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Honest question: How common is it to have the local funding of schools outside the US? Schools are funded by property taxes. In lots of places this leads to e

by britch 7y ago

Honest question: How common is it to have the local funding of schools outside the US? Schools are funded by property taxes. In lots of places this leads to expensive suburbs allocating lots of money to schools and leaving neighboring cities and low income areas out to dry. Is this just another symptom of increasing wealth disparity in the US. It's interesting to me the degree this article focuses on curriculum and not resource allocation.

shantly 7y ago
It's not the money, exactly. Our struggling-to-regain-accreditation city schools, for example, pay teachers significantly better than AFAIK all the suburban schools in the area, thanks to all kinds of funding available to struggling schools, but they're still considered undesirable to work in because of the conditions (think: gun threat lockdowns all the time, 3rd graders calling you all kinds of nasty stuff pretty much daily and threatening to stab you on a not-irregular basis, poor parental support, that kind of thing). Suburban schools do better largely because the kids are easier to teach, not funding. It correlates with richer districts because kids whose parents bought more expensive houses to get their kids into better schools tend to be kids who are easier to teach, for a bunch of reasons.
- slowmovintarget 7y ago
  > ...kids whose parents bought more expensive houses to get their kids into better schools tend to be kids who are easier to teach, for a bunch of reasons. Those parents tend to emphasize education. Those parents tend to encourage literacy, and discourage bad behavior toward teachers. This creates an environment where all of the children, more or less, have a reasonable environment for learning, but the largest contributing factor is the parental involvement. Children don't become magically easier to teach because of resources. Resources at home, however, can help the parents focus on their child's behavior and amenability to learning. This means that the problem of ineffective education of poor children must be addressed at home, not in the school.

by britch 7y ago

shantly 7y ago

It's not the money, exactly. Our struggling-to-regain-accreditation city schools, for example, pay teachers significantly better than AFAIK all the suburban schools in the area, thanks to all kinds of funding available to struggling schools, but they're still considered undesirable to work in because of the conditions (think: gun threat lockdowns all the time, 3rd graders calling you all kinds of nasty stuff pretty much daily and threatening to stab you on a not-irregular basis, poor parental support, that kind of thing). Suburban schools do better largely because the kids are easier to teach, not funding. It correlates with richer districts because kids whose parents bought more expensive houses to get their kids into better schools tend to be kids who are easier to teach, for a bunch of reasons.

slowmovintarget 7y ago
> ...kids whose parents bought more expensive houses to get their kids into better schools tend to be kids who are easier to teach, for a bunch of reasons. Those parents tend to emphasize education. Those parents tend to encourage literacy, and discourage bad behavior toward teachers. This creates an environment where all of the children, more or less, have a reasonable environment for learning, but the largest contributing factor is the parental involvement. Children don't become magically easier to teach because of resources. Resources at home, however, can help the parents focus on their child's behavior and amenability to learning. This means that the problem of ineffective education of poor children must be addressed at home, not in the school.