Text 3551, 172 rader
Skriven 2006-07-07 14:22:00 av Robert E Starr JR (4024.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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* * * This message was from Charlie Edmondson to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * *
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         * * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *         
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Josh Hill wrote:

> 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.
> 
Ah, I see that either I mis-stated the argument, or you are creating a 
strawman...

Actually, why does everyone always assume that, without the benefits of 
the central control, the urban school districts will be underfunded? 
Actually, IMHO, they have plenty of funds, and would probably have more 
if there were not so many 'interested' parties taking their cut.  After 
all, they should have a huge tax base to draw from...

On that same subject, the was the interesting case of the Irvine Unified 
School District.  Seems that, in the depths of time when such things 
were initially set up, Irvine was classified as rural.  After all, 50 
years ago it was mainly orange groves and cattle. (It wasn't call the 
Irvine Ranch for nothing!)  Now, of course, it is a major city of almost 
200K and a technology hub.  But, the state still funds it as though it 
was rural.  Since rural districts get less per student than urban 
districts, the state doesn't want to change.  They don't want to cough 
up the money.

> 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.
> 

Or, why should we increase our class sizes and reduce teacher salaries 
just because some urban district 50 miles away can't (or more usually, 
won't) fund reduced class sizes, new buildings, additional teachers, 
etc.  Those districts get more per student than we do!

> 
>>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.
> 
Oh?  Would you consider Whitehave a populous city?  (now know as South 
Memphis, since it was annexed in my youth.  Known more for the one house 
in it, where some R&R singer used to live.)  When I grew up there, it 
had TWO public schools with national rankings, at least until they 
decided to bus half the local students somewhere else, and bused in a 
bunch of students who didn't care.  Note I said didn't care.  Not of a 
different race, not of a different socio-economic background, they just 
didn't care.  They were being treated as pawns in some big shots power 
game, and they knew it.  Some wanted to take advantage of going to the 
better school.  Most just tore it up...

I graduated a year early to get out before the worst of it hit. 
Interesting to see a nationally ranked school go to nothing in just one 
year...

> 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.
> 

So, ALL the districts were incompentent and corrupt?  Or just one or 
two.  And, how much help did they get to become that way from all the 
former bureaucrats who now found fresh, naive meat to feast upon...

Ubetcha I'm cynical!

Charlie
                                                                               
                                             
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