[vlovich123]

Yeah that’s my understanding of the situation. Additionally, politically governmental funding of schools stagnates while richer areas use funding drives to make up for it (in addition to the difference in property taxes already making a huge difference). Additionally, when the wealthy live in an area without the aggregate property taxes covering the school costs (eg because local governments slash funding anyway) they send their kids to private schools.

To improve outcomes you need a unified school district and limit the existence of private schools. Charter schools are positioned as “choice” but quality schools will remain out of reach of people using the vouchers to try to get to a better school - transportation is the first hurdle and as soon as meaningful number of “poors” move in, the wealthy will abandon the public schools and move to private institutions with entrance requirements that try to filter out the less wealthy masses.

[charrondev]

Is there a part of the world you could point to that banned private schools altogether and saw better aggregate outcomes?

Because if we’re just guessing, I would guess elimination of private schools would result in rich people with children grouping up in very wealthy areas more than they do today. A public school in a very affluent and wealthy area would likely not have many “pools” attending (because the cost of living in the area is so high).

One other type of charter school to consider would be one’s specialized is students with various disadvantages such as charter schools specialized in blind, deaf, autistic or emotionally disturbed students.

This 2018 analysis by the NCSECS (national center for special education) found that there were 137 such specialized schools and many were primarily focused on students with 1 specific disability. These schools had high enrolling rates for such students and found they had lower rates of suspension and expulsion. The recommendation was additional funding for such schools.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED604731.pdf

[vlovich123]

If the public schools are good, the rich send to private schools for the exclusionary aspect more than for education outcomes so it doesn't really matter. I mean it matters in the sense that less talented people take up the spots for talented people, but not in terms of generating talent out of the general populace.

> Because if we’re just guessing, I would guess elimination of private schools would result in rich people with children grouping up in very wealthy areas more than they do today. A public school in a very affluent and wealthy area would likely not have many “pools” attending (because the cost of living in the area is so high).

But that's the point. If the funding is uniform based on number of pupils, in fact affluent areas will have worse education because they'll have fewer students. The thing that's hard to fight is "funding drives" to buy things for the school. That's the other thing affluent areas do on top of having a higher baseline of funding due to property taxes.

> This 2018 analysis by the NCSECS (national center for special education) found that there were 137 such specialized schools and many were primarily focused on students with 1 specific disability. These schools had high enrolling rates for such students and found they had lower rates of suspension and expulsion. The recommendation was additional funding for such schools.

That is correct. Ontario has additional funding for special education programs for those with disabilities on top of the normal funding per pupil

[George83728]

> To improve outcomes you need a unified school district and limit the existence of private schools.

The true rich will send their kids away to another state, or even another country, if that's what it takes to get their kids into a good school. To stop this and force all the rich kids into public schools you'd have to ban all private schools, not just in the state, not just in every state, but in every single country around the world.

The good news is the above doesn't matter, you don't need rich students to have a good school, you can let all super rich families send their brats to expat boarding schools in the UK and Japan without losing anything that matters to the rest. The entrance and attendance requirements that actually matter don't concern money, but rather student behavior and performance. It is possible to create great schools in poor communities with very little local funding IFF those schools are allowed to have strict requirements for behavior and performance and are empowered to kick out students that fall short of those requirements.

[vlovich123]

"Rich" isn't a binary thing though. The wealth population drops off rather quickly. People with a net worth of ~$1-10M are unlikely to be sending their kids away I think. It also doesn't matter so much because their taxes would still be paying for the education of everyone who's not doing this and the sending away is an extra tax they choose to pay.

[dolni]

I was surprised to hear that failing, urban schools get substantially more money than their suburban counterparts. But it appears to be true where I live.

Check out https://oese.ed.gov/ppe/.

I live near a school district that is well-known for high quality education. The urban district nearby has 20% higher per-pupil spending and the quality of education is MUCH lower.

[smegger001]

while yes the wealthy just move their kids to privet schools they have to pay for that out of pocket while still contributing taxes to the public school system which also now doesn't have to pay toward the privetly schooled child.

[vlovich123]

Yup. 100% agreed. Private schools are problematic for other reasons but not because they take away funding from public schools.