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American primary education already is an inconsistent hodgepodge, since it is under almost exclusively local control with local funding (via property taxes, in

American primary education already is an inconsistent hodgepodge, since it is under almost exclusively local control with local funding (via property taxes, in most places). This essentially ensures that children of the wealthy get better public education than poor children, one of many, many "rich-get-richer" feedback loops in the American social and economic system.

mud_dauber 10y ago
Local funding in Texas gets re-distributed from richer to poorer areas. Given the terrible conditions down in S.Texas it's probably a good policy.
- vannevar 10y ago
  I agree it's a good policy. But Texas still ranks near the bottom in state funding for schools. Texas is a welfare state, education-wise, getting half its money from the federal government.
nosuchthing 10y ago
Local districts don't have much say in curriculum after the "No Child Left Behind" act. The push for more public funding to charter schools really only benefits districts with lower population and higher property taxes as the charter schools generally have a much higher teacher to student ratio. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_child_left_behind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_child_left_behind
- vannevar 10y ago
  I don't know about local districts, but individual states still control the curriculum under NCLB. As far as I can determine, NCLB only imposed requirements on testing, and left the standards of proficiency to test up to the states. And of course, the only tool the Department of Education has to enforce anything is funding. They have no power over schools that take little or no federal funds.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Local districts don't have much say in curriculum after the "No Child Left Behind" act. Yes, they do (unless states took it away from local districts, but that's not a direct consequence of NCLB or the subsequent federal law, even if it is in some way motivated by it.) NCLB created, and subsequent federal law has modified, requirements for testing and accountability based on that testing, but left to the states most of the actual standards and content of the testing (and did virtually nothing to direct curriculum.)
  - nosuchthing 10y ago
    In theory yes, but in practice the teachers are incentived above all else to cater everyday they can to push the standardized testing material into all of the students leaving very very little room for creative teaching.

mud_dauber 10y ago

Local funding in Texas gets re-distributed from richer to poorer areas. Given the terrible conditions down in S.Texas it's probably a good policy.

vannevar 10y ago
I agree it's a good policy. But Texas still ranks near the bottom in state funding for schools. Texas is a welfare state, education-wise, getting half its money from the federal government.

nosuchthing 10y ago

Local districts don't have much say in curriculum after the "No Child Left Behind" act. The push for more public funding to charter schools really only benefits districts with lower population and higher property taxes as the charter schools generally have a much higher teacher to student ratio. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_child_left_behind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_child_left_behind

vannevar 10y ago
I don't know about local districts, but individual states still control the curriculum under NCLB. As far as I can determine, NCLB only imposed requirements on testing, and left the standards of proficiency to test up to the states. And of course, the only tool the Department of Education has to enforce anything is funding. They have no power over schools that take little or no federal funds.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Local districts don't have much say in curriculum after the "No Child Left Behind" act. Yes, they do (unless states took it away from local districts, but that's not a direct consequence of NCLB or the subsequent federal law, even if it is in some way motivated by it.) NCLB created, and subsequent federal law has modified, requirements for testing and accountability based on that testing, but left to the states most of the actual standards and content of the testing (and did virtually nothing to direct curriculum.)
- nosuchthing 10y ago
  In theory yes, but in practice the teachers are incentived above all else to cater everyday they can to push the standardized testing material into all of the students leaving very very little room for creative teaching.