Quick question: why aren't we pooling all the property taxes and splitting the loot up evenly?

(On a side note, while I applaud the Wake County Public School System for not giving in to this "neighborhood" school bullshit, I don't think Wake County Public school records are that great. RTP attracts smart people with advanced degrees who value education. Those smart people have kids who are naturally going to do better in school. I was diturbed by my seven years at one WCPS complex: too many kids went from "academically gifted" in middle school to barely passing in high school. Shit ain't right.)

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 1:20 PM. Reason : sss]

3/21/2006 12:58:12 PM

"too many kids went from "academically gifted" in middle school to barely passing in high school. Shit ain't right"

I saw alot of that in Surry county public schools, but alot of that was from having it easy in middle school translating into laziness during high school. Some of the smartest people at my high school had some of the worst grades.

3/21/2006 1:10:35 PM

Supplanter, I appreciate your response to this thread. But since you didn't respond to my original question, I'm gonna strike out the "side note" because I don't want this to turn into a thread of comments that ignore my original question. It's nothing against you or your response.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 1:21 PM. Reason : sss]

3/21/2006 1:20:20 PM

I moved down here in 8th grade and I thought NC was far to generous with the "Academically Gifted" tag... honor roll != gifted.

I also agree that most of the drop-off occurs because of laziness and lack of prior challenge. School was easy... really easy. You can be top 10% with your eyes closed. NEVER did I have to actually apply myself all the way up through high school (second year of college was when I first felt the pinch). I'm not trying to thump my chest or anything either... pretty much everyone in the high honors didn't have much strain that I could see. The only serious effort I saw was people who had to get 99's and 100 (GPA freaks) but simply being in class and doing most of your homework was pretty much enough to get an A. Oh and 5 out of 7 classes my senior year were AP so its not like I wasn't supposed to be challenged.

Why aren't they split up evenly? I dunno.. my guess is it has to do with the way each public school system and local government wants to do things their way... the pooling of resources usually leads to more oversight and less autonomy inmy experience with state government.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 1:32 PM. Reason : .]

3/21/2006 1:30:27 PM

FUCK! WHY DID I INCLUDE THAT FUCKING SIDE NOTE? Now I feel obligated to respond.

Quote :

"I moved down here in 8th grade and I thought NC was far to generous with the "Academically Gifted" tag... honor roll != gifted."

msb2ncsu, there is a test to determine academic giftedness. They don't just give it to kids because they make the honor roll.

And what school system did you move into here in NC?

Like I said, if it's the Wake County school system, there should have been a large number of "academically gifted" students in your classes.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 1:43 PM. Reason : sss]

3/21/2006 1:39:05 PM

Sorry that this reply isn't what you want Bridget, but I agree with msb2ncsu. I moved down here from the North when in 9th grade and to me it was a joke how much easier it was.

I dunno the answer to your main question

3/21/2006 1:47:10 PM

msb2ncsu and TKE-Teg, I need to know what county you moved in to before I can consider what you're saying.

3/21/2006 1:49:53 PM

I attended Harnett County schools (Middle school and senior year).

I had spent 3 years in El Paso (military brat). EL FREAKIN PASO. Tons of Mexicans where English classes would definitely be a challenge for the non-speaking. Where you expect most people to be idiots and end up serving you that Double What-a-burger with cheese a few years down the road.

Even their curriculum was tougher than Harnett's. I averaged a 4.5 GPA over the last year. Bumped my GPA from 3.4 to 3.8. If I recall, I didn't even make the top 10% (I was top 3% in EP). The standards are too freakin easy here.




And on a side note, to answer the original question...

I don't know why they don't do it. It sounds like the logical thing to do. It would keep schools from being segregated on the basis of quality of learning. (School A can afford new textbooks, School B can't). Private schools would probably lose some of its appeal if some of the weaker schools could get a little extra money and pull their weight.

3/21/2006 2:52:37 PM

Quote :

"Quick question: why aren't we pooling all the property taxes and splitting the loot up evenly?"

cuz if you owned a million dollar home and had to pay a bunch of taxes, would you want that money, which should go to educating your children, to be sent off to some low income area so those hispanics and blacks can be just as smart as your well-bred white kid (yes, i'm being sarcastic)

it's a simple case of the rich and powerful maintaining that... they're the ones in charge (local gov't & school boards), so it's obviously not going to change..

3/21/2006 4:03:21 PM

Quote :

"Quick question: why aren't we pooling all the property taxes and splitting the loot up evenly?"

I was under the impression that most counties already do that. However, the differences come in that the schools serving more affluent neighborhoods get more generous financial support and more parental support that schools from more "distressed" neighborhoods. I know of cases in the Northern Virginia area where public schools for the most affluent neighborhoods have parents literally building auditoriums and providing high level professional services for their students.

3/21/2006 4:47:15 PM

^Maybe the parents should be forced to work equally on all schools in the county. An hour working in their neighborhood = an hour working in the ghetto

Did you guys ever stop and think that part of the equation might be that the really good teachers don't exactly want to be the white chick in Dangerous Minds?

3/21/2006 8:49:49 PM

^thats not even the question.

We're talking about property taxes and school funding here, not teacher quality.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 9:17 PM. Reason : 2]

3/21/2006 9:17:13 PM

I moved into Cumberland County from a district in TN, here it was SO damn easy. I went from a C student to an A student overnight. Thanks hooked on North Carolina!

That was not entirely due to it being easier here, of course. Some of it was because I went from being just another student to usually being the smartest guy in the room. That boost in self confidence can often be all a kid needs to excel.

Quote :

"why aren't we pooling all the property taxes and splitting the loot up evenly?"

Simple, such a system would utterly devastate what little remains of localized democracy. When I want to do something about my kids education, all I need to do is convice a few hundred people and we can sway the county board. If it was a state-wide thing, then to do the same thing would require swaying many thousands of people. And if my idea sucked then I have doomed the whole state the failure, instead of just my small part of it. If my idea is a success, then the rest of the state can copy it later.

But if my money is going to fund a school system on the other-side of the state, then I should have a say in how it is spent. Which means we should all have a say, which means no district can act differently from any others.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 9:38 PM. Reason : .,.]

3/21/2006 9:32:56 PM

Quote :

"Quick question: why aren't we pooling all the property taxes and splitting the loot up evenly?"

Just a guess, but you don't own a lot of property do you?

3/21/2006 9:47:38 PM

^No, but I also don't have children about to enter schools. What's your point?

Quote :

"LoneSnark: Simple, such a system would utterly devastate what little remains of localized democracy. When I want to do something about my kids education, all I need to do is convice a few hundred people and we can sway the county board. If it was a state-wide thing, then to do the same thing would require swaying many thousands of people. And if my idea sucked then I have doomed the whole state the failure, instead of just my small part of it. If my idea is a success, then the rest of the state can copy it later. But if my money is going to fund a school system on the other-side of the state, then I should have a say in how it is spent. Which means we should all have a say, which means no district can act differently from any others."

So we need to find a better way to fund schools then? Why have we stuck with the property tax model?

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 10:02 PM. Reason : ???]

3/21/2006 10:02:06 PM

I thought you meant evenly to individuals, but after you bringing up your lack of kids I guess you meant evenly to all the schools.

Do you think that every school would use the money as good as another?
Do you think that there are no schools that need more money than another?

3/21/2006 10:26:15 PM

Quote :

"msb2ncsu, there is a test to determine academic giftedness. They don't just give it to kids because they make the honor roll. And what school system did you move into here in NC?"

Wake County... Garner, specifically. Spent two years in PA and the several before that in Illinois. Both of those school systems really new how to handle gifted programs.

I know they use a test, but my point was simply that it basically boiled down to honor roll kids being AG... in other words it wasn't anything special. The group in PA I was in had 8 students from the entire grade and 2 of them got C's and D's in school. It was incredibly enriching and rewarding... I actually felt challenged and that it had an impact.

3/21/2006 10:38:32 PM

I have a few thoughts on this.

1) I believe that Principals should be able to permanantly suspend any student who causes disruption. Steve Takas of Athens Drive High did something a couple years ago that was unheard of. He got a list of all students with criminal records and the very next time they broke a rule in school or was arrested they were expelled. He was called before the education commission and said that "I don't mind if these kids go to school, but they won't go to mine".

The amount of security issues, and troublemakers went down dramatically. Hell the average GPA went up.

I think we are far too tolerant of troublemakers. Three strike rule to me (an no I don't mean lunch detention). I'm talking people who get in 3 or more fights, or have serious arrests on their records.

2) I would like parents to be able to CHOOSE what school their kids go to within a certain area. I like the idea that they give you a default school and you have to put your request in by a certain time.

3) I think that if parents decide to do private school they get to deduct the amount that they pay in taxes for public schools off their taxable income. Private schools are SO much better, lower student to teacher ratio, etc.

3/21/2006 10:55:44 PM

Quote :

"2) I would like parents to be able to CHOOSE what school their kids go to within a certain area. I like the idea that they give you a default school and you have to put your request in by a certain time."

we pretty much do this in durham with the magnet system, it doesnt really work

also i would like to say that even though i went to one of the better high schools in the state and took honors and ap courses it was still a joke. standardized tests have completely ruined the public education system. my parents said later they wished they had just gone ahead and put us into private schools, i know thats what i am going to do with my children.

3/21/2006 11:02:12 PM

I'm planning to get my kids a library card and send them to public school.

3/21/2006 11:07:58 PM

Quote :

"we pretty much do this in durham with the magnet system, it doesnt really work"

Why not? Could you sumarize in one sentence or so?

While I support the elimination of "standardized testing", why did you say it ruined the school system? I ask because I don't know why most schools are bad, then only solution I can think of that might work is either in-system competition or privatization.

In durham, could anyone change schools for any reason? Were schools funded based on how many students attended? Thants!

3/22/2006 12:03:04 AM

schools have limited capacity, so your "go where you want" idea could never work

in durham you submit an application to the magnet center you want and space permitting they typically get approved. if it was an unregulated system hillside would be abandoned and jordan would be grossly overcrowded. if everyone could just go where they want it would make every school equal, but only because they would all be brought to the same substandard level due to overcrowding, etc...

3/22/2006 12:43:09 AM

Quote :

"msb2ncsu, there is a test to determine academic giftedness."

It's an IQ test, too.

I think what hung them up was the fallacy of believing a high IQ automatically leads to success in school. That's what happens when one focuses too strongly on traits and not enough on environment, I guess.

I was actually in the AG program in elementary school (Henry Adams in Cary if you're curious) when they still had it here, and remember how it evolved while I was there. All I remember is that the material was slightly, and I mean slightly, more advanced than what my friends were doing in the other classes. The only upside to it really was the bullshit class that we took about nothing in particular. It wasn't a math class, science class, english class or anything like that. And it got us out of the last 2 hours of regular classes to boot. It was like "let's take the AG kids, put them in a room, and talk about random stuff" class, very free association learning if anything. It was a fun way to waste the afternoon.

An odd postscript to the story is that our AG teacher, Nancy Britt, was murdered by her husband two years ago. It was in the local news.

3/22/2006 12:57:51 AM

AG at my elementary school was play on the computer time. It was seriously just recess but with computers.

3/22/2006 1:00:59 AM

^^^ You skipped the most important part. Did funding follow the students? It doesn't help anything to just let students move, it drains the resources of good schools without replacing them (in effect punishing good schools and rewarding bad schools, which now have more money for fewer students).

And maybe the bad schools in your city should close. Maybe after a year or two someone will buy the building and re-open the place as a charter school in hopes of pocketting some education money (operating for profit).

[Edited on March 22, 2006 at 1:03 AM. Reason : ^]

3/22/2006 1:03:05 AM

yes, funding is based on the number of students
but that doesnt solve overcrowding

3/22/2006 1:04:10 AM

Yo, I left elementary school before we really had computers. I think I spent about an hour on computers in elementary school total.

3/22/2006 1:14:19 AM

i really enjoyed the ag program i was in. the only other people i've talked to who have were in the same program.

a friend of mine did a project a while back on this very topic and polled many of her friends from nc to see what they got out of ag, and she said i was the only one who said that the effect of the program was anything substantial and positive.

3/22/2006 1:33:18 AM

I'd probably answer "positive" immediately, but it'd take me a while to describe it as "substantial." I know that I probably went into acting because of it, but that's the only substantial effect I can think of. Otherwise it just sort of alienated us for the purpose of working on puzzles for a couple hours. Hard to really gauge if I'm substantially different because of it, though; it was pretty early in life after all.

3/22/2006 1:45:05 AM

i thought ag was very positive, and some years were substantial but others not really

3/22/2006 1:54:02 AM

Quote :

"yes, funding is based on the number of students but that doesnt solve overcrowding"

Overcrowding can only be a problem because there is a shortage of education space. As in any system, there are usually two reasons for there to be a shortage of a commodity: #1, the price paid is set artificially low (we know this is not the case because we spend too much as it is) #2, the propensity for profit has been regulated out of the industry (we know this IS the case, because the schools are government monopolies).

So, just to clarify, in Durham, if I choose to attend a private school will the county send my share of the money to the new school?

I suggest this because you have stated that the current system of competition isn't working, I'm trying to fix it. Of course, did you consider that given the choice between attending an overcrowded good school and an empty bad school, I might still be better off attending the good school?

I think this extra modification would fix it, because when was the last time you heard of a private school being "overcrowded" to the point of misery?

3/22/2006 9:34:48 AM