School kills everything

[Mr.Puerto]

Not really.  It fits in with local funding of public schools, which charitably can be viewed as leaving areas the local control to fund their own schools as they deem fit and uncharitably can be viewed as rich white people not wanting to pay to educate poor brown people.  The idea is that your kids go to the schools your taxes are paying for, so you have an incentive to maintain them.  The problem is that plenty of districts are largely made up of low-income households, resulting in gross inequalities in available funding so that some US schools are state of the art with computers for every student and some schools can't properly heat themselves in the winter.

Or some schools that do have computers for everyone but can't pay their teachers or provide heat in the winter. This whole educational system is messed up, especially in the state I live in.

[Mr.Puerto]

Essentially, since public schools are funded by income tax, the surrounding populace's houses directly correlates to the school's funding. If we made a system where you paid income tax, picked the school you wanted to go to, and then paid (or received a reimbursement) of the difference in your income tax and the school area's income tax (and also paid for bus fairs), then this would arguably make schools far more competitive when it comes to attracting students to their area, possibly increasing the value of American education.

I think the "American" rule of thumb is we have to compete for everything, expect education, as soon as you try to make education competitive then everyone goes up in arms about it.

[Helix345]

The real reason we haven't had a complete overhaul of the educational system (for instance switching to year round schooling like the rest of the world) is that our politicians are lazy ass holes who don't like change. If something is in place, no matter how crappy the policy, it will generally stay unless there is a huge amount of backlash.

[DarthRevansRevenge]

year round schooling??? don't give anyone any ideas. the kids need more time to be raised as good and responsible adults, not spend their entire first 20 years in a classroom.

and then, no one would EVER have time to themselves, cause they would be doing school their entire first 20 years, meaning... no more summer vacation to disney world! No.....

[Helix345]

In a year round school system you get more time off than in the current system. So I would say that they have more time to be raised as "good and responsible adults". It also makes it so that you don't have a massive break where you forget everything. Also, I graduated from highschool when I was 17, so unless you're talking about college, you're a bit off.

As an after thought, schools could make it so that they have breaks at different times than each other so that you aren't swamped by people on your trip to Disney world.

[Pali]

Essentially, since public schools are funded by income tax, the surrounding populace's houses directly correlates to the school's funding. If we made a system where you paid income tax, picked the school you wanted to go to, and then paid (or received a reimbursement) of the difference in your income tax and the school area's income tax (and also paid for bus fairs), then this would arguably make schools far more competitive when it comes to attracting students to their area, possibly increasing the value of American education.

Alternatively, we could just detach school funding from local taxes and instead have public schools funded at the state/federal level in proportion to student body size and other needs.  Less competition, but less room for people to fall through the cracks as well.  Of course, since our incoming Education secretary knows just about nothing about schools except that she likes private religious schooling, I'm not expecting any meaningful reform anytime soon.

I also think that year-round schooling makes sense.  The summer break is an artifact from back when significant numbers of families needed their kids at home during the harvest.  That need hasn't existed in decades.

[Mr.Puerto]

Alternatively, we could just detach school funding from local taxes and instead have public schools funded at the state/federal level in proportion to student body size and other needs.  Less competition, but less room for people to fall through the cracks as well.  Of course, since our incoming Education secretary knows just about nothing about schools except that she likes private religious schooling, I'm not expecting any meaningful reform anytime soon.

I also think that year-round schooling makes sense.  The summer break is an artifact from back when significant numbers of families needed their kids at home during the harvest.  That need hasn't existed in decades.

State funding is the reason why Arizona has such terrible schools. That's too much risk there. Most people grow (Mentally) during the summer and outside of school. Plus that would mean teachers would see and rise kids more than the actual parents which can be a bad and good thing. I personally think the standard of teaching needs to go up. Most of my teachers in my before college career were terrible.

[Pali]

Nearly all public school districts in the US use a mixture of funding sources including local taxes, as well as state and federal support.  Arizona, like many states, has actually been decreasing its state-level support for public schools, while federal funding has remained largely the same, which has increased their reliance upon local property and other municipal taxes (income taxes aren't processed at the local levels, and only factor into state and federal budgets).

In 2011, the national average amount spent was $12,411 per K-12 pupil. When including all federal,
state, and local monies, Arizona spent $8,806 per K-12 pupil, 29% less than the national average,
ranking 47th of the 50 states.
It is also instructive to consider Arizona’s education funding in comparison to the size of its overall
economy. Arizona spends $38.49 on K-12 education for every $1,000 of personal income. The
national average is $48.68, ranking Arizona 49th in the nation.
A third way to gauge the state’s financial education support is calculating the ratio of per-pupil
expenditure to per-capita personal income. This measure accounts for both the size of the economy
and the size of the state’s population. Arizona ranks 45th nationally on this measure.

https://morrisoninstitute.asu.edu/sites/default/files/content/products/AZ%20Ed%20Financing.pdf

Arizona is, like many Republican-dominated states, underfunding its schools at the state level and increasing their reliance upon local taxes, which will vary greatly based on the wealth of the people in the area.  The higher the reliance on local taxes, the worse off schools will be in the places that need good schools the most.

[Helix345]

Most people grow (Mentally) during the summer and outside of school. Plus that would mean teachers would see and rise kids more than the actual parents which can be a bad and good thing. I personally think the standard of teaching needs to go up.

How hard is it to understand that either way, schools will still have 180 day years. They just space the breaks differently. Parents and teachers will still see the students for the same amount of time.

[Mr.Puerto]

How hard is it to understand that either way, schools will still have 180 day years. They just space the breaks differently. Parents and teachers will still see the students for the same amount of time.

Sorry about that I completely misread that.

[DarthRevansRevenge]

I actually didn't think this thread would get this far