3 ms·

All three of those are true with public schools systems.

wfo 11y ago
No. Public schools don't get to pre-select their students and then claim to ourperform other schools because they just picked the best ones. Public schools are not faith-based. Public schools do not have enormous administrative salaries
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Neither does charter schools like Success Academy. Instead it's a lottery. Public shools in NY are zoned so if you want your kid to go to that good school in Tribecca you most probably have to move there.
- mason240 11y ago
  1) Graft is common, with charter school administrators sometimes taking home ludicrous salaries ($500k+ for schools with ~1,000 students) True for public schools. 2) Funding often comes directly from the local school district, most of which are already severely cash-strapped. The problem here is that the cost of a single student attending a school district is largely buried in fixed costs: when the state takes $6000/yr from a district and gives it to a charter school, the district's costs do not decrease by $6000. This makes school districts worse, which accelerates flight to charter / private schools. Open enrollment causes the same issues. 3) Educational standards are different -- Also, most states offer some sort of funding incentive based on test scores -- which just encourages schools to play the numbers game by finding reasons to suspend/expel struggling students, encourage cheating on tests, etc. True for public schools.
a-priori 11y ago
In the United States maybe. Elsewhere, public school systems seem to be able to deliver a high quality education at a reasonable cost to the public. In Ontario, Canada, the public spent $23.6B on education in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. That's total cost, including salaries and building maintenance and supplies and everything else that goes into running an education system. That works out to $11.7k per student per year based on 2,015,411 students in the 2013-2014 school year. That's similar to what you'd pay in private school tuition, and that's with all the bureaucracy and unions and teacher's salaries (teachers here top out at around $100k salary) and all the other things people complain about as reasons public schooling is a waste of money. It's not; it's about the same cost as private schooling. But with public funding, a good education is available to everyone, and the public has more direct oversight of the curricula and of standards. As a result, Canada scores well in international school rankings, similar to the best European countries -- which are also, almost universally, funded publically (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA_2012#Results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA_2012#Results).
- ThomPete 11y ago
  No they don't really. Same problem most places with public school system. Even a country like Denmark that spends quite a lot on education these problems exist. Canada, Finland, Singapore and South Korea are some of the exceptions as far as I remember.

wfo 11y ago

No. Public schools don't get to pre-select their students and then claim to ourperform other schools because they just picked the best ones. Public schools are not faith-based. Public schools do not have enormous administrative salaries

ThomPete 11y ago
Neither does charter schools like Success Academy. Instead it's a lottery. Public shools in NY are zoned so if you want your kid to go to that good school in Tribecca you most probably have to move there.
mason240 11y ago
1) Graft is common, with charter school administrators sometimes taking home ludicrous salaries ($500k+ for schools with ~1,000 students) True for public schools. 2) Funding often comes directly from the local school district, most of which are already severely cash-strapped. The problem here is that the cost of a single student attending a school district is largely buried in fixed costs: when the state takes $6000/yr from a district and gives it to a charter school, the district's costs do not decrease by $6000. This makes school districts worse, which accelerates flight to charter / private schools. Open enrollment causes the same issues. 3) Educational standards are different -- Also, most states offer some sort of funding incentive based on test scores -- which just encourages schools to play the numbers game by finding reasons to suspend/expel struggling students, encourage cheating on tests, etc. True for public schools.

a-priori 11y ago

In the United States maybe. Elsewhere, public school systems seem to be able to deliver a high quality education at a reasonable cost to the public. In Ontario, Canada, the public spent $23.6B on education in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. That's total cost, including salaries and building maintenance and supplies and everything else that goes into running an education system. That works out to $11.7k per student per year based on 2,015,411 students in the 2013-2014 school year. That's similar to what you'd pay in private school tuition, and that's with all the bureaucracy and unions and teacher's salaries (teachers here top out at around $100k salary) and all the other things people complain about as reasons public schooling is a waste of money. It's not; it's about the same cost as private schooling. But with public funding, a good education is available to everyone, and the public has more direct oversight of the curricula and of standards. As a result, Canada scores well in international school rankings, similar to the best European countries -- which are also, almost universally, funded publically (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA_2012#Results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA_2012#Results).

ThomPete 11y ago
No they don't really. Same problem most places with public school system. Even a country like Denmark that spends quite a lot on education these problems exist. Canada, Finland, Singapore and South Korea are some of the exceptions as far as I remember.