Do you think that it is acceptable to falsify residency for a better school district?

[mimimomx3]

Originally Posted by reloop

So what happens if you can afford them until your husband or wife has a midlife crisis and dumps you?

What if you could afford them while you stayed at home with your kids, and upon being dumped realized you have years of relative blue sky on your resume and need to go back to school? Wait! Does this mean that I get to defraud the government for welfare benefits? Does this justify my shlepping my kid off to a better school in a different town while I pay less for subsidized housing? No. It doesn't regardless.

What if you could afford them until your company decided to outsource your job?

What if you could afford them until you got cancer and your treatments left you penniless AND without a job?

What if you could afford them until one of them became sick and required extensive medical treatment?

What then?

Walk a mile...
Walk a mile...
Walk a mile...
Walk a mile...
Walk a mile...

Then you work twice as hard, three times as hard, four times as hard....it's been done, and it's being done by those who believe in personal responsibility. You don't just throw up your hands and give up.

[mimimomx3]

Originally Posted by NHartphotog

No way. I'm going broke with the insane property taxes (over half of which goes to schools) that get approved without discussion by the legislators at every Town Meeting. Parents want to think that the more money you throw at education, the "better" the education. Actually, the Federal Gov't did a major study when I was young trying to prove this, and the results proved the opposite: student achievement is based on the socio-economic class of the parent. So people get confused because areas with high socio-economic levels also tend to spend like drunken sailors on education.

Unfortunately, art classes and music classes and other "fluff" classes are really nice, but they should be the responsibility of the parents to pay for. I was good at art when I was young, but the school system didn't pay for such stuff, so I ended up teaching myself. Achievement in art and music will be a result of natural talent plus how much time you spend practicing--not whether the local taxpayer pays for classes that kids will take because they are much easier and more fun than math.

When local government starts causing retirees and others on fixed incomes to lose the homes they already paid for--as is now happening in NH--we need to stop "rubber stamping" every budget a school system presents. They are going to ask for the sky every time, and we have to stop giving it to them. Schools need to focus on what will help kids succeed in the new "world order," something we obviously continue to fall behind in.

As to getting your kids in an expensive school system while avoiding paying the high taxes, this is theft that ultimately will result in retirees and others being taxed out of their homes.

I couldn't agree more. Add to the art and music sports and it's even worse. In Texas, we're facing huge deficits in school spending. There's talk of school closings, teacher layoffs and pay cuts...but not one word about cutting sports (notably football) budgets. Of course, the refrain is that art, music, sports "keep kids in school"....to which I ask- doesn't the idea of being educated and one day getting a JOB keep kids in school??? The more money we've thrown at education, the worse our scores and our schools have become. Something is very, very wrong and money won't fix it.

[mimimomx3]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

This is what I think a lot of people either aren't understanding, or don't care about; while I don't know whether or not that's the case for the specific woman in this incident, those who say "just move or go private!" aren't acknowledging that that's often NOT possible, much as a parent would like to go that route. How can so many people just look at those kids and say "well, too bad for them!"

Many of the kids who graduate from the very "worst" high schools in my city- in the top 10%- are recent Asian immigrants who receive VERY attractive scholarship packages from colleges. It's possible to get a good education even from a terrible school- these kids seem to have no problem doing so.

[Justme2010]

No unless it's a life-threatening situation such as in Nazi Germany back then.

In 1939ish in Germany,
A jew is asked by Nazi, are you Jew?

[Lincolnian]

Many of the responses here are symptoms of a larger problem we have as a society, that is, if something benefits me then it's okay even if it isn't legal, moral, or right.

Basically, it appears that people who follow the law, work hard, and make sacrifices are fools that deserve to be taken advantage of and ripped off.

It's a sad testimony of society.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by mimimomx3

Then you work twice as hard, three times as hard, four times as hard....it's been done, and it's being done by those who believe in personal responsibility. You don't just throw up your hands and give up.

Anyone can make excuses.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by reloop

1. So what happens if you can afford them until your husband or wife has a midlife crisis and dumps you?

2. What if you could afford them while you stayed at home with your kids, and upon being dumped realized you have years of relative blue sky on your resume and need to go back to school? Wait! Does this mean that I get to defraud the government for welfare benefits? Does this justify my shlepping my kid off to a better school in a different town while I pay less for subsidized housing? No. It doesn't regardless.

3. What if you could afford them until your company decided to outsource your job?

4. What if you could afford them until you got cancer and your treatments left you penniless AND without a job?

What if you could afford them until one of them became sick and required extensive medical treatment?

What then?

Walk a mile...
Walk a mile...
Walk a mile...
Walk a mile...
Walk a mile...

1. You should have prepared better. BOTH parents are responsible for children so depending on your spouse, who dumps you during a mid life crisis is no excuse. You should have been prepared to take care of your children because life is full of what if's. This is why I did not give up my career when my children were born. You just never know when you'll need it. Where would I have been if my husband left, died, became disabled, lost his job....???? We may not have needed my job to survive but it was part of our future security plan.

2. Then staying home wasn't a smart choice. If you're going to quit your job, you should make sure that YOU can afford to quit your job both now and in the future...a future that is full of what if's. Living in dream land where nothing bad happens is stupid. As my grandmother used to say "Hope for the best but prepare for the worst". Counting on someone else to support you isn't exactly smart. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and we sometimes have no control over the reasons it doesn't when it doesn't.

Again, this is why I did not give up my career when my children were born. You just never know what will happen.

3. Diversify. Keep your education current and save money while you can. It never ceases to amaze me how people can be broke after years of having good jobs. You don't have to spend every penny you earn. You can save for a rainy day and if you don't, it's no one's fault but your own.

This is why I saved money when I had a good job and why I kept going to school and planned for a different career when I saw the writing on the wall WRT outsourcing my job. IMO, it's really stupid to assume that the job you have today will always be there. There are no guarantees. So you live on a portion of your pay and save the rest for a rainy day.

4. This is reason to have good insurance but this one I'll give you a pass on. It's situations like this that we have welfare programs and such for. While it's reasonable to expect someone to make smart choices when quitting a job to stay home and to save money while they are making decent money in case a job gets outsourced, very few people could prepare to deal with the cost of something like cancer treatments.

The only one of these that could, remotely, justify crossing a district boundary with your kids is #4 and then you should do it legally. If you were in that district and had to move because of finances due to cancer treatment, I would be willing to bet the school board would make an exception to keep your child in the district. Cancer would not justify crossing a district boundary to put you child into a school they never attended because you never lived there.

I live in closed district but I know people whose children continue to attend our schools even though finances forced them to move. The district has allowed kids to stay in the district when the family moves out of the district. What they have not allowed is kids to attend our schools when they never lived here.

Because we do not know what will happen in life, we have to make sure we cover our bases. We need to continue our educations and save every penny we can while we can. None of us knows what the future will bring. So don't make choices you won't be able to afford if things change.