Private schools' enrollment got filled up in many places. It did around me.
Meanwhile so many parents have moved away or gone to private schools, we are worried our local elementary school will close due to the enrollment decline. My wife is on the PTA and has an inside scoop on some of this data.
But you're not paying taxes to send your children to school. You're paying taxes so we, as a society, can educate our children. The way we do that is public schools. The money you pay for school taxes is in no way tied to your children, or even whether or not you have children. People who don't have children also pay taxes because, as noted, we're funding for society to educate all children.
I am 100% against the idea of parents being able to redirect the money they pay in school taxes to private schools. There are a number of things that should be communally paid for, with everyone contributing whether they need it right now or not; education is one of those things in my opinion. Police, Fire Departments, etc are also in that category; you _can_ have them be individually contracted, but it's a bad idea.
> I am 100% against the idea of parents being able to redirect the money they pay in school taxes to private schools.
Curious on the motivation for this carve-out. There's a bunch of other basic service needs that apply to all children but yet we don't have government-run grocery stores, clothing manufacturers, hair salons, toy makers or book publishers.
Disadvantaged groups are government-subsidized (state-provided health insurance, food stamps, housing subsidies) but the recipients of those funds are typically privately-run.
Is it the concern that in a voucher system private providers will churn out shoddier end product?
between conservative revisionists, woke indoctrinators, bored resource officers looking to make minor situations a legal issue, politicians pushing standardized tests then making schools essentially teach to the test (which i could rant for hours about), all the bad teachers who sit aroubd collecting paychecks bc its too hard to fire them, our schools are a f-ing dumpster fire.
i want to believe in the public instituion..
but its been ripped up by conservatives, liberals, unions, beaucrats of all kinds, crime, over the top fear responses to crime, and system that acts more out of the protecting itself from legal liability than by a system actually good for kids - with moronic zero tolerance polices and policies that punishes self defense.
its a lost cause. and the public funds should follow the kid.
if public schools cant compete and have to close ? then good.
schools are rotten from the inside out and are beyond fixing.
school boards are ran by motivated, bored assholes with too much free time on their hands and unhealthy obsessions with trendy political agendas.
This will force public schools to compete with what parents actually want for their kids.
If public schools can't attract the funds with making moronic policy, then it's gutted.
If they respond to parental demand, then they stay alive and vital.
But as it stands, most parents are pretty helpless against shitty policy. Schools choice adds some democracy into the situation where beucracy, unions and politicians have eroded it.
I'm done being invested in the noble idea of the institution.
Reality is reality. And public schools are shit holes.
I'm still advocating we educate all children.
I just advocate that the money follows the kid and that the state and teachers union don't get a monopoly control of it.
i hear this argument a lot (see what i did there?) and it makes some sense. however, i’d like for people to step back and consider education as something more than a commodity. an educated society seems like a healthier society across all dimensions.
