[hackinthebochs]

You're reading that way too literally. The point is that the property owners, those with wealth, are too greedy to allow their wealth to be taxed for social services such as better schools and an improved prison system. It is this greed that comes back to bite them when those kids rob and kill them.

[CWuestefeld]

those with wealth, are too greedy to allow their wealth to be taxed for social services such as better schools

My property tax bills beg to disagree with you. For the 16 years I've owned my house, I've watched the portion of my taxes that go to our schools go up far faster than the rate of inflation.

If there's a problem with education, it is absolutely NOT that there is insufficient money being invested into it. This should be so transparently obvious to all by now, that I assume anyone claiming otherwise has motives he's trying to hide.

[nitrogen]

I believe I have discussed education issues on here with you in the past. Suffice it to say, I believe you are sorely mistaken.

1. Proportions of taxes can shrink or grow at any rate independent of inflation. This doesn't say that the absolute value given to education per student (and that's the measure that matters) has or has not exceeded inflation.

2. Statistics saying that e.g. yy% of students do not benefit from reduced class sizes or increased educational spending, where yy is some large double-digit number, ignore the critical exceptions to those statistics. Public education must address the worst-case outcomes, not just the average case, or those (100-yy)% of dropouts will sink into ghettos and become a significant drain on society, when most of them have the potential to be net contributors.

3. As I'm sure I've said before, talk to a few overworked, stressed-out teachers after an arduous day of dealing with students threatening them with violence, administrators not supporting them with classroom materials (try teaching math without any textbooks), etc. It's like babysitting 250 erratic 4-year-olds a day without the right toys to pacify them, except those 4-year-olds can kill you.

[mdda]

While I'm sympathetic to the plight of teachers (my mother was a physics teacher, FWIW), I still can't shake the fact that education spending per student is higher in the US than in most of the rest of the world : http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-student-oecd

Something doesn't add up.

[5hoom]

I think that looking at overall spending per-student as a metric for the quality of education is about the same as using lines-of-code as a metric for the quality of a developer.

Sure it's important, but it gives only a very small piece of the overall picture.

[rphlx]

Perhaps the real metric should be spending per administrator.

[hackinthebochs]

Of course, the quote is not referring to any particular person.

The rest of your points are tangential to the quote, but I'll address them anyways.

Claiming lack of funds is not an issue is misguided. The problem with property-taxes-fund-education is that in poor areas, the funds derived from property taxes are much much lower than in a more well off area. These are the areas that require even greater investment to counter the negative culture living in low income areas create. Class sizes, after school activities, sports, tutoring, etc are all factors that effect the outcome of a student; all of which are directly related to available funds.

I could just as easily say those that claim funding isn't the problem with education also have motives they're trying to hide.

[jbooth]

Actually, FWIW, urban low-income districts typically get more money per pupil than suburban ones. Why and where it goes is a much longer discussion than I have time to get into, but it's basically personnel and specialists.

[hackinthebochs]

I'm interested in reading more about it, if you know of links or sources off hand.

[jbooth]

I don't actually, just from memory from my time in MA a few years ago, suburban districts would be in the 7-10k per pupil range while urban would be more like 10-14k.

[dreamdu5t]

That may be true, and I personally agree that property taxes shouldn't fund education in that manner.

However, that doesn't mean that the removal of private property will result in more education or more money for education. Jello's quote implies that the root cause of unemployment and undereducation is partly the system of private property. He is a self-professed anarchist, so I don't know why people are trying to convince me that I'm reading into his quote. He's incorrect about this, but people love "eat the rich" ideals too much to admit it.

[hackinthebochs]

I don't know anything about the author, so you're probably right about how he means the quote to be taken.

[dreamdu5t]

:) He's the lead singer of a famous punk band and also a niche celebrity for his public speaking, usually on topics ranging from social injustice, racism, religion, and anarchy.

[Domenic_S]

> The problem with property-taxes-fund-education is that in poor areas, the funds derived from property taxes are much much lower than in a more well off area.

I don't know if you're old enough to remember busing [1]. I don't think you are, because if you were you'd know that your point isn't right.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing_in_the_Uni...

[jbooth]

Your property tax bills are paying for healthcare cost increases.

I'd be willing to bet that there have been layoffs and/or a hiring freeze in your district as well, right? That money isn't going to education, it's going into healthcare costs.

[absconditus]

We spend far more on schools and prisons than we ever have.