crossposted at Daily Kos
No wonder the government hasn’t done it.
This is how public education works in the United States: Property taxes pay for it. (For the most part; I hear some states actually give the lottery profits to their public education systems, but for all those instant millionaires, schools still suck from sea to shining sea.) Property taxes, that is, from district to district.
See? A rich district, let’s call it District A, with major moolah invested in McMansions, pays one helluva lot of property tax (unless you’re in California, where the dipshits put a cap on it – possibly the dumbest thing to come out of California voters in decades); the rich district, then, has excellent public schools, because of all that property tax moolah rushing into its coffers. Meanwhile, down the block, the district changes. Welcome to District B.
District B is, as they say, on the wrong side of the tracks. Low rent, dilapidated homes, low property values – ergo, low property taxes, ergo… crappy schools. The schools get what they can afford, folks. (And let’s not even go into what the ravages of NCLB on these districts have been, and how the federal government has not fully funded this federal fucking program.)
So what was Robert Reich’s brilliantly simple solution? Can you guess? Because I did.
Fuck the districts. When it comes to paying for public education, this is how it should work:
You put the entire nation’s federal property taxes into One Big Pool. You take the number of schools in the country – the NECESSARY number, which means you add, say, a 25% increase in the number of schools – especially in those districts that have grotesquely overcrowded public schools, see? Then you divide the total amount collected EVENLY between each and every single public school in the country.
Sure, it’s a clusterfuck getting started – but we’d see vast improvement in virtually every goddamned public school in the country.
Imagine it: Every public school in the country, equally — and more than adequately — funded.
Now, what would happen next? The rich folks, seeing their children’s rich public school brought to equal footing with all the other public schools, either send their kids to private school (more room for other kids, no reduction in property taxes) – or the kids stay and we witness an educational revolution the likes of which hasn’t been seen since FDR.
And think of all the new jobs, for heaven’s sake. The Department of Education’s payroll would have to increase. More jobs for more teachers. More textbooks being bought. More computers. Hell, more PENCILS.
Now, I don’t know shit about this stuff, not really. You’ve pretty much got everything I know about the country’s public school system in a few sentences. So, if I’ve oversimplified the proposal, do let me know. But I think I’ve basically distilled Reich’s idea – and goddamnit, it’s a GOOD one. Level the playing field – level it for REAL.
We are the richest goddamned country in the world. There is simply no reason for the disparities between our public schools.
Of course, there’s no reason for the disparities in our healthcare, either… but that, my friends, is another story.
Someone can fill in the details but:
Jersey tried passing a law that there could only be so much disparity in cost per student between districts.
And the state would only guarantee a certain amount for the poorest districts (like Camden).
So, in effect, they put a cap on how much the richest districts could spend.
My old district, Princeton, passed a local tax bill to raise more money (in excess of the cap). And it was ruled illegal.
I haven’t followed the story since, but you can see how messed up the funding is from examples like this.
So. Read my diary about Pastor Ted and his church of 30 million souls. This Super Church and others like it have schools and all American institutions on their destruction list. And Pastor Ted talks to Bush or his advisors every Monday.
Keep up the fight!
It is too damned simple, and that would really piss off the rich. (can you see the concern in my eyes) ; )
I would love to see it happen, but it will never under our current situation, so that needs to change, and the only ones that can do that, is US, the American People.
Keep up the diligent work, and keep spreading the TRUTH, it will sink in.
Great Diary, and very Valid.
to have the same quality of education that their own kids enjoy?
It seems like the proposal would require some level of such a desire, and there has been little indication that such exists.
I would be surprised to see this be very popular with politicians, either. It does not sound like something that would be in the best interest of corporations.
to have the same education as their own kids? I’m presuming snark in that statement…
But just to be clear – no damned way…
The haves and have nots MUST be separated. Since the only source of distinction they can fully exert authority over is money…the rich will keep their kids separate.
They already do it in private schools…doesn’t matter what we do with public schools and public money. The rich kids don’t go there anyway.
BTW Sister MSOC – recommended at dKos – .
I’m not sure public schools are the place to learn much. They spend most of the day disciplining kids.
My daughter never had any disciplinary problems but most of her school day was eaten up by teachers and aides going after “problem” kids, most of whom just had too much energy to sit like mushrooms in a classroom all day.
I’m the worst person to post here. I mostly hated school because i found it excruciatingly boring and I learned more from extracurricular projects and from learning on my own. So did my daughter, it turns out.
Were you/daughter at a public school in a rich or poor district? If a poor district, then you’re validating Maryscott’s point, right?
Middle to upper-middle class areas, in both cases.
Just because the area is poor doesn’t mean money isn’t spent. I volunteered last year as a mentor/tutor in a rural elementary school that drew children from very poor families.
That school had every convenience and amenity. It was staggering to me how much they had compared to the schools my daughter went to in a nice area of Seattle. They also got Gates Foundation grants for all kinds of things (mostly the after-school program which was glorified babysitting and consisted of aides yelling at kids to sit down or writing out disciplinary slips).
It wasn’t uncommon for me to tutor children who were getting nothing out of school. And, to a one, the kids confided in me that they hated school. (I tried very hard to make our times together as fun and creative and educational as possible.)
One 2nd grade girl did not know that a penny equaled one cent, a nickel equaled five cents, etc. How she got through 3 years of school without learning basic money counting is beyond me…. well, it’s not. The teachers and aides waste a huge portion of the day disciplining — excessively. The most restless kids get the most time and attention because their antsiness is perceived as a disciplinary problem. The strictest teachers are rewarded, just like the tattletales in Parker’s diary today.
What those kids need is lots of one-on-one tutoring by supportive, non-judgmental people. And learning that is somewhat individualized to suit their learning styles.
Instead it seems the school district has invested its money in construction, television sets, computers, VCRs, expensive supplies (the quality of the paper, etc. was shocking to me — expensive!), etc. And I wonder if that’s because money is made from selling equipment and building costs whereas money spent on teaching doesn’t aid the business and corporate forces as much.
among many, many other things…
Is smaller classroom sizes. Which would happen with the equitable distribution of funds.
I neglected to add a few important points: the most important being that the distribution would be on a per student basis.
The other, that, yes, this would require the federal government divvying up the funds — but along with it I would add a codicil that precludes the feds determining curriculum or any other nonsense like that. Schools get the money, they answer to the districts, who provide an accounting to the feds.
It’s a fuck of a lot more complicated than my puny diary can detail, obviously.
You and I both are the worst people to post here. I dropped out of high school in the final year simply because I saw it for what it was.
Public schools are warehouses bordering on prisons to keep children contained for up to 13 years of their lives. Almost nothing of substance is actually ever learned (retained) and next to no life skills are ever taught.
Some private schools are similar while others are quite different, so I can’t lump them in all in together.
The concept of grouping children together with a few adults to learn is the complete opposite of how human youth are designed to acquire knowledge. Children should be grouped with adults, not other children.
Whether its yourself or someone else you know, the children who spend the most amount of time with different adults are the ones who usually end up with the best education.
And when I say “education” I don’t mean just “academic” subjects but also the various skills in life that are useful, whether that’s balancing a ledger sheet or changing a spark plug.
Pax
I’ve spent time living abroad, and coming back to the US it was absolutely astounding how classist the district-by-district public school funding is in this country.
Obviously the rich aren’t going to buy this idea. So if we can’t get enough support from the “masses”, so to speak, maybe we could try a radical reframing: support the Reich-O’Connor Bill to destroy public education. Destroying public education is what the right-wing nutjobs want, right? They want to privatize everything, right?
If we convey to right-wing Christians and upper-middle classes that this will destroy public education, it might help.
Or not. This is totally random and off-the-cuff. No doubt utter bullshit.
On the other hand, we’ve seen how far GOP Orwellian language can get from the truth (viz. “Clear Skies Initiative”), so I don’t see why we can’t call this the
unless you’re in California, where the dipshits put a cap on [property taxes] – possibly the dumbest thing to come out of California voters in decades
While I agree in principle (and I was against it at the time) … now that I am a homeowner, I am having to reluctantly face the reality that if it were not for Prop 13, I would not be able to afford my house.
There is no WAY I could keep my house if I had to pay $5K – $10K (or MORE) per year in property taxes .. and this almost certainly applies to any number of lower income people who bought their houses years ago, as well as to elderly people on fixed incomes.
I mean, my house is probably worth at least $400K right now … 2% of that (the current rate, I believe) would be $8000. There is NO WAY I can afford that. I would have had to sell years ago.
The fact is that market values in California have gone through the roof … perhaps California is somewhat unique in needing to protect its homeowners from these rising rates. Having the property taxes adjusted based on market value is the same as having an adjustable-rate mortgage — there is no way to “fix” the amount you pay for your house, and this automatically excludes people whose incomes do not rise that fast (most of us!) from being able to be home-owners.
That having been said, I think Robert Reich’s idea is a terrific one .. the one way equalize it all. Of course it will never fly, because the rich want to protect the advantage their kids have .. sad to say, but I bet most of them would rather have their kids get a leg up than have a truly educated population!
we ought to raise the fricking cap.
How about on homes worth more than, say, 2 million dollars?
Right — for years the R’s have been kicking our asses on the tax issue because we haven’t been willing to attack the wealthy and the corporations, pretending that it’s not “fair.” I lived in California when that proposition was passed, and my family wouldn’t have been able to afford to live in the state at all if it hadn’t. That said, there was no reason on earth to give the same break to the wealthy. We have a similar problem in Washington state right now with property values going nuts. The blanket taxation with no distinction between rich and poor has got to stop or people will keep voting to slash taxes, just to survive.
Yes, that sounds fine to me! As long as the threshhold is adjusted to some percent, say, of the median price of a house (over 100% obviously) .. because the way things are going, my house may be worth $2 million in a few years!! (though obviously there will be a crash before that …)
That way the people who would be paying an increasing amount would be the people who could afford it.
BTW as an aside …. the Republicans have painted themselves into a corner with their “no tax increases” idiocy. They are completely and totally ideologically UNABLE to ever raise taxes, in any way. This should be a great advantage to the Democrats (once people start to wake up to the reality that we need more REVENUE dammit), who can present themselves as reasonable and flexible.
I can’t even imagine what would happen under this administration if the Federal Gov’t was in charge of funding the nation’s schools. God only knows what bogus garbage would become mandatory.
“Sure we’ll give you the money if you force prayer in school, teach Biblical Geometry (pi = 3), Creationism, etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad stupidio.”
Blech!
If they control funding from Washington they’ll want to tell us what needs to be taught. I, frankly, don’t want Washington dictating what’s taught in our schools, any more than they already do with NCLB. I certainly don’t want some redneck Texan (who clears brush on his ranch while sending other peoples children to war…) deciding creationism is science and must be taught, and tested, on my tax dime. No sir…eee Bob.
Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, Maryscott.
And if such a thing were in place, I would want codicils included to prevent anything but financial action from the feds. They would distribute the funds. The states would have to determine curriculum and self-police — in no way would the feds be able to curtail funding punitively or dictate anything to the states. The feds would ONLY be responsible for collecting and then distributing monies.
I know I don’t have all the answers (title notwithstanding.) But I think Reich has the beginnings of the best solution I’ve ever heaard. Arranging the details… now that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fishies.
It really doesn’t need to be national. If property taxes were pooled at the state level and then distributed equally to school districts, the result would be roughly the same. There would be relatively richer and relatively poorer states, but there would be equality of per-pupil spending within each state. And the huge disparity between inner-city and exurban districts would disappear.
That, of course, won’t solve everything. You need to do a few more things like build smaller schools, especially smaller high schools, pay teachers substantially more and require that all high school teachers get at least an M.A. in a subject area (not an M.A. in education), have teachers actually teach (and not engage in social work or discipline), and a few other things.
Actually, it really does need to be national. I just moved up from Alabama back to the mid-west, and let me tell you, the property taxes down there don’t support shacks in the sticks, let alone reasonable schools.
Point well taken, wolverine. But one step at a time. I think state-wide tax pools for education have a better chance of happening than national pools.
I agree, but it needs to be the long term focus. And in reality, property taxes aren’t always the sole (or even primary) source of school funding.
State control of education would be MUCH better, though, and you can only achieve that by raising the funds at the state level. Thorny problem.
Has there ever been an instance wherein the feds simply distributed funds without having oversight? That is, my ideal here would be, an agency specifically exists to collect the funds, determine the formulas and distribute the funds to the states… and that’s the TOTAL extent of their involvement. The states would run it from there.