Minneapolis Social Injustice and Related

[NYCfixie]

If you want education paid for by your tax dollars, then send your kids to a public school. If you are unhappy with the quality of the education, work for change. If you don't want to work for change and you choose to go to a private school, then that is your choice. Don't expect the state or locality to pay for it. I for one don't want my taxes to go to any school that is not a fully public school.

When I made my statement about independent schools, I was not referring to a product but a state of being independent, i.e. independent from the outside regulation or proscriptive requirements.

I am not sure if I understand the difference between private schools and these independent schools that you mention. Everything I've checked describes them as different terms for the same thing. If these schools operate with public funds and make their own curriculum and standards without any state regulation, what assurances are there that any standards are being followed? I can't believe that the states or localities just hand over money and say here you go. There has to be some level of state involvement.

My initial reason for joining the conversation was to inform others as very few people understand how independent schools are funded and operate, yet they do not mind calling them evil and a drain on public funding. I also requested that a small sample of schools who may operate in the grey areas of the law not be used to define all independent schools.

Most people do not know how non-public, often charter, schools are funded and operate yet they are quick to say they remove funds from the public education system.

An independent school is a general term used to define privately funded not-for-profit k-12 schools. Two examples of independent schools are private non-faith based and private faith based schools.

Public schools are also a general term to define publicly funded schools with the two best known examples as public and non-public. The non-public term can be confusing because all it really means is that a school can operate outside the general oversight of the local board of ed but is still publicly funded and must meet all state curriculum guidelines and testing requirements.

As to the use of public funds, I share a few examples.:

Jane and John Smith pay local taxes and send their children to the local public school. They do not believe in independent/private education and do not think their local district should fund any students who choose to attend the local non-public charter school or a private school.

Jane and John Hanover live down the street, work at the same company, have the same cookie cutter home, and pay the same taxes. They send their children to the local charter school, after winning a lottery for spots, and believe that the amount of money the local district would spend on their children should be used towards the "publicly funded" non-public charter school. After all, it is still a publicly funded school that must meet state requirements. Is it their fault that this school also raises funds privately so that they can have smaller class sizes and other enrichment to the educational program? Jane has no issue with the local district funding private/independent schools for neighbors children as long as it is not any more than would be spent if the children attended the local public school. John on the other hand thinks that all monies should stay in the local district even though he understands that his children, by lottery, have been given a better opportunity than other local public school students because his kids are going to the charter school with smaller class sizes. Who is correct, Jane or John?

Jane and John Carter live a little farther down the same street, work at the same company as the other families, have the same cookie cutter home as the others, and pay the same local taxes. The Carters live a frugal life and took out loans so they can send their children to a private school in the area. It has a better educational program, smaller class sizes, and a much better college list. What they do not understand is why the local school district will not help fund their children's private school for the same amount that the public school would spend on their children anyway if they attended the local public school. They question how that is equal. Why should the Carter tax dollars stay in the local public school district and further benefit the Smith (and Hanover) children that would otherwise pay for the Carter children if they attended the local public school? Yet, the Smiths do not think that same money, normally slated to cover the Carter children's public school education, should leave the district to pay for a portion of the Carter children's private school tuition? Why should the Smiths (and one of the Hanovers) get to decide how the Carters tax dollars, meant for the Carter children's education, is spent?

Jane and John Moneybags live even a little farther down the same street, work at the same company as the other families, have the same cookie cutter home as the others, and pay the same local taxes. The Moneybags recently came into a great deal of money when poor old Aunt Mae died. As such, they decided that they want their kids to have the same opportunities as the Carter children so they took their kids out of the public school and sent them to the private school. Because they now have so much money they chose to not fight the local public school district about funding their children's private school education for the same amount that has always been spent on their children when they attended the public school. Is this equal?


This presupposes that the public education while good, is still not as good as the additional opportunities that comes from attending the private school (or even the charter school). These are oversimplified examples but each family has a different viewpoints and within one family they can't even agree. So, whose viewpoint is correct and why?

Is this a conversation about equality versus equity? Have all the families chosen to have equality or equity? Does the district get to make the choice for them?

Why do public school parents get to decide how to spend the private school parents tax dollars (often to benefit their own public school children) but the private school parents don't get to decide for themselves? Is that equality or equity? Who gets to decide which ones gets what they want?

I am not actually taking a side but rather trying to reinforce the fact that their are different viewpoints. Maybe it is not as simple as all tax dollars should remain in the public school district if that public school district is not using that money efficiently to educate all children. Maybe the public district is doing their best and the issue is that the local taxpayers are simply under-funding the school district (for whatever reason). Maybe publicly funded and smaller non-public charter schools are the solution. Maybe allowing taxpayers to decide how the money allocated for their children should be spent is the answer. Is it equal when two families pay the same taxes but one family has 2 children in the local public school and the other family has 6 children in the public school? Should the first family pay less taxes and the second family pay more? Again, is it about equality or equity?


This is not a simple problem and it does not have a simple solution. From my viewpoint, the problem is the public system is broken, taxpayers don't want to pay more local property taxes, politicians pander to the largest voting block, and class sizes are too big in public schools (so many studies have shown smaller class sizes lead to better outcomes for all students).

My wife works in an urban independent school with class sizes no larger than 16 students, most students are great performers, come from privileged backgrounds, some are financial aid students, she can give each of them individualized attention, she has very limited benefits that are very expensive, is not protect by a union, there is no tenure track, she is reviewed every three years, and does not have a pension. My sister in law is an urban public school teacher whose class size averages 33 students, they are mostly from poor neighborhoods so she is more babysitter than teacher, she really only has time for the top performers and those who are struggling leaving the majority of students in the middle on their own, she has great benefits for minimal out of pocket cost, is protected by a union, was given tenure after only 5 years, no longer has performance reviews because she has tenure, and will be retiring after working 30 years with a great pension and continued health benefits. Which teacher has it better and why? Which students have it better and why?

Again, a very difficult problem with no easy quick fix solutions.

[Matthew Strongin]

Why do public school parents get to decide how to spend the private school parents tax dollars (often to benefit their own public school children) but the private school parents don't get to decide for themselves? Is that equality or equity? Who gets to decide which ones gets what they want?

Because taxes paid aren't earmarked for the person paying them. That's not how taxation works. We don't get a say in which roads get repaired with our taxes either.

My son is in private school. I very much wish that wasn't the case. But he has some academic needs that would result in him getting lost and overlooked in even a good public school system and I live in an area with some of the worst public schools around. But I don't for a second think even a cent of my taxes should go to him or his school. I made my choice to go down the private path and my taxes should go to (hopefully) improving the schools in my community, which will in turn improve my community. When I speak to the other parents at my son's school, that sentiment is shared.

And since I'm putting my thoughts on schools out there, I'll say that I do have issues with charter/magnet schools, or at least the ones in Miami, and my issue is primarily about access. The lottery systems are generally rigged and the realities of navigating this county make it so that it's almost impossible for anyone in the poor parts of town to get their kids to the charter schools. So people who have the types of jobs/lives where they can prioritize the drive across town or, as is more often the case, live in wealthy neighborhoods close to those charter schools, make up a disproportionate amount of the enrollments. Here's a good example:

MAST Academy - Wikipedia

This is a top-notch public magnet school just outside of Key Biscayne, one of the wealthiest and most exclusive communities in Miami-Dade. It's literally an island with nothing but golf courses, historic state parks and multi-million dollar homes. To anyone unfamiliar with Miami, those demographics look pretty good in terms of minority representation. But if you know, you know...that is a highly disproportionate percentage of white students relative to the demographics of the county. The student parking lot full of Mercedes and BMWs is a dead giveaway, as well.

[j44ke]

I understand all these variations of opinion on how taxes should work, but that is not how taxes do work. Your tax payments are not a bank account that you get to carry with you and spend as you choose.

However, the tax argument that you present is exactly the narrative that the anti-public school lobby has used to convince people who are not going to public schools that they are getting ripped off. And with this support, they’ve been able to drive a wedge between the socio-economic group that is often the engine behind reform in public school - middle class families who are upwardly ambitious but for whom private school is too expensive - and the general population at “regular” public schools.

Charter schools and magnet schools also subtract these people from the population of public schools.

Why is the charter school better? Why isn’t the public school as good? My public schools that I went to were terrific. Now they have problems. Because monies that used to go wholly to public schools and not go to private schools based on this supposed equivalence that it is the same expenditure whether tax money is spent on buses for a public high school or buses for a charter school, because all parents pay taxes so whatever school their kids go to should get tax money spent on buses. And what’s more, all these quasi-almost but not quite public schools suck all the good students out of the public schools and basically bribe the parents into not complaining about the underfunding and further erosion of quality in public schools, because now their kids - and their taxes - don’t go there any more.

That leaves public schools either funded in large part by big budget PTA’s that direct sizable additional money to a single public school ($5000-10,000 “optional” payment per family) or they are underfunded & populated largely by minorities and other disadvantaged groups who come from families who are too poor, too unstable, too whatever to take advantage of any of these charter schools, magnet schools, non-public, private whatever schools that are now using public tax dollars to subsidize their costs.

In short, subtract the white people from the public school system and the government can ignore the black people and other minorities and the poor and leave them with substandard public schools. This has not been accidental. This has been a purposeful directed effort to destroy public schools that grew out segregationist groups when the courts ruled that schools and neighborhoods should all be de-segregated back in the late 60’s.

If you want to improve race relations, if you want to reduce racism and the disenfranchisement it creates, then public schools have to be repopulated, refunded, and all these side projects that are siphoning off my tax dollars that I pay in the hope that funding public schools will improve have to be refocused on public education and not dribbled away into these alternative quasi-private whatever schools.

And that’s my answer to Mad Scientist’s original question. Get the public back into public schools and knock off this slow erosion of public funds and the Balkanized segregation of the student population into discrete units that subtract the good students and motivated parents from the general population and support networks for public schools.

[j44ke]

From this morning’s NYTimes:

Why 2 Crises May Finally Force N.Y.C. Schools to Integrate - The New York Times

[Corso]

My sister in law is an urban public school teacher whose class size averages 33 students, they are mostly from poor neighborhoods so she is more babysitter than teacher, she really only has time for the top performers and those who are struggling leaving the majority of students in the middle on their own, she has great benefits for minimal out of pocket cost, is protected by a union, was given tenure after only 5 years, no longer has performance reviews because she has tenure, and will be retiring after working 30 years with a great pension and continued health benefits.

This to me is a problem. Reform teaches unions next. Job for life after tenure...Some teachers may just be mailing it in. What job in the non-union sectors provide a lifetime job?

Always bugged me about college tenured profs. Some have encouraged students to "go out and protest" not caring that arrest records can potentially harm future employment. What do they care? Or simply ignore and not engage students they "don't like". They themselves have a job for life- nothing at risk. (unless they f up in a major way-which most are smart enough not to cross that line).

Yes, oversimplifying in a major way...

So add Teachers unions to Police unions in my book - as needed reform.

I'm NOT knocking all teachers. I respect them and without them we're screwed. But unions protect the "bad"...

Disclosure: my mother was a government special needs aide in public grade schools for many years. Government as she was bi-lingual, aide because she didn't have a college degree. But many new teachers were sent to train with her, as she knew what she was doing - and the SN teachers floated from school to school during the week, while the aides were always with their students.

[vertical_doug]

If you really want to integrate, then people need to live together. Seems to me the best place to do that is 3 years service in the military after 18. Might even convince Americans there is common purpose.

Share the burden of our forever wars.

[NYCfixie]

However, the tax argument that you present is exactly the narrative that the anti-public school lobby has used to convince people who are not going to public schools that they are getting ripped off. And with this support, they’ve been able to drive a wedge between the socio-economic group that is often the engine behind reform in public school - middle class families who are upwardly ambitious but for whom private school is too expensive - and the general population at “regular” public schools.

Charter schools and magnet schools also subtract these people from the population of public schools.

Why is the charter school better? Why isn’t the public school as good? My public schools that I went to were terrific. Now they have problems. Because monies that used to go wholly to public schools and not go to private schools based on this supposed equivalence that it is the same expenditure whether tax money is spent on buses for a public high school or buses for a charter school, because all parents pay taxes so whatever school their kids go to should get tax money spent on buses. And what’s more, all these quasi-almost but not quite public schools suck all the good students out of the public schools and basically bribe the parents into not complaining about the underfunding and further erosion of quality in public schools, because now their kids - and their taxes - don’t go there any more.

That leaves public schools either funded in large part by big budget PTA’s that direct sizable additional money to a single public school ($5000-10,000 “optional” payment per family) or they are underfunded & populated largely by minorities and other disadvantaged groups who come from families who are too poor, too unstable, too whatever to take advantage of any of these charter schools, magnet schools, non-public, private whatever schools that are now using public tax dollars to subsidize their costs.

In short, subtract the white people from the public school system and the government can ignore the black people and other minorities and the poor and leave them with substandard public schools. This has not been accidental. This has been a purposeful directed effort to destroy public schools that grew out segregationist groups when the courts ruled that schools and neighborhoods should all be de-segregated back in the late 60’s.

If you want to improve race relations, if you want to reduce racism and the disenfranchisement it creates, then public schools have to be repopulated, refunded, and all these side projects that are siphoning off my tax dollars that I pay in the hope that funding public schools will improve have to be refocused on public education and not dribbled away into these alternative quasi-private whatever schools.

And that’s my answer to Mad Scientist’s original question. Get the public back into public schools and knock off this slow erosion of public funds and the Balkanized segregation of the student population into discrete units that subtract the good students and motivated parents from the general population and support networks for public schools.

I think you also need to consider the lobby that tries to convince public school students and their families that they are being robbed by students who attend private schools. The numbers simply do not add up as the private school population is an infinitesimally small percentage of the overall student enrollment at all public and private k-12 schools in this country (it truly is the 1% but that is a conversation for another day). At best, it is a rounding error when compared to public school funding and enrollment but articles like the one you posted earlier from the NY Post about a few rouge schools playing the system make for great click bait and anger the anti-private school base. Private schools are simply not the reason public schools are failing.

I agree with you that the majority (but not all) suburban middle, and mostly white, public school families do not want true school reform because it will take away from their children but please do not conflate that issue with private school attendance and funding. Again, the numbers simply do not add up, in that, the private school market is simply too small to matter. You may see an exaggerated example in the NYC metro area but even there private schools are not the issue. For most of the country, there simply is not a private school option so the publicly funded charter school is the option for urban and suburban families who do not want their children attending the local failing public school.

The NY Times article you posted deals with a totally different issue, affluent and mostly white families knowing how to work the NYC public school system to get the best for their children by getting them into the best NYC public schools.

And what are we really talking about anyway? Is it white flight (from the cities to the suburbs)? That has been going on since the 60s and I agree is a major part of both the urban and poor-suburban public school funding problem. But it is a problem of white urban public school students moving to mostly white suburban public schools and not those going to private schools. Again, please don't conflate the issues. A wealthy white population left Newark for the NJ suburbs in the 60s after the riots and to this day Newark has never really recovered as a city and a school system. The same is true for NYC; white families left the city for the Long Island and Westchester suburbs and never came back. They want to have the best public schools and that means keeping poor black and brown people out of them. But this is a larger societal issue and not one caused by the very very small urban and suburban private school population.

The majority of public school children never left the system, that is the falsehood. Public schools just moved from a segregated system based on race (because it is now illegal) to one that segregates students by socioeconomic class and ends up with the same result, poor black and brown students are stuck in mostly urban (and some suburban) underfunded and failing public schools. Private schools are an easy target but they are not to blame for the result. Fix the public school funding and segregation issues by creating laws that increase taxes to better fund and desegregate public school systems (whether by location, type, or specialized programs only for the best students).

My point is that you could get rid of all the private schools and put those students back in the public school system but it won't move the needle, the funding and segregation issues will still exist and at the same levels.

[Sbti]

General Milley now admits that he should not have been involved in the
WhiteGuyChurchBible walk in his camo military pajamas for the photo op.

[zachateseverything]

I think you also need to consider the lobby that tries to convince public school students and their families that they are being robbed by students who attend private schools. The numbers simply do not add up as the private school population is an infinitesimally small percentage of the overall student enrollment at all public and private k-12 schools in this country (it truly is the 1% but that is a conversation for another day). At best, it is a rounding error when compared to public school funding and enrollment but articles like the one you posted earlier from the NY Post about a few rouge schools playing the system make for great click bait and anger the anti-private school base. Private schools are simply not the reason public schools are failing.

I agree with you that the majority (but not all) suburban middle, and mostly white, public school families do not want true school reform because it will take away from their children but please do not conflate that issue with private school attendance and funding. Again, the numbers simply do not add up, in that, the private school market is simply too small to matter. You may see an exaggerated example in the NYC metro area but even there private schools are not the issue. For most of the country, there simply is not a private school option so the publicly funded charter school is the option for urban and suburban families who do not want their children attending the local failing public school.

The NY Times article you posted deals with a totally different issue, affluent and mostly white families knowing how to work the NYC public school system to get the best for their children by getting them into the best NYC public schools.

And what are we really talking about anyway? Is it white flight (from the cities to the suburbs)? That has been going on since the 60s and I agree is a major part of both the urban and poor-suburban public school funding problem. But it is a problem of white urban public school students moving to mostly white suburban public schools and not those going to private schools. Again, please don't conflate the issues. A wealthy white population left Newark for the NJ suburbs in the 60s after the riots and to this day Newark has never really recovered as a city and a school system. The same is true for NYC; white families left the city for the Long Island and Westchester suburbs and never came back. They want to have the best public schools and that means keeping poor black and brown people out of them. But this is a larger societal issue and not one caused by the very very small urban and suburban private school population.

The majority of public school children never left the system, that is the falsehood. Public schools just moved from a segregated system based on race (because it is now illegal) to one that segregates students by socioeconomic class and ends up with the same result, poor black and brown students are stuck in mostly urban (and some suburban) underfunded and failing public schools. Private schools are an easy target but they are not to blame for the result. Fix the public school funding and segregation issues by creating laws that increase taxes to better fund and desegregate public school systems (whether by location, type, or specialized programs only for the best students).

My point is that you could get rid of all the private schools and put those students back in the public school system but it won't move the needle, the funding and segregation issues will still exist and at the same levels.

There are some great private schools out there. I don't very much care about rich people paying out of pocket to send their kid to one instead of a public option. I also don't think magnet schools are much of an issue should they be accommodating to all classes.

however charter schools are largely a pox on our country. Areas with vouchers and school choice programs in place see rampant fraud and the ONLY reason they exist is to defund public schools. the best case scenario with charter schools is that you end up with duplication of the public school system only with limited community oversight. the actual reality in my corner of the mid-west however is that you get a massive amount of graft and fraud, shady charter schools being placed in the cheapest real-estate available (we're talking abandoned strip malls), and educational outcomes that aren't any better (and are often worse) than the public school system that's missing out on tax dollars as a result of those kids going elsewhere.

[davids]

I strongly believe that our public taxes should pay for our public schools. I strongly believe that anyone choosing to forego public schools should not be able to drag away the money designated for those schools.

Now having said that, there’s a ton of nuance. But I believe it’s around access to school choice for every family, regardless of their personal resources. As a society we should be working for equity in those choices, and that is a very tough lift.

Here in Boston we have made some efforts to provide choice within public schools. Families enter lotteries for their top choice public schools. Those public schools include the “pilot” schools, which are operated by the school system but are exempt from some of the hiring, budgetary and curriculum rules followed by ‘regular’ public schools. So all families have some choice when selecting schools.

Providing equitable access to private schools (including religious and Independent schools), on the other hand, is much more of a challenge. The issue is the cost of education. Catholic schools are the more affordable option for most, since the Church subsidizes the cost. But the Independent schools (including Jewish schools here) face real challenges in providing access to families that can’t afford tuition. Some schools are massively well-endowed, and some are not.

I do not think my taxes should be going to support families that choose these Independent schools. I don’t even think they should be going to pay for the bus that takes these families’ kids to the schools.

But do not blame the school unions for this problem! Unions help protect and advocate for teachers. The people who educate our children, who nurture them, support them and inspire them. We’ve got short memories, but let me remind you of the string of teacher protests across the US way back in 2018 and 2019. There are states in our country where teachers are barely paid a living wage. It's a disgrace.


...and in case you don’t think I have skin in this game: After looking at public and private Boston schools back in 1998, we opted to send our daughter to Independent schools from kindergarten through high school. My wife has been a nurse in the Boston Public Schools since 1999. And a board member at our daughter’s Independent high school since 2011. I know these issues from several perspectives - taxpayer, parent, union spouse, and board member spouse!

[NYCfixie]

There are some great private schools out there. I don't very much care about rich people paying out of pocket to send their kid to one instead of a public option. I also don't think magnet schools are much of an issue should they be accommodating to all classes.

however charter schools are largely a pox on our country. Areas with vouchers and school choice programs in place see rampant fraud and the ONLY reason they exist is to defund public schools. the best case scenario with charter schools is that you end up with duplication of the public school system only with limited community oversight. the actual reality in my corner of the mid-west however is that you get a massive amount of graft and fraud, shady charter schools being placed in the cheapest real-estate available (we're talking abandoned strip malls), and educational outcomes that aren't any better (and are often worse) than the public school system that's missing out on tax dollars as a result of those kids going elsewhere.

For those who may not know the difference:

Charter schools (often mostly publicly funded by a local district and often also include private funding) are public schools that try to offer a smaller class size and better educational program than the larger public school.

Magnet schools are publicly-funded public schools that often offer a program that the district cannot otherwise provide (i.e. special ed, special needs, trade based high schools).

[murphy]

There are some great private schools out there. I don't very much care about rich people paying out of pocket to send their kid to one instead of a public option. I also don't think magnet schools are much of an issue should they be accommodating to all classes.

however charter schools are largely a pox on our country. Areas with vouchers and school choice programs in place see rampant fraud and the ONLY reason they exist is to defund public schools. the best case scenario with charter schools is that you end up with duplication of the public school system only with limited community oversight. the actual reality in my corner of the mid-west however is that you get a massive amount of graft and fraud, shady charter schools being placed in the cheapest real-estate available (we're talking abandoned strip malls), and educational outcomes that aren't any better (and are often worse) than the public school system that's missing out on tax dollars as a result of those kids going elsewhere.

I would warn you not to paint with too broad a brush. There do exist charter schools that exist solely to try to serve the underserved populations of students. My wife works at such a school that prioritizes students from the six poorest zip codes in the city; the inaugural class had 100% college acceptance. That may be an exception, but knowing how hard that school works, I want to make sure that we aren't saying charter schools are completely wrong. If you create a school for the right reasons, with the right policies, then a charter school can be a way to change students' lives.

[j44ke]

I think you also need to consider the lobby that tries to convince public school students and their families that they are being robbed by students who attend private schools. The numbers simply do not add up as the private school population is an infinitesimally small percentage of the overall student enrollment at all public and private k-12 schools in this country (it truly is the 1% but that is a conversation for another day). At best, it is a rounding error when compared to public school funding and enrollment but articles like the one you posted earlier from the NY Post about a few rouge schools playing the system make for great click bait and anger the anti-private school base. Private schools are simply not the reason public schools are failing.

I agree with you that the majority (but not all) suburban middle, and mostly white, public school families do not want true school reform because it will take away from their children but please do not conflate that issue with private school attendance and funding. Again, the numbers simply do not add up, in that, the private school market is simply too small to matter. You may see an exaggerated example in the NYC metro area but even there private schools are not the issue. For most of the country, there simply is not a private school option so the publicly funded charter school is the option for urban and suburban families who do not want their children attending the local failing public school.

The NY Times article you posted deals with a totally different issue, affluent and mostly white families knowing how to work the NYC public school system to get the best for their children by getting them into the best NYC public schools.

And what are we really talking about anyway? Is it white flight (from the cities to the suburbs)? That has been going on since the 60s and I agree is a major part of both the urban and poor-suburban public school funding problem. But it is a problem of white urban public school students moving to mostly white suburban public schools and not those going to private schools. Again, please don't conflate the issues. A wealthy white population left Newark for the NJ suburbs in the 60s after the riots and to this day Newark has never really recovered as a city and a school system. The same is true for NYC; white families left the city for the Long Island and Westchester suburbs and never came back. They want to have the best public schools and that means keeping poor black and brown people out of them. But this is a larger societal issue and not one caused by the very very small urban and suburban private school population.

The majority of public school children never left the system, that is the falsehood. Public schools just moved from a segregated system based on race (because it is now illegal) to one that segregates students by socioeconomic class and ends up with the same result, poor black and brown students are stuck in mostly urban (and some suburban) underfunded and failing public schools. Private schools are an easy target but they are not to blame for the result. Fix the public school funding and segregation issues by creating laws that increase taxes to better fund and desegregate public school systems (whether by location, type, or specialized programs only for the best students).

My point is that you could get rid of all the private schools and put those students back in the public school system but it won't move the needle, the funding and segregation issues will still exist and at the same levels.

Right. The evil public school lobby.

I am not advocating eliminating private schools. I am not sure why that keeps coming up. I just don't want public money going to private institutions. It is wrong, especially when public institutions are begging for funds. If private or non-public schools can't stay in business without public money, oh well. That's business. Refine your model or get out of the way.

And I am not talking about white flight. Not sure where that came from either. Plenty of white people in urban areas these days.

I am talking about a continuous effort - which includes destroying the tax base with tax cut after tax cut as you correctly point to as needing reversal - to degrade the services provided by public education, an effort that has its roots in the reaction to desegregation in the late 1960's. That's the adversary whose work over the last 30-50 years needs reversing in order to make public schools function on an acceptable and equitable level.

But we can go around around on this. It is obvious that you have a lot of loyalty to the place you work, and that's great. Let's leave it at that.

[theflashunc]

It should not be glossed over the President wanted to unleash active duty troops throughout the capitol to suppress protestors. This story about the National Guard is horrifying. The man is a fascist.

Aggressive Tactics by National Guard, Ordered to Appease Trump, Wounded the Military, Too - The New York Times

Some states with Republican governors quickly jumped in — Tennessee, South Carolina, Utah. West Virginia’s National Guard sent a reconnaissance plane, typically used for border security and to spot drug smugglers. Along with the troops, National Guard units from other states brought weapons and ammunition. Tens of thousands of rifle and pistol rounds were stored in the D.C. Armory and partitioned in pallets, labeled by their state of origin, to be used on American citizens in case of emergency.

[guido]

Federal Arrests Show No Sign that Antifa Plotted Protests - The New York Times

"Inciting a riot. Hurling a Molotov cocktail. Plotting to sow destruction. Those are some of the most serious charges brought by federal prosectors against demonstrators at protests across the country in recent weeks.

But despite cries from President Trump and others in his administration, none of those charged with serious federal crimes amid the unrest have been linked so far to the loose collective of anti-fascist activists known as antifa.

A review of the arrests of dozens of people on federal charges reveals no known effort by antifa to perpetrate a coordinated campaign of violence. Some criminal complaints described vague, anti-government political leanings among suspects, but the majority of the violent acts that have taken place at protests have been attributed by federal prosecutors to individuals with no affiliation to any particular group.

Even so, Attorney General William P. Barr has blamed antifa for orchestrating the mass protests, which broke out in cities and towns across the country following the death in police custody of George Floyd. “There is clearly some high degree of organization involved at some of these events and coordinated tactics that we are seeing,” Mr. Barr said. “Some of it relates to antifa, some of it relates to groups that act very much like antifa.”

Mr. Trump has sought to expand and exploit accusations against what he has called the involvement of “radical leftists” in the protests. At one point the president said that antifa would be declared a “terrorist organization,” although it is not a single organization nor does any American law allow using that designation against a domestic group. On Tuesday, the president suggested on Twitter, without providing any evidence, that a 75-year-old Buffalo protester hospitalized after being knocked down by police, could be “an ANTIFA provocateur.”

Mr. Trump and other Republicans have also sought to raise campaign funds off the unsubstantiated accusations. “Stand with President Trump against antifa!” read a banner advertisement on Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign website this week."

[NYCfixie]

Right. The evil public school lobby.

I am not advocating eliminating private schools. I am not sure why that keeps coming up. I just don't want public money going to private institutions. It is wrong, especially when public institutions are begging for funds. If private or non-public schools can't stay in business without public money, oh well. That's business. Refine your model or get out of the way.

And I am not talking about white flight. Not sure where that came from either. Plenty of white people in urban areas these days.

I am talking about a continuous effort - which includes destroying the tax base with tax cut after tax cut as you correctly point to as needing reversal - to degrade the services provided by public education, an effort that has its roots in the reaction to desegregation in the late 1960's. That's the adversary whose work over the last 30-50 years needs reversing in order to make public schools function on an acceptable and equitable level.

But we can go around around on this. It is obvious that you have a lot of loyalty to the place you work, and that's great. Let's leave it at that.

I think we want the same outcome, better funding for public schools and better public schools for all but we are getting to it from different viewpoints.

I keep trying to share the same thing in different ways, that public funds going to private schools is a drop in the bucket and IMHO really does not matter within the larger problem of under performing public school districts. It is literally pennies when you consider the whole, yet the lobbying keeps focusing on it because it makes great headlines to vilify the ultra rich 1% who attend private schools rather than blame the middle to upper income families who do not want to pay more in taxes for public schools but keep trying to either socially segregate schools in their neighborhoods and/or have public funds diverted to "non-public but publicly funded" charter schools.

I have no more loyalty to the schools where I have worked the past 15 years than I had to the corporate companies I worked for during the 12 years before that. I chose to work in schools a long time ago to ensure that my wife and I had a similar vacation schedule. It really was that simple and thankfully we could afford the almost 50% pay cut (even though technology jobs in schools are still 12 month roles and not union protected jobs). And yes, along the way it had the benefit of doing something good for society. I was no longer supporting advertising agencies trying to sell us crap we do not need but rather ensuring that schools have better technology systems and support.

Along the way, I have learned a great deal about how schools are funded. The first school where I worked for several years was an "approved non-public" school that educated students with language based learning disabilities. As a result, I learned a great deal about the bureaucracy that is the NYC Board of Ed and the NYS Public School systems. We had to follow all of the state mandated curriculum, testing, and reporting but most of the tuition cost per student was spent on smaller class sizes, more teachers, and more specialists. The school was reimbursed about $22,000 per student from many other districts often because the local districts did not have a program to help support these students. The remainder of the $60,000 tuition had to be made up by families (who often could not afford it) and private donations. This school was started well before the charter schools of today so should it be de-funded resulting in students sent back to their districts and not being supported because the district does not have the necessary educational program and/or funding to provide for these students?

I have also worked for and continue to work for independent/private schools and know how they are funded.

Again, one of the many systemic problems, and a large contributing factor, with the failure of public education is the lack of funding because people do not want to pay more taxes. Even the charter schools are a very small piece of the pie when you consider the larger, and underfunded, whole. Why as a society do we not more highly value public education?

[vvv321]

I think we want the same outcome, better funding for public schools and better public schools for all but we are getting to it from different viewpoints.

I keep trying to share the same thing in different ways, that public funds going to private schools is a drop in the bucket and IMHO really does not matter within the larger problem of under performing public school districts. It is literally pennies when you consider the whole, yet the lobbying keeps focusing on it because it makes great headlines to vilify the ultra rich 1% who attend private schools rather than blame the middle to upper income families who do not want to pay more in taxes for public schools but keep trying to either socially segregate schools in their neighborhoods and/or have public funds diverted to "non-public but publicly funded" charter schools.

I have no more loyalty to the schools where I have worked the past 15 years than I had to the corporate companies I worked for during the 12 years before that. I chose to work in schools a long time ago to ensure that my wife and I had a similar vacation schedule. It really was that simple and thankfully we could afford the almost 50% pay cut (even though technology jobs in schools are still 12 month roles and not union protected jobs). And yes, along the way it had the benefit of doing something good for society. I was no longer supporting advertising agencies trying to sell us crap we do not need but rather ensuring that schools have better technology systems and support.

Along the way, I have learned a great deal about how schools are funded. The first school where I worked for several years was an "approved non-public" school that educated students with language based learning disabilities. As a result, I learned a great deal about the bureaucracy that is the NYC Board of Ed and the NYS Public School systems. We had to follow all of the state mandated curriculum, testing, and reporting but most of the tuition cost per student was spent on smaller class sizes, more teachers, and more specialists. The school was reimbursed about $22,000 per student from many other districts often because the local districts did not have a program to help support these students. The remainder of the $60,000 tuition had to be made up by families (who often could not afford it) and private donations. This school was started well before the charter schools of today so should it be de-funded resulting in students sent back to their districts and not being supported because the district does not have the necessary educational program and/or funding to provide for these students?

I have also worked for and continue to work for independent/private schools and know how they are funded.

Again, one of the many systemic problems, and a large contributing factor, with the failure of public education is the lack of funding because people do not want to pay more taxes. Even the charter schools are a very small piece of the pie when you consider the larger, and underfunded, whole. Why as a society do we not more highly value public education?

Well since public schools are funded by the property taxes of the surrounding district, some public schools are very well funded, actually, and some are vastly underfunded. I doubt that it's not that those in low social economic status area's don't want to pay more taxes, it's that their taxes are actually higher than in a well funded district, but their houses are worth nothing. Why are their houses worth nothing? Often due to red lining and other tactics the government and society has used to segregate our society. It's quite rare that charter schools, such as kipp and the like, pop up in these well funded districts, and only show up in the poorly funded or with schools that test poorly, why? Their parents would never send their child to such a place.....


I mentioned this book before, and I'll mention it again:

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
by Richard Rothstein


If there is a problem with public schools, perhaps we should fix it, instead of siphoning off funding into private hands, and other disgusting neo-liberal policies.

We could start with teaching actual history in school, wouldn't cost a dime more.

[Chik]

I just don't want public money going to private institutions.

I second that sentiment.

[e-RICHIE]

Taxes taken in from the public should be used for public (school) use only. I agree on that. Folks who pay these taxes sometimes send their children to independent schools, but still pay the taxes. It's a bit messy, drawing the line here. That's all I got, unless my brain switches back on.

[gregl]

We could start with teaching actual history in school, wouldn't cost a dime more.

Just not in Texas...

Texas Revises History Education, Again |
Perspectives on History | AHA
Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories. - The New York Times

Greg