8 ms·

"That same year, a coalition of school districts, now numbering more than 200, filed suit against the voucher expansion." In other word, a bunch of government

"That same year, a coalition of school districts, now numbering more than 200, filed suit against the voucher expansion." In other word, a bunch of government employees used taxpayers' money to find legal action, with the aim of maintaining their local monopolies on the provision of taxpayer-funded education.

Pulcinella 2y ago
Government entities use taxpayer money to fund legal action (and pretty much everything else they do) all the time. I am not a lawyer but I believe it is called “administrative law” and is completely normal. To think so otherwise is completely ahistorical and incorrect.
- rahimnathwani 2y ago
  "Government entities use taxpayer money..." Individual people - government employees - decided to do this. They decided to use taxpayer funds (that were specifically allocated for educating students) to finance legal action aimed at preventing parents from choosing which schools would receive taxpayer funding to educate their children. In other words, government employees spent public education money on litigation designed to keep money flowing into their own pockets, rather than allowing those funds to follow students to whatever educational environment their families determined would best serve them.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    There's an argument to be made that maintaining the integrity of the school district is, in fact, serving the education of the students.
    - rahimnathwani 2y ago
      Parents probably care more about the education of their children, than government employees do. I think those parents can be trusted to know what is "serving the education of the students".
      - lenerdenator 2y ago
        And plenty of parents don't.
        paleotrope 2y ago
        What are you gonna do about the ones that don't care?
        lenerdenator 2y ago
        Have a well-funded school system that exists no matter what to give their children at least something.
  - Pulcinella 2y ago
    Of course it’s individual people. The political entity they work for obviously has no will of its own. It is terribly unsurprising to me that people tasked with a job by the government would do what they can to best carry out that job. Are you scandalized when a city and the county it is in sue each other and the transportation department over who has responsibilities for what sections of road and how much money who should get rather than letting the citizens who drive on those roads decide? Where do you draw the line for what money the government decides how to spend and what money individuals should decide how to spend?
    - rahimnathwani 2y ago
      "It is terribly unsurprising to me that people tasked with a job by the government would do what they can to best carry out that job." Right, but the government tasked school district employees with educating kids who enroll in government-run schools. The legislature explicitly created a voucher scheme, and it's unclear why school district employees would think it was their job to prevent this from happening.
      - Pulcinella 2y ago
        Declining enrollment and pulled funding can destroy the ability of a district to carry out the mission tasked to it by the government. This is not just hypothetical. The rural, conservative school district I used to work for (and may, many like them as pointed out in the article) and the families that rely on them do not like school vouchers, even if they otherwise support everything else that politician does. If too many students unenroll and utilize school vouchers, the whole district could collapse due to lack of funding and screw over all the remaining students. This is compounded by the fact that vouchers often pull out more funding that the government otherwise would provide to the district for that student. This is mentioned in the article as well. e.g. the state pays the district $5k a year per student, but pulls $8k a year for a student that uses a voucher. Also, in a lot of these rural areas there are no other good options anyway besides the school district. It’s either the district, a scammy online charter school, a scammy fly-by-night charter school, or homeschooling.
lenerdenator 2y ago
It's supposed to be a monopoly. I don't pay property taxes to make some head of OmniCorp Education LLC a multimillionaire. I do it so that the kids in my neighborhood aren't dumber than rocks. Your local school district is the default. If you want to do something else, you're free to. You can educate your child yourself, or pay another educational institution to do it for you. Is that too expensive? Maybe you should talk about that with the person who pays your salary.
- rahimnathwani 2y ago
  "I don't pay property taxes to make some head of OmniCorp Education LLC a multimillionaire." In my city, school district administrators are multimillionaires. "It's supposed to be a monopoly." Is that a good thing? "Your local school district is the default." Why ought that to be the case? "You can educate your child yourself, or pay another educational institution to do it for you." That's what I do, and the sticker price is less per year than the annual per-student opex of my local school district.
  - frumper 2y ago
    Private schools do not play by the same rules. Special education and transportation are a significant cost of public schools that private schools can just ignore.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    > Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? There are plenty of good public schools in the United States. They typically tend to geographically coincide with places with high average household income and thus lots of funding through property taxes, though that's not the only advantage money gives them. > Why ought that to be the case? Because society benefits when all children have at least some education from the age of five to sixteen, if not longer. There were times throughout history (up until relatively recently, actually - think prior to WWII) where there was lots of competition for your educational dollars. The problem was, if you didn't have educational dollars to spend, your kid got no education. And now that there's more urban than rural population in the US, you can't even just tell junior to help you with farm chores. You'll just have youths doing... well, it's hard to tell, but when kids don't have anywhere they have to be or anything they have to do, it usually turns out poorly for them and their communities. > That's what I do, and the sticker price is less per year than the annual per-student opex of my local school district. I bet it is. The average child who attends a private school typically comes from a household that has more financial resources, and thus, requires less of the social safety net that is often provided through school districts. These schools are also free to tell more "expensive" students (read: neurodivergent and disabled children) to pound sand when it comes to their needs.

Pulcinella 2y ago

Government entities use taxpayer money to fund legal action (and pretty much everything else they do) all the time. I am not a lawyer but I believe it is called “administrative law” and is completely normal. To think so otherwise is completely ahistorical and incorrect.

rahimnathwani 2y ago
"Government entities use taxpayer money..." Individual people - government employees - decided to do this. They decided to use taxpayer funds (that were specifically allocated for educating students) to finance legal action aimed at preventing parents from choosing which schools would receive taxpayer funding to educate their children. In other words, government employees spent public education money on litigation designed to keep money flowing into their own pockets, rather than allowing those funds to follow students to whatever educational environment their families determined would best serve them.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  There's an argument to be made that maintaining the integrity of the school district is, in fact, serving the education of the students.
  - rahimnathwani 2y ago
    Parents probably care more about the education of their children, than government employees do. I think those parents can be trusted to know what is "serving the education of the students".
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      And plenty of parents don't.
      - paleotrope 2y ago
        What are you gonna do about the ones that don't care?
        lenerdenator 2y ago
        Have a well-funded school system that exists no matter what to give their children at least something.
- Pulcinella 2y ago
  Of course it’s individual people. The political entity they work for obviously has no will of its own. It is terribly unsurprising to me that people tasked with a job by the government would do what they can to best carry out that job. Are you scandalized when a city and the county it is in sue each other and the transportation department over who has responsibilities for what sections of road and how much money who should get rather than letting the citizens who drive on those roads decide? Where do you draw the line for what money the government decides how to spend and what money individuals should decide how to spend?
  - rahimnathwani 2y ago
    "It is terribly unsurprising to me that people tasked with a job by the government would do what they can to best carry out that job." Right, but the government tasked school district employees with educating kids who enroll in government-run schools. The legislature explicitly created a voucher scheme, and it's unclear why school district employees would think it was their job to prevent this from happening.
    - Pulcinella 2y ago
      Declining enrollment and pulled funding can destroy the ability of a district to carry out the mission tasked to it by the government. This is not just hypothetical. The rural, conservative school district I used to work for (and may, many like them as pointed out in the article) and the families that rely on them do not like school vouchers, even if they otherwise support everything else that politician does. If too many students unenroll and utilize school vouchers, the whole district could collapse due to lack of funding and screw over all the remaining students. This is compounded by the fact that vouchers often pull out more funding that the government otherwise would provide to the district for that student. This is mentioned in the article as well. e.g. the state pays the district $5k a year per student, but pulls $8k a year for a student that uses a voucher. Also, in a lot of these rural areas there are no other good options anyway besides the school district. It’s either the district, a scammy online charter school, a scammy fly-by-night charter school, or homeschooling.

lenerdenator 2y ago

It's supposed to be a monopoly. I don't pay property taxes to make some head of OmniCorp Education LLC a multimillionaire. I do it so that the kids in my neighborhood aren't dumber than rocks. Your local school district is the default. If you want to do something else, you're free to. You can educate your child yourself, or pay another educational institution to do it for you. Is that too expensive? Maybe you should talk about that with the person who pays your salary.

rahimnathwani 2y ago
"I don't pay property taxes to make some head of OmniCorp Education LLC a multimillionaire." In my city, school district administrators are multimillionaires. "It's supposed to be a monopoly." Is that a good thing? "Your local school district is the default." Why ought that to be the case? "You can educate your child yourself, or pay another educational institution to do it for you." That's what I do, and the sticker price is less per year than the annual per-student opex of my local school district.
- frumper 2y ago
  Private schools do not play by the same rules. Special education and transportation are a significant cost of public schools that private schools can just ignore.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  > Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? There are plenty of good public schools in the United States. They typically tend to geographically coincide with places with high average household income and thus lots of funding through property taxes, though that's not the only advantage money gives them. > Why ought that to be the case? Because society benefits when all children have at least some education from the age of five to sixteen, if not longer. There were times throughout history (up until relatively recently, actually - think prior to WWII) where there was lots of competition for your educational dollars. The problem was, if you didn't have educational dollars to spend, your kid got no education. And now that there's more urban than rural population in the US, you can't even just tell junior to help you with farm chores. You'll just have youths doing... well, it's hard to tell, but when kids don't have anywhere they have to be or anything they have to do, it usually turns out poorly for them and their communities. > That's what I do, and the sticker price is less per year than the annual per-student opex of my local school district. I bet it is. The average child who attends a private school typically comes from a household that has more financial resources, and thus, requires less of the social safety net that is often provided through school districts. These schools are also free to tell more "expensive" students (read: neurodivergent and disabled children) to pound sand when it comes to their needs.