American Public Schools. Should they continue to be funded?

PrincipleInvestment, I am reposting #124

 

And I miss my dad and mom's type of High School they entered and four years left fully employable, some did apprentice over that but instead of the six years say to become a union journeyman plumber they did it in three years since they went in with lots of basic and mid-level skills so were advanced and got paid more than someone starting from scratch. In their county they also had one school dedicated to agriculture and farm work that fed into jobs, apprenticing or into the state university agricultural school and one for pre-college that was top notch. And they had minority students do well in all three although it was in the majority a white dominant school the county made sure education was done well since many student stayed or returned to the county, some like my dad ended up in the armed forces for his career but that showed he was well disciplined and could be taught going career as an enlisted man means you need to bring things to the table the army in his case liked.

What is the point of education unless the young person becomes an employable and learned adult when they leave the system to some degree, even if one went to college the school made them at the time learn typing, cashiering and some other work skills in a four semesters of required courses under their Directed Work Skills requirement if one was not in one of the other labor focused schools.

 

I agree that our public education system is currently failing to provide the quality of education it should be delivering and did deliver in the 1950's and 1960's. Beginning in the 1970's, conservative politicians began undercutting funding for public education in state after state, and that has had the effect of destroying the public education system nation wide. Diverse subject offerings were cut to the bone, with many valuable topics eliminated systematically, beginning with Civics, but soon followed by art, and every other creative study of value to individual students and society as a whole. The concentration was placed on the "Three R's", Reading, wRiting & aRithmetic, while everything else was refused funding. This has had a crippling effect on our children and grandchildren over the decades, till today many students graduate from high school unable to even read. This situation is horrid, and spells catastrophe for our nation and our society if not remedied, but the answer isn't to abandon the concept of public education. The answer is to fix it--make it work again; and that can start by refunding and re-establishing those studies abandoned by past politicians, plus adding new studies that are computer and internet savvy. A functionally effective public education system is a requirement for a healthy, vibrant, successful American society.

 

with what as alternative? are you suggesting a closure of all public schools... then what... slave labour for kids?

 

While I agree with some of the points that you have made, there is more than simple funding that has and still is crippling education in this country and I dare say, internationally, and that has to do with a dying ideology, plus the wide-spread degeneration of societies overall. What we are all witnessing is the death of a "World", but word I do not mean planet, I am specifically directing my attention to the international dominate concept(s) of accepted standards and knowledge. This is in part, one of the reasons why there is resistance on both sides of the Godhead that rules the United States of [North] America and internationally. Those who have maintained the facilitation of the Godhead see their end and seek to take others along with them. I know this seems odd and off topic, but trust me, it is on topic and far from odd or conjecture. A dumbed down population is an easily ruled population.

The above quote is from Benjamin Franklin.
Why is it that those who are in control of media always push a theme of inclusion of moral decay and degeneracy? It goes far beyond what is popular. Going with this sentiment, question arise.

Question one: How did the population become so degenerate that their appetite for degeneracy has become so voracious?

Question two: If current theme and lust for degeneracy is organic, than what does it say about the general population?

 

Your own, your parents paid for theirs, they didn't pay those taxes because of you they would have paid them anyway because of them.

 

Sticking someone with a tax that they get no benefit from is completely WRONG. My parents paid property taxes to public school systems because I was enrolled in them. My parents' parents paid property taxes to public school systems because my parents (their children) were enrolled in them.

So, I repeat my question.... I derive no personal benefit from the public school systems, so why should my personal property be taxed to support them? The standard liberal socialistic line is, "Oh, it's for the common good...." Is it? Show me how it benefits me in my personal life, since it's all funded with taxation on my personal property!

The public school systems hog the lion's share of all private property taxes, but it's the other governmental functions that SHOULD get the money -- police, fire, transportation infrastructure. Those are entities that it can be proven that "we all benefit from"... and not just those who have offspring in some public "educational" series of boiler rooms....

 

Public school taxation payments, even if you do not have children enrolled in them is 'Robbing Peter to pay Paul'. This is corrupt like some many things in "modern" day America.

 

Of course education should be funded. Absent education, the US doesn't have much of a future.

As far as federal funding of PS goes - see https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html

"Overview

"Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation. The structure of education finance in America reflects this predominant State and local role. Of an estimated $1.15 trillion being spent nationwide on education at all levels for school year 2012-2013, a substantial majority will come from State, local, and private sources. This is especially true at the elementary and secondary level, where about 92 percent of the funds will come from non-Federal sources."

(My emphasis - more @ the URL - from 05/25/17)

So in SY 2012-2013, there was only ~8% of expenditures @ the elementary and secondary level to worry about. Small potatoes, & the federal role in funding K-12 public schooling has always been low. There's very little to worry about there, especially with DeVos @ Dept. of Education.

 

Did Communism (the USSR & related models) even bother with taxation of any kind? I assumed they didn't, & that they just moved monies about by fiat, or in accordance with their current Five Year Plan. & of course, education isn't free anywhere, & certainly not in a modern state. From the Industrial Revolution on, the states that invest in the education of their population move forward, & those that don't more likely stagnate. Those are the choices.

With only weak oversight @ the state level, local School Districts would be @ the mercy of con men & women - people who doctor their resumes or simply lie about their experience &/or qualifications - we see this now, even with professionals in charge of HR.

The state Departments of Education are useful as clearinghouses of information, & to set state education policy & standards as delegated by the state legislature. & it's a useful place to chop heads when the train goes off the tracks.

 

What is a Gazi? I looked around, but I don't find a definition anywhere.

Yah, there's a longstanding argument about privatizing public schools in the US. From the reports & analyses I remember seeing, the for-profit schools tend to do no better than the public schools they hope to replace, in terms of student educational outcomes. Plus public education seems to be a calling, rather than merely a job. The for-profit corporations tend to skim likely students from the public schools (& reject special-needs students), or squander their monies on perks for the admin, & typically don't last long - or all three @ once.

 

In the US? Which private sector endeavors are you referring to? Some examples would be useful, just to see what you're referencing.

 

I agree that public schools should be funded by the public -- specifically, those who have their own offspring in these schools, or, in fairness, those who have EVER had children in these schools. A case can be made of some others sorts of minor taxes on citizens-at-large, but taxing everybody's private property to fund these schools is just flat out WRONG!

Or, to put it in terms most Americans might be able to understand, I shouldn't have to buy a theater ticket for somebody else to go see the show. My parents bought my "ticket". It is the PARENT who should pay the lion's share for public schools -- not just some poor slob who happens to buy a piece of private property in a town somewhere....

 

TMK, everyone was a child @ one point. Education - & a free public education @ that - is part of the cost of doing business in the US. If we want the society we live in to continue into the future, beyond our own lives, & to be there for our posterity - then support for public education is part of the deal. It's infrastructure, just like physical improvements to plant, national defense, healthcare, regulation of food & drug, & so on.

We could alter the tax structure, of course. Put in an income tax on all income, however sourced. & tax corporations too, some minimum tax that can't be wiped out by offsets or tax exemptions or whatever finagle the legal beagles come up with in future. That's a possibility, although the megacorps have deep pockets & scads of spokesthings & lobbyists to carry their water for them in the halls of Congress & in the bought-&-paid-for so-called mass media.

In the technocratic society that the US helped construct, education is a must. Or go look @ Third World countries that can't seem to put enough resources into education, healthcare, infrastructure. They squander their resources on tanks, nukes, missiles, jet aircraft & then don't understand why the World thinks of them as pantywaists on the global stage.

 

Gazi is a take off of Nazi. Nazi = national socialist. Gazi = global socialist. If you had a Nazi Pokemon, and you evolved it, you'd get a Gazi

 

Private farms vs. socialized farms, for example.

 

There are socialized farms in the US? There were communes & such - but either they were theological (back in the 1880s through 1930s CE or so) or maybe back-to-the-Earth kinds of farms back in the 1960s & 1970s. There may have been outliers too - it's not really my area of expertise. Are those what you had in mind?

 

Some governments have tried socialized farms and they failed in relation to freedom.

But I think you may be missing my point, which is that socialism always delivers suboptimal results when compared to freedom.

 

& this is why healthcare @ the national US level - to cite another complicated system - is so much better than the previous incarnation, right? & this is why cigarettes (or nicotine delivery systems, if you will) are so much better now than they used to be? Or why coal mines are now so much safer than they used to be? Or why we're so much closer to curing cancer, or the common cold?

(It's a very long list.)

 

Yah. The dismantling of the federal Dept. of Education is well under way. However, school corporations are cases of special government - there is no way to carve out public schools from the reach of the judiciary @ the local, state & federal levels. (Although cases involving the PS tend to be @ the state & federal levels.)

 

If you mean the Soviets, well, of course the USSR over controlled everything. & Medvedev (was it?) style plant genetics didn't help matters any. But then the state of Israel instituted kibbutzim, which seemed to work out OK. In fact, early Israeli leadership tended to come out of kibbutzim, & they attributed a lot of the initial success of Israel to having that background in common.

Yah, I'm looking for specifics here - & if socialism always delivers suboptimal results, then it should be easy to cite examples, no?

 

Socialized schools.

 

They would have had those property taxes whether you were enrolled or not.

S

I don't know what this qualifier is you are attaching to your question, are you admitting you do get some benefit but are only asking about this "personal benefit"?
The standard liberal socialistic line is, "Oh, it's for the common good...." Is it? Show me how it benefits me in my personal life, since it's all funded with taxation on my personal property!

Do you think a good solid tax base and lots of commerce benefit you? And commercial property taxes also pay for schools. Can you imagine three bordering counties, two provide for education and one does not. Which one do you think would have trouble surviving?

An educated populace is vital to a community and a nation, I can't think of any that thrive that is some fashion do not provide for the education of their future citizens, can you name me one.

And don't confuse that with a support of the government RUN school system. Vouchers, charter schools, competition.

 

Look at the economic growth rates of the countries of the EU. That's all the "examples" that are needed. There are also many, many examples documented in the book "The Commanding Heights."

 

You seem to think I'm against "education". I'm not against "education", believe me. The public school systems notwithstanding, we have way too damned little real "education" of our populace as it is. That said, my main bitch is about who PAYS for it, and HOW they are taxed to pay for it.

Cut to the chase -- in the interest of fair taxation, PARENTS with children in schools should be forced to pay the largest part of the cost of public schools, followed by PARENTS who have had their children in public schools in the past. Last, and least of all should be those who never had any offspring, and therefore never had any children in public schools at all.... Fair enough?