[baldfat]

Government does many things well.

Protecting citizens freedoms, roads, airports and ports, education for all, social safety net (medicaid and social security), supplying fuel, CDC, protecting the environment, 911, policing, science and research funding.

[rayiner]

Not our government. We spend more on education per student than all OECD nation’s but Switzerland, and have middle of the pack results. Go to Japan or Germany and say we’re doing a good job with our roads. Our municipal governments are among the worst polluters—antiquated sewer systems dump immense amounts of untreated sewage into our waterways each year.

[baldfat]

Take out the Inner City Schools (Which gets 50% of the funding since it is property based funding) and US is one of the tops in the world. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/propert...

Massachusetts as a state would be in the top in the world right their with Finland, and that includes Boston http://blogs.wgbh.org/on-campus/2016/12/6/if-massachusetts-w...

Also our Universities are also the top educational system in the world. 7 of the top 10 Universities of the world are US institutions. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin...

PS Rant, Why is that Conservatives and Libertarians like to make things look worst in America and they consider themselves the only patriotic ones?

[rayiner]

Inner city schools do not get less of the funding. Property taxes only account for half of K-12 funding. Federal and state grants to inner city and rural schools account for the other half. Here in Maryland, for example, Baltimore spends about the same as Montgomery County, a wealthy DC suburb.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/in-2....

> When federal dollars are included, just five states are spending less in their poorest districts than in their wealthiest. Nationwide, the average disparity drops from 15 percent to less than 2 percent.

[baldfat]

> Inner city schools do not get less of the funding.

These are all based on the public records, please consider why you stated that the funding is equal? Federal funding for education has also been less and less.

http://www.openpagov.org/education_revenue_and_expenses.asp

(My city) Allentown SD per student = $13,949

(Next town over) Sailisbury SD per student = $21,519

(Highest in the state) Lower Merion SD per student = $28,495

Screen Shot of Data:

https://imgur.com/a/DMjl7

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pa-high-court-revives-scho...

"Here is ti challenge this statistics: Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that high-poverty school districts spent 15.6 percent less than those in the group with the least poverty.

In Pennsylvania, that difference was 33 percent"

Federal Funding title 1 for Inner City Schools funding per student is quite low, averaging about $500 to $600 a year. 50% of public schools qualify for federal money and the 14 billion works out to much less than most people believe. It amounts to a 5% increase in funding for some schools.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-federal-spending-on-d...

Here is the Heritage Foundations paper on how Inner City racial groups get more money and so there is no unequal funding problem based on race. This is just crazy statistics gymnastics. http://www.heritage.org/education/report/the-myth-racial-dis...

My point is not race it is socioeconomic disparity at the school district level and Heritage wants to say school in districts favor the poorer schools. Poorer schools in School District isn't the problem it is school districts getting under funded.

Funding isn't the answer but why should my daughter or son have 9 gym classes a year (School doesn't have a gym, nor a library room, and certainly no art class room) She also gets 9 art classes and 9 Music classes a year.

They also don't get recess due to funding problems for monitors. My daughter in kindergarten got no recces from August till January. Though she had 2 hours of reading and 2 hours of math per day. http://www.macon.com/news/local/article28555831.html

[rayiner]

As you can see in the WaPo article I linked, Pennsylvania is a huge outlier. Nationwide, including state and federal funding, poor districts get only 1.7% less than rich districts. In many states, like Maryland where I live, poor districts receive slightly more funding.

[baldfat]

On average in USA poor inner city school receive 15% less. That's the actual numbers. Some states have a more fair funding system and than there is PA. BUT if you look at the bottom states in Education, Miss, WV, and VA they allocate less money to education. In PA a teacher makes about $42,000 first year and in WV you get $28,500.

[tomohawk]

Roads? Most roads in US are built with a coefficient of friction that is too low. The result? Many unnecessary deaths and accidents. The thing is, the governments don't build the roads - they fund the building of them. Then, they don't enforce the applicable standards to make sure they're built well. German government does much better at this. This comes down to competence.

Police? Baltimore is losing people left and right for decades now because they can't meet basic security needs. Again, this is basic competence.

Education? Are you kidding? Why is it that "good schools" is one of the top reasons to move to an area? It's because parents have little or no impact on schools and there's no accountability. If your local school is incompetent, then you can either move, homeschool, or somehow get your kids into private school. It's a disgrace.

[baldfat]

> Roads

Our Interstate System is what fueled out economy and is the main reason why our economy is the largest in the world. That was 100% Federally funded

> Police

Our crime rates are WAY Down over the past 40 years and probably is the lowest it has ever been. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/21/5-facts-abou...

Also my son gets pulled over for DWB (Driving While Black) about once a month. There are absolutely racist and abusive police but it is finally getting exposed.

> Education? Are you kidding?

Yes take out the cities andwe are top 10

[orf]

I'm sure the solution to a bad school is not helicopter parents blaming the teachers for their child's issues. The rest of your examples are pretty on point though