Text 3535, 119 rader
Skriven 2006-07-07 14:19:00 av Robert E Starr JR (4008.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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* * * This message was from Josh Hill to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
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On Wed, 05 Jul 2006 10:28:46 -0700, Charlie Edmondson
<edmondson@ieee.org> wrote:

>Josh Hill wrote:
>
>> Well, you could begin by repealing the spectacularly ineffectual No
>> School Left Unpunished Act, which has been a failure and left the
>> states strapped for cash when Bush failed to provide the funding he
>> promised to pay for his mandates.
>> 
>> Anyway, once again, funded by taxes. And I've noticed that middle
>> class districts get a lot more money per student than poor ones. Which
>> kinda makes me wonder why the middle class districts are spending so
>> much money. Sarcasm mode on: since we're clearly wasting money on
>> schools and expenditure per pupil has nothing to do with success, we
>> should take money away from wealthy suburban school districts until
>> they're holding classes in janitorial closets like poor urban ones.
>> 
>
>Oh, you, the wealthy scion of private schools

Hmmm. One might almost suspect class envy here.

>are now an expert on 
>public schools, esp. in poor, urban districts?  I am pretty sure that 
>you are not a teacher, either.

You mean to tell me you haven't been jumping out of parachutes in Iraq
and meeting with the President to discuss foreign policy?  Guess I
should ignore all of your posts, then.

Next . . . 

>Like in California, where the state government decided it would be 
>'fairer' for the state to gather in all the property taxes, and then 
>share them back out to the school districts.  All so that they could be 
>fairer with it, since those poor, urban districts get so little...
>
>And then, well, they have all these administrators and state school 
>inspectors, and other flunkies who must now be paid to be 'sure' that 
>these funds are propertly distributed.  (and for some reason, all these 
>positions are in the teacher's union, many of them held by officers in 
>the union...)  And, we do have to pay them.

The California schools went to hell after Proposition 13. No money, no
schoolie.

>Then, well, we need to have standards for these schools.  Some of them 
>are not teaching the correct 'stuff', and have nonsense like music and 
>art classes, or allow outside groups to use school property off hours 
>and thes groups include some with religous affiliations (Horrors!) and 
>other non-right-thinking groups.  The state then has to mandate HOW that 
>money should be spent, and have more adminstrators to determine those 
>standards, and enforce them.  So, we have to pay them as well.

Glad to hear that the state saw fit to enforce the law.

>So, why are the poor urban districts still too bad?  Could it have 
>anything to do with the people who live there?  Or the environment 
>outside the school, with drugs, gangs, and other influences?  Of course 
>not!  Or that many teachers don't like working where there are serious 
>health threats from the student body, so you have to offer more money, 
>so you get some teachers more interested in money than teaching...

Seems to me you've just listed some of the reasons why urban school
districts need more money than suburban ones, rather than less.

I'm always amused by the way middle class posters, generally white
suburbanites, defend the fact that poor schools get less than middle
class ones. Funny, isn't it, how those brave crusaders for fiscal
restraint will tell you that class size and teacher salaries don't
matter because the poor kids are the problem, but don't save
themselves some money by increasing the class sizes and reducing
teacher salaries in their own schools.

>Josh, government is best local.  Yes, there will be abuses, but they 
>will be a lot smaller and localized than the abuses you get when you 
>consolidate it in state and federal hands.

I think you've taken an argument about money and turned it into an
argument about control. And while they aren't entirely separate,
neither are they as tightly linked as you suggest. Certainly I don't
think that starving inner-city schools of funds is the answer.

But, since you saw fit to change the topic, I'll note that, when other
factors such as populace and the availability of funds are accounted
for, the best public schools have been and are the ones in the most
populous cities and states.

And that I've seen decentralization do great /harm/ to schools, as
when New York City districts were given independence from the
notoriously bureaucratic Board of Education in the 60's, a move which
proved utterly disastrous (the local board proved incompetent and
corrupt) and had to be reversed. 

It's nice to play Jeffersonian republican citizen-farmer (Don't Tread
On Me!), but truth be told most of us buy our food at the A&P.

-- 
Josh

"I love it when I'm around the country club, and I hear people talking about
the debilitating
effects of a welfare society. At the same time, they leave their kids a
lifetime and beyond
of food stamps. Instead of having a welfare officer, they have a trust officer.
And instead
of food stamps, they have stocks and bonds."

- Warren Buffett
         
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