The spreading GOP destruction of public education

That seems like what has been the primary reason. Now, however, you have to factor in that a good chunk of your taxes are going to parents who are sending their kids to charter schools and private schools, and many of those parents are wealthy.

 

Thanks for the link.

Seems as if it’s a special circumstance, has to be reapproved in 4 years and the county council by charter had to vote to even let it be on the ballot.

“Who's opposed to the tax? Why?
Five city council members — Aaron Bowman, Rory Diamond, Al Ferraro, Randy White and Nick Howland — voted against the referendum in a vote required by the city charter to place it on primary election ballots.

The "no" votes came despite the council's Office of General Counsel advising members that the action was strictly "ministerial" and that the City Council's role is to approve logistics surrounding placing the referendum on ballots.

Diamond and other critics of the tax increase say the school district should move its budget figures around instead of asking community members for more money. “


The yearly milage rate is still set by the school board, likely they have some limit to the amount they can raise it as the article discusses it could have been 5.8 but they took the rolled back rate of 5.4 when they got the extra 1 mill.
Point still stands the school board can set the rates (perhaps with some limits it seems) and if the county council didn’t approve it(more direct control ) it wouldn’t have even been up for a vote.

Certainly the voters can vote out school board members and county/city council members but that’s often not an easy task as most don’t vote or know the details of one candidate over the other.

 

And many are poor and stuck in crappy schools.
I don’t think anyone here has supported vouchers for everyone.
I’ve seen most all says it should be means tested.

Seems like many don’t want to hear that and don’t want any other option for poor kids to maybe get out of a crap school, I guess they like those kids stuck on the plantation.

The only option can’t be throw more money at a crappy school.

 

This happened in my dinky town recently. Charter school that seemed to be well liked suddenly shut down because of “financial irregularities”. Investigation announced.

 

I’ve posted about this before. Yes, poor people want to get their kids out of crap schools and will move their kids to semi-crap schools. What we need to do are to turn all public schools into high quality schools. That means paying for better teachers, improving facilities, and, probably, most importantly, make sure kids are ready for K-12, by providing them with the opportunity to go to high quality pre-schools.

 

Sadly they do set the rates and thank goodness they have some limits.
Often the “rolled” back rate vs the “proposed” rate is 1/2 a percent different. That adds up to a lot of dough.

Point wasn’t they can raise it willly nelly, the point was locally the rates are set by the groups (school boards) in this case who have a special interest in getting more tax payer money.
It would be like the AMA setting the medicare reimbursement rates and then being able to raise medicare taxes and premiums.

Same goes for areas that have special hospital taxing districts they can set the rates that are supposed to help pay for indigent care, then they do their best to turf the indigents to the private hospitals who get zero from the tax payers. It’s a real slick game.

Nobody said they can raise the rates unfettered thank God there are some limits.
But to say the voters vote on every rate change is flat out incorrect.

 

Forgive me if my memory is off here but we have had free VPK for at least 15 years in Florida, how long should it take for that to have in impact.
I’m also not blaming it all on the schools.
Many kids don’t give a crap, many parents don’t give a crap, plenty of teachers don’t give a crap.

Throwing more money at these types of problems rarely solve them. Sure in the short run you may get a boost in teacher effort or skill but after a time the bar is reset and they get comfortable and want more.

I see it with many employees, the boost of a big raise only last so long then it’s “what are you gonna give me now”

 

Talk to any teacher about that and they’ll ask you when all this money throwing took place because they must have missed it.

 

And yet the century of American supremacy was achieved by people educated in public schools - by the “mob” in your telling.

 

Not with me. These are the posts I responded to.

Then you brought in the comparison, which I have not addressed at all.

As others have noted, the gov cannot just increase education-based milage rates and teachers unions don't force raises (although a teacher raise wouldn't be such a bad thing, esp. in FL). I don't know anything about private schools' ability to raise tuition; it's not something I'm arguing and frankly, Im not arguing any of the things you bring up.

 

They approved them at least twice when I lived in Gainesville, but you're probably right about most other places in FL. Voters approved a milage increase up here in Duluth, MN a couple years ago but I don't think they always pass. My guess is that they sometimes pass in blue districts and almost never pass in red districts.

 

Nobody wants their taxes increased. Support for education-based increases is probably limited to people in the industry + a subset of people with school-aged children. That leaves a bunch of folks with less incentive to help fund public education.

 

I didn't read all the links, but think you're probably missing the mark here. The discussion was about milage increases for education. I don't believe I've ever heard of any such increase being imposed; they have to be approved via ballot.

 

I would like to see a system that is 100% voucher based, but education is completely privatized. Dissolve all school boards everywhere, and every school becomes an autonomous not for profit organization. Each school has the choice to be secular, Christian, Catholic, atheist, Buddhist, Islamic, college prep focused, non-college prep focused, trade school focused, etc. If a student has some kind of medically verifiable disability that affects their education, then they could get a bigger voucher as there are additional needs that need to be addressed there.

Government involvement in almost anything makes it less efficient, and it also discourages competition. If every educational institution had a fair and level playing field in the competition for government funding of education, it would empower parents to make the best choice for their own children. There could be some scenarios where the market would not be there. For example, rural areas might get left behind in such a competition. But that is the nature of capitalism...the water level rises for everyone, but it is not exactly equal across the board.

 

“Dissolve all school boards everywhere”. So… Guy who doesn’t realize private schools have “boards” that run them?

“Every board becomes private non-profit organizationn”. So… like… lots of school boards? Who do they answer to? What happens when the voucher market creates 5000 seats for students, but there are 10,000 students? Do you force these “autonomous” entities to expand their capacity? On what authority? You made them private and no longer answerable to you…so… what happens?

 

Obviously, I meant county school boards in the context of the statement. I know private schools have school boards, and I was not suggesting private schools dissolve their governance structures. We've figured out this issue with health insurance. The state and the county would probably have to cooperate with schools to be involved in long term planning. Logistically, there are difficulties in planning large scale changes, but that doesn't mean the idea is untenable. Each public school would be formed into a self-governing non-profit, and those schools would have the capacity to accommodate students.

Also, if schools are not providing enough seats for all students in a given area that is the market sending a signal. The government might need to raise the voucher rate in that area, so schools are incentivized to accommodate all of the students. Short term solutions could be proposed, and the county or the state government might need to take some initiative to cooperate with businesses to figure out a solution.

 

So you think taxpayers should re-allocate money, like $10,000’s of thousands to families directly, and have absolutely no say and no oversight in directing where that money goes (which is what county school boards do)? That is… not brilliant. You are just inviting fraud.

You may mistake this for “free market principles” because of the perception of choice, but it really isn’t so long as you are handing out “vouchers”. All this does is create a distorted marketplace.

 

Well look at the budgets for school boards and see how they have grown.
Then ask where the money goes.

 

You’ve never heard of teachers unions striking for a raise?
I call that forcing a raise.

School boards set millage rates in Florida. That’s a fact.

Special increases can be put to the voters as well. But year in and year out the local school boards set the milage just as city and county commissions do.

 

I posted the link showing millage rates in Florida are set by the school boards. It’s that simple.
Now they may be wary of a sudden increase in the milage rate.
They may also ask for a special increase for a limited period of time in addition to the normal rates that they set that is left to the voters but the year rates are set by the school boards.
When property values shoot up and the tax base grows by a large amount do they ever cut the rate. Don’t hold your breath.