I was thinking about this today and how it seems when you get something for free, you don't really care about it as much. For instance, Maxi said it right in the free panera topic a few weeks ago...if you get something for free, you dont respect it. But if you pay just a little towards it, you have some skin in the game and you are likely not to waste it. So why not start charging for public schools. Or better yet, have public school merit based. If you get bad grades, you pay. For every F you get, you pay $50. D's $30, C's $15, B's $5 and A's Free. If all grades eventually average C, and assuming 6 subjects kids learn with 55 million k-12, you are talking about an extra $5 billion dollars going towards schools every year too. Some of you might complain about the poor kids...well, kick them in the ass and get those poor kids to get A's and the education is free.
Currently, cost of school supplies are getting out of hand. I think the calc my daughter needed this year cost either $80 or $120. (as you can tell, I have no clue how much it cost and really don't give a flying fuck.. ). Then they need all these binders and specific sizes. What really pisses me off is kids have to buy a regents work book. This is a study book for the test. This book I think is around $10. I already pay for texts in my school taxes and think we are getting ripped of that the text book is worthless to study from that we need a "work book". Now get this. The 8th grade choir concert ( oi vey who likes those?) Now they are charging a 3 dollar admission per student. So my granddaughter has to cough up 3 bucks or take an F and not participate.
Where do you come up with this stuff? In the better school districts in this country, parents pay thru the nose for their children's education. It's called property taxes. Do you not understand that the bulk of those taxes go directly to the public schools? (btw, the student's aren't paying for the school anyway. So, how exactly would they have "skin in the game"?)
I think all schooling should be privatized. Restore free market competition to education and performance would skyrocket, while costs dramatically reduced. Fuck the teacher unions. This could work on public voucher, private school. Standard voucher of say ~5 grand a year, per kid. Parents with money can spend over and above to send their kids to better schools. The Federal Government has no business dictating curriculum anyway. Most of it is useless ideological garbage with no real-world utility ("global warming", "overpopulation", UN/Global Government-centric crap). Let the free market dictate what skills are valued by the workplace (reading, writing, arithmetic, science). Be a real shame to see all those multi-million dollar pensions evaporate for gradeschool teachers and the innercity Chicago kids graduate literate!!
Oh what a great idea. Incentivize school administrators to give bad grades. Keep that noodle working at 110% piel.
Property taxes already are high enough to cover the costs. Like everything else, corruption and incompetence take much of the money. Public education worked just fine when we had teachers that gave a damn, tests that meant something, discipline wasn't a four letter word, and most importantly, two parent homes where there was hell to pay for poor performance/bad behavior. Lack of money isn't the problem. Trying to get money to compensate for all that's missing is the problem.
I have paid to be in the good school districts. What I have found is that the real problem is the P.C. baloney which no longer separates out the fast learners the mid and the slow. There are plenty of good teachers, there are very good courses and info... The philosophy of not tracking the kids is the problem outside of places like L.A. unified. (although class size is getting to be an issue too.) Last night my 7th grader was asking me about sugars in a DNA chain. I asked if he was trading bio tech stocks, he said no he is studying for school. He brought me his text book. They are learning impressive stuff in 7th grade.
if the government didnt dictate curriculum the red states would all be teaching creationism as science.