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The Texas Public Policy Foundation is one of the worst organizations you could cite. They're infamous for being just a front for Rick Perry's ambitions and as s

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is one of the worst organizations you could cite. They're infamous for being just a front for Rick Perry's ambitions and as such are one of the groups directly responsible for the decreasing quality of Texas's higher education system. (Higher education in Texas is much worse than that of California.) There's no denying that California has a problem with K-12 education due to Prop 13. But I grew up and was educated in Texas, and I can say the government of Texas has always been significantly more dysfunctional than the government of California. The "Texas Miracle" thing during GWB's campaign was obviously an attempt to take credit for the fact that the oil industry attracted the kind of people who care about education, not because of anything related to the government. In fact, attempting to recreate the "Texas Miracle" nationwide led to the disastrous No Child Left Behind law. I more-likely-than-not won't end up having kids, but if I did, I would want them educated here, not in Texas. The government of Texas plays games with education to score political points in a way that the government of California does not. Besides, I question how sustainable Texas education is going to be without an income tax, and income tax is the third rail of Texas politics.

rayiner 8y ago
The data underlying the article is NAEP scores, which are widely respected as an objective measure of student performance. And California does awful on NAEP, and has for a long time. As to where I’d want my kids educated—I’m thinking from the perspective of having come to this country as an immigrant. We were solidly middle class and moved to a pretty nice neighborhood in Virginia with decent schools, but there is no way we could have afforded it today. If I were in my dad’s position, I’d definitely head to Houston or Dallas rather than San Francisco or LA. Heck, when I bought my house in the DC area, I was apalled at the school situation. I didn’t want my kids to grow up in a place where a million dollar house is the buy-in for a going to a good school district. We ended up moving to a different city and just putting up with a long commute.
- Latteland 8y ago
  My dad lives in the Highland Park area of Dallas. He says people move there and pay their 20 or 30k a year in property taxes to go to a great school district as it's cheaper than a private school tuition. It sounds like the same thing. Of course that's just one example.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    How much are the houses to pay $30K-$40K in property taxes? The wealthiest city in GA is Johns Creek with top rated schools and just looking at Zillow, a home valued at $460K has property taxes around $5000.
    - Latteland 8y ago
      Seem to be a couple million and up.
foxyv 8y ago
Texas schools are insanely well funded. The high schools here are better equipped than my college back in California. They get a lot of endowments from private sources. It has nothing to do with the kind of garbage "No Child Left Behind" created. It's all just having enough money to do the job. My public high school in California's Inland Empire was a lot like a training camp for prison. Learning how to survive while crowded with the violent and insane. Riots happened almost every other week. Just too many kids in too small a place, and no funding to handle the problems from so many poor and broken families. You can't put 3000 kids in a school for 1000 with funding for maybe 1500 and expect anything else.

rayiner 8y ago

The data underlying the article is NAEP scores, which are widely respected as an objective measure of student performance. And California does awful on NAEP, and has for a long time. As to where I’d want my kids educated—I’m thinking from the perspective of having come to this country as an immigrant. We were solidly middle class and moved to a pretty nice neighborhood in Virginia with decent schools, but there is no way we could have afforded it today. If I were in my dad’s position, I’d definitely head to Houston or Dallas rather than San Francisco or LA. Heck, when I bought my house in the DC area, I was apalled at the school situation. I didn’t want my kids to grow up in a place where a million dollar house is the buy-in for a going to a good school district. We ended up moving to a different city and just putting up with a long commute.

Latteland 8y ago
My dad lives in the Highland Park area of Dallas. He says people move there and pay their 20 or 30k a year in property taxes to go to a great school district as it's cheaper than a private school tuition. It sounds like the same thing. Of course that's just one example.
- scarface74 8y ago
  How much are the houses to pay $30K-$40K in property taxes? The wealthiest city in GA is Johns Creek with top rated schools and just looking at Zillow, a home valued at $460K has property taxes around $5000.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    Seem to be a couple million and up.

foxyv 8y ago

Texas schools are insanely well funded. The high schools here are better equipped than my college back in California. They get a lot of endowments from private sources. It has nothing to do with the kind of garbage "No Child Left Behind" created. It's all just having enough money to do the job. My public high school in California's Inland Empire was a lot like a training camp for prison. Learning how to survive while crowded with the violent and insane. Riots happened almost every other week. Just too many kids in too small a place, and no funding to handle the problems from so many poor and broken families. You can't put 3000 kids in a school for 1000 with funding for maybe 1500 and expect anything else.