Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft | Hacker News Reader

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NoMoreNicksLeft

>Or, hear me out, it's because they've been underfunded from the start.

Compare the funding per student to any other country in Europe... they've been hilariously overfunded for longer than either of us have been alive.

>The reality is that there were never enough resources in the first place, a

That's not reality. That's "spin". There were always enough resources for high achievement from those capable of high achievement... but then equal amounts of money wouldn't be wasted on low achievers.

>Maybe, just MAYBE, if we took the 60k signing bonus

This is just bad math. You need how many teachers nationwide? 1 million-ish? Go ahead and split those $60k bonuses over that many teachers (and over the next 20 years), and the few tens or hundreds of dollars that it ends up being, per teacher, is supposed to make a difference?

Yeah, "underfunded schools" is a talking point that bears no relation to reality but was great for pulling at people's heartstrings, because "think of the children!" But taxpayers have learned better, because they can look at their property tax bills and see how the bulk of it goes to schools. They can look up the per-pupil cost and see that it just keeps climbing faster than pretty much anything else but health care.

They can see that the corollary talking point (schools in disadvantaged areas get less funding) is a lie too. From an MIT study: "The distribution of spending experienced by children living in poverty (figure 1a) is nearly indistinguishable from that of children not living in poverty (figure 1b)."[1] People who make that claim usually only count state and local funding, ignoring federal Title I which makes up for it.

The "underfunded schools" dog just won't hunt anymore. People who are worried about their next paycheck don't want to hear it, especially when it often comes from school administrators who make more than they do.

[1] https://direct.mit.edu/edfp/article/19/1/169/116642/Funding-...

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