3 ms·

How nice it must be, when the schools around you have to compete in an actual "market". My kids are reaching school age soon, and I'm weighing the public/privat

by qwerpy 2y ago

How nice it must be, when the schools around you have to compete in an actual "market". My kids are reaching school age soon, and I'm weighing the public/private school tradeoffs. Unlike in Florida, here in the Seattle area the public schools still more or less enjoy a monopoly for parents who can't afford private school. And they are more than happy to abuse it, with their relentless assault on gifted programs and insistence on busing in disruptive kids from other areas. I'm fortunate to have a dual tech income household so I can buy my way out of the public school problems, but I hope that my neighbors take notice and vote accordingly. Society is better off when kids who want to learn are given the opportunity to.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
> Unlike in Florida, here in the Seattle area the public schools still more or less enjoy a monopoly for parents who can't afford private school. Seattle public schools have lots of incentive to keep your kids in their schools: if you leave the district (moving or going private), they lose that funding to other school districts in the state since a Washington state supreme court ruling in 2013 that basically pooled education property taxes across the state in a single pool to be distributed by child-in-school. Now, whether they actually execute on that or not remains to be seen. Cancelling the high performance classroom option is a huge bummer for many parents who actually have options (to move to Bellevue or send their kids to private schools). They are afraid to ask why kids for the actual reasons on why kids leave the district (and they tend to be the rich north Seattle kids rather than the poorer South Seattle kids that leave, creating even a larger hole in their budget). I wonder if they are hoping Eastern Washington just joins Idaho, solving all of their budget problems.
P_I_Staker 2y ago
> insistence on busing in disruptive kids from other areas. What do you mean? What kind of kids, are getting "bussed in", and from where?

by qwerpy 2y ago

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

> Unlike in Florida, here in the Seattle area the public schools still more or less enjoy a monopoly for parents who can't afford private school. Seattle public schools have lots of incentive to keep your kids in their schools: if you leave the district (moving or going private), they lose that funding to other school districts in the state since a Washington state supreme court ruling in 2013 that basically pooled education property taxes across the state in a single pool to be distributed by child-in-school. Now, whether they actually execute on that or not remains to be seen. Cancelling the high performance classroom option is a huge bummer for many parents who actually have options (to move to Bellevue or send their kids to private schools). They are afraid to ask why kids for the actual reasons on why kids leave the district (and they tend to be the rich north Seattle kids rather than the poorer South Seattle kids that leave, creating even a larger hole in their budget). I wonder if they are hoping Eastern Washington just joins Idaho, solving all of their budget problems.

P_I_Staker 2y ago

> insistence on busing in disruptive kids from other areas. What do you mean? What kind of kids, are getting "bussed in", and from where?