy Giuseppe walked to school barefoot and studied 15 hours a day even though his parents from the old country couldn't read and whatever but it is what it is. Attitudes, and the job market, are a lot different now than they were then.
Your other point is well taken. Curriculums are woefully outdated and in a one size fits all format, so the kids from troubled backgrounds learn very little before being let off for the summer to go help the family work in the fields. That's why we have summers off, FYI, even though 99.99999% of the CPS students, for example, don't need to help their parents work the fields and thus should probably be in school all year.
It's a pretty big mess that's going to take time, money and national intervention to repair.
I'm not concerned about the disparity in education funding. I don't think that above a certain level, it makes that much of difference. Chicago spends something like $12,000 per student. Are its results any better than Winnetka's? I'm not even sure if they're better than Calumet's. Adjusted for inflation, we spend around twice as much on public schools per student in this country as we did in 1980, and it seems to me that results haven't changed much.
I think you misunderstood my point about voting with your feet. I wasn't saying that it improves school districts, just that, in general, handling things on the state or federal level makes it that much harder to get out from under the jurisdiction of policies you don't like.
A lot of people won't like doing what it takes to fix the problem, I guarantee you that. But we let it get to this point, and someone sometime will have to fix it.
As to CPS, well, that's just an example of funding in the wrong places, taking the wrong approach. They all take the wrong approach, as you correctly point out, so under the current structure, it probably wouldn't much matter. $12k/per could have an impact, but you'd probably need a lot more than that and it would have be spent entirely differently than it is now. It's not just the funding disparity per se but how schools are using it.
I don't think local authorities really know as much about what's good for kids as they claim to. If there's no science or critical thought involved in deciding curriculum and whatnot, just "carrying on tradition" (i.e. teaching kids false history and worthless skills like cursive) and responding to pressure from parents who know nothing about how a child's brain works, then it's just a crapshoot. And there's definitely something inefficient about 100,000 school boards making the same decisions vs. one federal.
Well, local authorities did a good enough job in my day. It may be an inefficient crapshoot, but I trust that overall, it's still better than the lowest common denominator and politically correct BS that a national system would mandate.
I don't think local authorities really know as much about what's good for kids as they claim to. If there's no science or critical thought involved in deciding curriculum and whatnot, just "carrying on tradition" (i.e. teaching kids false history and worthless skills like cursive) and responding to pressure from parents who know nothing about how a child's brain works, then it's just a crapshoot. And there's definitely something inefficient about 100,000 school boards making the same decisions vs. one federal.
But cursive is NOT a useless skill. It build's connections in the brain *and* fine motor skills.
Yet scientists are discovering that learning cursive is an important tool for cognitive development, particularly in training the brain to learn “functional specialization,”[2] that is capacity for optimal efficiency. In the case of learning cursive writing, the brain develops functional specialization that integrates both sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of brain become co-activated during learning of cursive writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice.
Emphasis mine.
Note that there should certainly be critical though and science in the development of curriculum, but no one listens to the teachers who actually should be doing the development.
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