You just contorted what I said. I said it's a bad idea for a government to have responsibility for educating its own citizens. I never said there shouldn't be governance over schools at a local level. Those are two completely different things.
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You just contorted what I said. I said it's a bad idea for a government to have responsibility for educating its own citizens. I never said there shouldn't be governance over schools at a local level. Those are two completely different things.
If we're going to rehash the COVID debate, it would at least be prudent to explain the different variants of COVID that rose, when they did, and how medicine/natural immunity affected said variants. I'd recommend reading the below report from Yale about the different variants and how effective/deadly they were against vaccination/natural immunity.
www.yalemedicine.org
Omicron, Delta, Alpha, and More: What To Know About the Coronavirus Variants
New variants are an expected part of the evolution of viruses, and that includes SARS CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Yale Medicine provides some background on key variants that have surfaced during the course of the pandemic.
www.yalemedicine.org
You literally said that local schools are good, but not with governance over what is taught. Explain how that would work?
You love making blanket statements, but it's easy when you don't have to make it actually, you know, function in the real world.
Ugh... you're either not reading or are intentionally contorting what I am saying.
Governance is the act or process of governing or overseeing the control and direction of something.
Government is the actual entity itself which in this case refers to a state or federal level agency that oversees education.
You, me and three others can govern a social club together. A local board can govern a school. That's not what I am talking about.
A federal and state level governing body that provides funding for and oversees the direction of a system that consists of present and future electors is an inherently corrupt relationship. In our society, we don't allow victims of a crime to determine the punishment of the perpetrator of the crime against them. That is not a good way maintain justice. Having a government educate its own citizens is something that would be more likely to produce people who seek to be compliant with and further empower said government. That's not a good thing.
So in your utopia. Who would be governing this school and how would they be chosen?
I assume election, so government?
There's no utopia. My belief for things is fraught with peril. A local school board can run a school into the ground. When people are involved, anything can go wrong. My philosophical statement here is simply that elected officials who can empower themselves through control over something will seek to do so. Therefore, it's best to maintain as much distance as possible between government and the basic institutions in a society. Our founding documents and discussion surrounding them is demonstrate a great level of concern about this issue.
If schools are more individually governed or something to that effect, there would be inherent freedom within the school system overall for parents to choose the school that best fits their needs.
Example: We have serious issues with generational poverty in this country. We dedicate tremendous resources toward this problem but nothing changes. And ultimately, why would the people with power in this situation want it to change? If poverty goes away so does their power to control things and also their job and source of income.
So going back to the school situation, our best bet in poorer areas is to seek to find means by which we can help fight this generational poverty at the root level. This isn't something a 30,000 foot view can deal with. These same measures won't be necessary in a more affluent area. It's all very basic but my point is simply that we're failing to deal with the crushing circumstances many in our society face. It's time for a better way. Maybe your wife's school is fine. Maybe most of South Carolina is fine. But it's demonstrably true that a lot of schools in a lot of our cities and rural areas are not fine and we need to deal with this. The system we have in place has been totally ineffective in combating these issues. Hence we need endeavor to find a better way.
So again, who governs these schools? You keep saying schools are failing, and the government can't run them, local school boards can't run them, so who then? Give me a solution?
I would recommend we look at schools that are succeeding such as Anderson School district One, we use that model in other districts. Let's reward great results. Let's incentivize results.
Should probably get away from having local property taxes being the main provider of funding to public schools if you want to try to balance the playing field between the schools in affluent areas and lower income rural/urban areas.
A governing body would be a board for each school ideally. But even that could be fraught with peril. Like I said (which you seemingly didn't read), there's no perfect answer. But it's also clear what we're doing isn't successful.
The second part of your answer is just fantastic. Anderson school district should be the model. Do you know the actual stats?
According to online data, Anderson is the one of the whitest school districts in South Carolina. 83% of the students are white. Only 8% of it is black. It ranks 5th in the state in with respect to income per household. For funding, it gets 11% funding from the Feds, 54% from the State and 35% is local. So who controls the Anderson School District?
Additionally, statewide only 50% of the students in South Carolina are white and 33% of the students are black. How does Anderson represent South Carolina in any way? What about Richland 01? There we see 71% of students are below average in academic progress. 29% are average and less than 1% are above average. That's really successful!
Basically, what you seem to be advocating is for us to manufacture your little paradise everywhere when your paradise is not at all representative of the reality around here. Hence my statement about fantasyland because that's where you live and school your kids my friend.
Amen! Walton HS (where I live) has a new building, new everything and now they are building the most ridiculous athletic complex which will have a pedestrian bridge that's costing almost $2m to get to this place. It's absolutely absurd while nearby Sprayberry HS is in great need and getting next to nothing for its renovation because it's in a less affluent area. It's insane how all this works out and the powers that be are always corrupted into following the money and the privilege. Yet another reason why public school systems do not work on average.
I said Anderson School District One. There are five Anderson School Districts. How about instead of using racial stats you check socio-economic information.
Sticking with this, I live in Cobb County in the Atlanta area. Here's how we're doing in our public schools...
We have roughly 112,000 students in the district
24% of all kids in our district are below average. 28% are average and 48% are above average. That sounds all well and good until you dive deeper...
Testing shows 75% of white students are doing well. Only 40% of black students are and 32% of our Hispanic students are. We're getting all this for a whopping $1.3b per year and spending an average of $11,612/student.
In Richland County where they are getting really poor results with 71% of all students performing below average they are spending $17,695/student. What's that getting us? A whole lot of waste and some really underwhelming results. I could go on for days about this. The numbers are stunningly bad across the board...
Public school systems aren't working because laws get passed which negatively impact said public schools. Then after a few years when shit starts imploding Republicans get to say "look at how awful the public school system is, see we were right all along!" I guess you could stay it all started with the 1973 ruling San Antonio Independent School District v Rodriguez, where the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Gov't has no obligation to ensure that there is fair/equal funding to public schools.
Personally, i'd like to see the funding split change from ~45% local, ~45% state, and 10% federal to something along the lines of 30% federal, 45% state, 25% local. It's pretty staggering when you see that some communities have the spend per student around $10k/yr, and others in affluent areas have the spend per student around $40k/year.
Anderson 01 is a pretty good school district on average. The discrepancies there are better than average by a significant margin. 38% of the kids are from low income families which is a decent number and they still do pretty well overall. What is impressive is they spend $10,498/student which is $3k below the state average. Overall, the numbers there look better than any other school district I have seen in South Carolina. So yeah, it looks like a pretty good district based on the numbers and people seem to love it as well based on reviews. The biggest area of failure based on testing is in US history and government which is kinda my point in a lot of this. In English and Math they are over 78% proficiency which is good for a public school.
That's not what the data shows. Go around and look at funding. You'll see more is spent in poor areas than you might imagine. In Baltimore, the city school district spends over $17k per student and yet they can't get more than 10% to pass in most cases. The state average is around $15.5k per student. So they are well above average and still getting less. Based on all I have researched, you're not going to find poor school districts with less funding per student like you're talking about.
The issue is that wealthy areas have additional resources outside of the school funding mechanism. For example, our local elementary school has a foundation that is privately funded and provides enough money for extra teachers (at last count it was four extra teachers) to be hired at the school. It exists outside the tax system and I'm not sure taking steps to stop that would hold up legally.
But as I said, the property tax funding mechanism for public schools is a corrupt system and the less advantaged do tend to get less when it comes to SPLOST funding and things of that nature which exist outside the normal school budgets.
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So as I have stated multiple times, there are school districts performing quite well, in spite of significant challenges with student population and funding. Let's see how those districts do it, and expand that.
Take your model to Richland County and get back to me. Hehe
Your district is not representative of the demographics in South Carolina. There are some real challenges we have to face about demographic challenges in our country. At some point, we have to work together to solve it instead of demonizing each other over it. We're not serving everyone that same in this country and the ways we're trying to confront it now are not going to solve the problems we face.
I don't disagree with really any of this. There've been recent reports (last 24 months or so) detailing the amount of frivolous spending and, i'd call it fraud, that has occurred in the Baltimore public school system. I think Forbes had an article a year or two about it that i'm trying to find which details tons of the spending bloat which gets considered when factoring in the "spend per student."
Agreed, and I'm glad to work with people to find solutions. As I've stated ad nauseum, my wife is a career teacher/Counselor/Behavior Specialist and has dedicated her career to Education.
To work together for solutions, you have to acknowledge that just eliminating public education not only isn't a solution, it's also never gonna happen.
There are many things that are never going to happen which given results, should probably happen. I'll never be in favor of public education because you can't get rid of all the bad things we need to address without first getting rid of public education. It just holds all those other things up.
So you just throw your hands up and shake your fist at the sky? How about try to find solutions? There are districts and schools that are doing a great job.
The real change needs to come from Parents.
Parenting is awful. The value of marriage is lost on so many. You are an interesting case. So much of what you claim to hold dear is a casualty of that which you politically support. I have hope you'll eventually realize that. In the times we live in, there is no middle ground. Both extremes must be stopped. But the fundamentals paint a very clear picture of what is transpiring and at some point, we'll all have to choose.
There’s another viewpoint to this. People work hard to afford to live in an area with good schools. Those schools are generally good because they have hardworking parents combined with sufficient local tax base. We should continue to have structures in society that require and incentivize hard work and achievement.
Things would go sideways if all of a sudden people who busted their ass and spent tons of money on a home due to local schools had funding cut to those schools. You should be rewarded for hard work, achievement and your contributions to the tax base.
This whole argument revolves around the concept that there should be good and bad schools. I think children should be offered the closest thing to a fair education that is available since I believe in an educated populace and don’t think children should be punished for their parents’ mistakes or shortcomings.
If you have extra income then buy tutors to further assist your children to rise above. Less fortunate children shouldn’t be punished due to where they were born.
That's not how the public school model is intended to work. Based on your views, getting away from the public school model would be best. The idea of public school is to provide the most equal opportunity possible for all. As with all things government run, it doesn't work and that's why we see such a messy situation now. Of course, private school is an option as well for people with the means to pay for it.
I have demonstrated to you that there are public schools that work and are very effective. Can you please stop being so broad with blanket statements such as "As with all things government run, it doesn't work.". That's just flat wrong.
For another example, I work with Insurances daily and Medicare is by far the easiest to understand, use, and easiest for patients. Far,far better than most private systems.
How about we say that we need to do better. These types of blanket statements are not just factually wrong, they eliminate debate and improvement. I hate to tell you this, even though you don't like it, and think it needs to be eliminated, public education isn't going anywhere.
You have not demonstrated they work in the areas needed most. And there is abundant evidence, almost without exception, that they don't work where it is so vitally needed.
No public education isn't going anywhere. And we will continue our decline as a nation. That system plays a role in that decline.
Medicare is great except for the part where it doesn't pay for itself. Private insurance is a disaster. I never said there isn't a role for government. I simply said it doesn't do much of anything well.
I have demonstrated that there are school districts that do a great job, with very affordable Costs in and area of poverty and rampant broken family, drug issues etc. Your response was, now do it in the Corridor of Shame. What is your solution for the Corridor of Shame? How are private schools going to help? Those people in that are of extreme poverty can't afford it.
Also, you literally said, " It doesn't work". That's factually flat wrong.
You love to bitch about Government run things, fine, present some solutions. It seems like according to you if something doesn't work perfectly, then it sucks and we should eliminate that. You should probably be glad your boss doesn't hold you to that standard. I seem to remember getting a mortgage quote from you and choosing to go with a different bank due to your rates being less competitive. Hope you didn't get fired for that failure.
I don’t think there should be good and bad schools. There are, but it’s more a product of parents than funding. Look at the Baltimore example above. You could go to Bishop England on Daniel Island (my alma mater) for less than they spend per child. It’s not funding.
I’m saying that you should not take local money away from the local schools. I pay exponentially more in property taxes, not to mention state and federal taxes, than someone in a poor area. I am already subsidizing their education through state and federal taxes. My local taxes should stay local.
Perhaps we should figure out how to fix the patents. They are the single biggest problem in underperforming schools.
The pro lifers already lost the argument in the 70s. Go back and read it. Essentially, the government should respect the privacy of the situation. Because, you know, church isn't supposed to be running the state.
You have demonstrated there is a school district doing a decent job that has nothing whatsoever in common with where the problems are. The demographics/socioeconomic stats of Anderson 01 show nothing like poverty, rampant broken families and drug issues.
The top HS in Anderson 01 grades out at an 81 and the next highest is a 64. 64 is a failing grade in the classroom. 81 is a fringe B. Not so great.
You always seem to take what is said and run with it to fit your narrative. I recommend you stick in the world of reality if you really want to solve issues.
Also, allow me to clarify something. Our elementary school in this district is ranked #1 in Cobb County and #12 in the state. We did send our kids there for a time and were completely unsatisfied with what was taking place. Because of our investment in private school, by almost any metric our kids are ahead now. I don't just rant and rave without understanding things. As I have said in the past, my wife was a teacher for over a decade. We have close friends who are also teachers. This comes from experience and the perspective of actual educators.
You ask about solutions. Is it now a requirement to have a solution to a problem to notice there is a problem? We need to employ all the resources we can to try and find some solutions. I have listed quite a few over time. These are easy solutions.
We're humans in a nation governed by humans. Nothing is going to be perfect. I have presented tons of solutions over time to so many of the things that ail our nation. But I am just a guy. I don't know everything or even most things. I can still observe when something doesn't work. That you want to cover for that says a whole lot about you and it's not flattering.
Lastly, a mortgage quote from me is the best price I have that day. I get those prices from the people I work for. On any given day, someone can have a better price. That's just how it is in business. If Costco has a better price than Amazon, does that make Amazon less? There are so many people I have referred to others because they could get a better deal elsewhere. I am an honest broker in everything I do...always. That's why I got almost 200 loans off that thread and so many are repeat clients to this day.
This is even more empty-brained than your usual responses. It doesn't really dignify a response due to its profound level of ignorance. But then I had to respond to say it doesn't deserve a response so I lose.
The arguments pro lifers have for banning abortion are to expose their morality on others. Im not for abortions as a practice of birth control, but I see no way at all, that the government can effectively ban it without creating serious medical crisis.This is even more empty-brained than your usual responses. It doesn't really dignify a response due to its profound level of ignorance. But then I had to respond to say it doesn't deserve a response so I lose.
I won't be pulled into a name calling session on it.
Heartbreaking if true but not surprising considering how hard Texas has made it on women to get an abortion. I wonder if she struggled with the decision for a while before she made that awful choice or if she had been able to get it much sooner, would she have done so. Most women don't even know they're pregnant at six weeks.
Edit - I had forgotten that they banned it entirely so she really had no option at all. Assholes
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Yea if you’re going to allow it, 6 weeks is too early. Many don’t know. Particularly those who aren’t - obviously- trying.
Now us, I heard my kids heartbeats at 8 weeks. Genetic testing at 10. Gender knowledge and family announcement after 12 weeks.
More support for a European style 15 week voluntary limit. And honestly that’s very liberal given the milestones I experienced.
I don't know if you saw my edit but I had forgotten they actually banned it completely last year except for extreme exceptions. That's just brutally cruel.
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