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Originally Posted by claytonender
Whilst I understand what you are saying I do not have to agree with it.
I take it that the area that you live in is relatively affluent and the schools can be fully funded from your property taxes. But what happens in areas where there is insufficient income form the property taxes to fund education to the same level as in your town? Do the children in those areas receive a lower standard of education? If they do , are you advocating this as being an acceptable state of affair?
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To try to answer a couple of your questions , I live near the border of two School districts in California , Hayward and Castro Valley and believe me when I say there is a world of difference between the two districts . State law mandates that each child in California has a mimimum amount of money spent per child on education ,and is also required to meet the minimum criteria for educational standards (State testing) but it is up to each individual school district to decide how the money is spent, each district is governed by a locally elected school board (usually first step for budding politicians) who are responsible for distributing the budget , including the hiring and firing of teachers and providing facilities .
Open to the public School board meetings are held every month . The area where I live (Castro Valley) is a more fiscally conservative district (no Taj Mahal like office complexs for admin staff) and meetings are well attended and questions are asked ..test results put our schools in the top ten State percentile. Neighbouring Hayward spends the minimum required State amount per student but is in the bottom ten percent .
I mentioned earlier that the State sets a minimum amount of money per child , but this can be 'upped' in local taxes in each school board catchment area by a vote at election time , and in my district we decided that childrens education comes first, so in effect our children get more spent on them than kids in neighbouring districts ,one way is paying our teachers higher salaries ,we get a better grade of teacher, is that fair ? .....I think so , local democracy in action .
Now and again a Christian taliban looney sneaks in and is elected to the school board , someone for example who wants creationism taught along-side Darwinism in Science class, but this rare and in most cases (in California at least) is voted down .
Individual schools also raise extra funds for equipment from PTAs , (local democracy again for individual schools) who take an active interest in their childs education instead of just sitting back and saying "thats what we pay them for "