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In US, each school district receives money proportional to their students, with some places raising money via levys or bonds in their district. It takes a long

In US, each school district receives money proportional to their students, with some places raising money via levys or bonds in their district. It takes a long time to make new schools. If people could go to any school, you'd overwhelm some districts with tons of students and you can't just make a new school in a year or two, it takes a lot of time for the district to figure out they'll need one long term, raise the money, make plans, build and hire teachers. So this would just be a disaster in the say 3 year time frame. I think a major reason some districts do better than others is that wealth of the parents is highly correlated with educational attainment of the parents and the children. It's not that the big city schools just generally suck, they have many more problems to deal with, one being older infrastructure but also a lot more poorer kids, and less parental contributions. Being in the Seattle area, every school district is overloaded, and is struggling to plan and build new schools, and has lots of temporary buildings (aka trailers) that they have some classes in. It's true on the east side, the more wealthy side. And on the wealthy east side, it's far more conservative politically than Seattle; compare Seattle to Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Issaquah. Those are still moderate to liberal cities, but as an example Issaquah has a republican US Congressman, Reichart. These places are pretty strongly supportive of keeping the public schools the way they are.

seibelj 8y ago
OK, so build low-income housing in rich districts (unless you are saying the presence of poor kids destroys the good school) and stop using zoning to limit what kinds of residences can be built (lot-size, multi-family, building height, etc.). In the suburb of Saint Louis where my wife grew up, each lot had to be at least 1 acre, and had to be single-family. Given how expensive it was to live there, realistically the only properties that were profitable to build were McMansions. Amazing school district though!
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Rich can and will move. You would need exorbitant force to keep them. What is your proposed means of oppression to not make them move? Next, even if housing is mixed, rich can pool resources and start smaller scale private schooling. Results in Japanese model. You will have to prevent it by force as well. It doesn't take much to outdo people who are preoccupied trying to make ends meet and being distracted with better education amd more attention.
- Latteland 8y ago
  I think we'd be better off if poorer people were not concentrated, of course today it's economic concentration or discrimination that makes it harder to equalize things. Not only am I lucky to live in a good school district for my kids, but people in my more wealthy area are much more willing to support school levys and donate money and time. There is some lower income housing, but in a boom town like Seattle you get a second negative impact on poorer people, which is displacement through rising prices of homes and apartments. Poorer people have to leave because they can't afford rising rents. Their old neighborhood starts to get more of the better educated people who could help the local schools with their background and money. It's not impossible to go up, but it feels like it is harder. In my family, my grandparents were both some of the first people to go to college during the great depression, with basically no money. They came from tiny high schools but managed to make it.
  - seibelj 8y ago
    The reason housing is so expensive is that there isn’t enough housing, supply and demand. If you allow developers to build housing commiserate with demand, the prices don’t get to SF levels.

seibelj 8y ago

OK, so build low-income housing in rich districts (unless you are saying the presence of poor kids destroys the good school) and stop using zoning to limit what kinds of residences can be built (lot-size, multi-family, building height, etc.). In the suburb of Saint Louis where my wife grew up, each lot had to be at least 1 acre, and had to be single-family. Given how expensive it was to live there, realistically the only properties that were profitable to build were McMansions. Amazing school district though!

AstralStorm 8y ago
Rich can and will move. You would need exorbitant force to keep them. What is your proposed means of oppression to not make them move? Next, even if housing is mixed, rich can pool resources and start smaller scale private schooling. Results in Japanese model. You will have to prevent it by force as well. It doesn't take much to outdo people who are preoccupied trying to make ends meet and being distracted with better education amd more attention.
Latteland 8y ago
I think we'd be better off if poorer people were not concentrated, of course today it's economic concentration or discrimination that makes it harder to equalize things. Not only am I lucky to live in a good school district for my kids, but people in my more wealthy area are much more willing to support school levys and donate money and time. There is some lower income housing, but in a boom town like Seattle you get a second negative impact on poorer people, which is displacement through rising prices of homes and apartments. Poorer people have to leave because they can't afford rising rents. Their old neighborhood starts to get more of the better educated people who could help the local schools with their background and money. It's not impossible to go up, but it feels like it is harder. In my family, my grandparents were both some of the first people to go to college during the great depression, with basically no money. They came from tiny high schools but managed to make it.
- seibelj 8y ago
  The reason housing is so expensive is that there isn’t enough housing, supply and demand. If you allow developers to build housing commiserate with demand, the prices don’t get to SF levels.