Comment by sweeter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sweeter | Hacker News Reader

I mean its obvious. There has been a concerted effort to de-fund public schools and center the conversation about "right to choose" education, alongside a handout of vouchers to attend private religious schools AND the implementation of new laws that allow tax payer dollars to go to funding those privately owned religious schools (seriously).

The intent imo is to make schools seem "scary" and push parents to put their kids in private schools that these religious groups control, they are for-profit so they can rake in those sweet tax dollars and the parents money, while public schools flail and kids don't get a proper education. Its a concerted effort to privatize and dismantle the public school system. These schools don't have to abide by federal laws either, even while receiving federal tax money.

Throw that in with the very real dangers of going to school these days, these are the only two options after a while. Go to a private religious school, or home school... and that is not an accident or a coincidence.

While there may be an effort to defund public schools, funding (inflation adjusted) has been increasing.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203118/expenditures-per-...

Between 2008 and 2018, there's a drop, then recovery, of school funding (back to 2008 levels). That's a decade. I think this underfunding during that period may have contributed a lot to the current state.

To me it feels like the duties of schools have been expanded more than their funding has been decreased. Demands and duties around special needs students have gone way up, with a much wider set of students being identified as special needs in some fashion, and more expensive interventions.

And there's expectations that the school should address other social needs the children might encounter. So there's lots of programs and interventions and support systems, and the bureaucracy to manage that... and maybe those things work and maybe they don't, but even ineffective programs cost money.

I also think schools would be a classic case where Baumol's Cost Disease would make the cost go up relative to other parts of the economy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect)

And really if you go to schools today it's clear they are more well funded than 30-40 years ago. Teaching was hardly well paid at that time either. But society demands modernity and modernity is expensive.

I find it a bit far fetched to suggest that these private religious schools have enough influence to change laws and get tax dollars

The much simpler explanation is that having influence over private schools is very tempting for the govt and the easiest tool is via giving or retaining funding which they don't personally have to pay. They just want to secure votes and influence

You'd be partially correct in saying that private schools alone dont have the influence to do this, its more so politicians who endorse these schools and own stake in these schools that are at the root of the issue. With the goal of moving taxpayer money into private monied interests, instead of public services. Its a tail as old as time in the US.

You are right, the problem isn't 100% on the schools or the politicians, it's probably both. And I agree that no public money should go to private schools, nor the press for that matter. At the end of the day power resides in the politicians, so they are the ones most at fault (+voters). A hard problem to fix when you have to vote for option A or option B

I think that’s a mischaracterization. What the movement is about is that everyone is in agreement that education is a right and that the government is responsible for funding it. But that the government is not responsible (or even competent at) providing it. Governments are good at taxing and distributing but not at meeting the needs of individuals.

So the solution is to privatize education so parents can choose a schools that fits their child’s unique needs and suits their values. We are a massive diverse country and it’s crazy to think we have so many shared, universal values.

So, let a marketplace take the place of government schools and give everyone an equal amount of money to choose the school that they see as best fit. The model works for pre-schools and colleges really well and there’s no reason to think it won’t for the rest.

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