Don’t most (all?) municipalities have School Taxes? You, know, taxes expressly for the purpose of publicly educating our children?
Now, I know that most (all?) states also provide monies to local communities to support public education, but at the municipal level, if someone is cutting spending on education, what are they planning on doing with the money that was collected for the schools? Wouldn’t that be misappropriation of funds, since the funds were collected for the express purpose of supporting local education?
Because America has always needed semi-skilled drones to fill millions of jobs and hardly anyone in power gives a damn about have a really well educated citizenry. Well educated citizens are troublemakers.
More to the point, middle-class and affluent parents–politically relevant people–will find alternate revenue sources. Fund-raising is a lot more problematic when your school is 95% free-or-reduced lunch, 75% non-native speaker, and has a highly transitory population. It’s not just that no one has money to give, but the organizing and running is damn near impossible.
I was, of course, speaking in the voice of the sector of voters who see teaching as a cushy job. My father was a teacher, and I was out of school long before he was.
That’s my impression in a lot of cases as well. “Cuts” mean “not increasing the schools budget as much as we want”.
As a side gripe, a common tactic among school districts faced with failure of their tax-raising ballot issue is to cut back on things perceived as causing the most pain for parents/kids (making them pay for athletics, trimming teaching staff etc.). Scaling back plans for the new super-high school or letting administrators go don’t ever seem to be options.
I asked a high school teacher what the difference was between AC and DC current was yesterday. She didn’t know. A few months ago she demonstrated not knowing a kilometer from a meter. But she recognized the name Nicola Tesla.
She was going to see a line performance of Othello last night.
Who decides what education is? Couldn’t a national recommended reading list do a better job than a lot of teachers? How much would that cost?
A cardboard box? Luxury! I had to crawl uphill on my hands and knees, all three ways, across a glacier to go to school in a hole in the snow made by a urinating dog…and grateful for it, I was, too.