13 minutes ago, X said:

Using religion to build commonality only works if everyone is the same religion, unless the point is coersion of those who have minority or no religions.  Which is of course what most of us non Christians believe to be indeed the point.  You guys can't just live in peace with those who don't believe as you do.  Intolerance is at the very base of your religion.

 

Jesus Christ.  

 

There's a word for that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenism

 

There is all sorts of cultural study and cultural exchange in the Catholic Schools.  The environment was positively cosmopolitan as compared to what existed in area public schools.  

 

You guys really keep telling on yourselves.  

 

4 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

Jesus Christ.  

 

There's a word for that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenism

 

There is all sorts of cultural study and cultural exchange in the Catholic Schools.  The environment was positively cosmopolitan as compared to what existed in area public schools.  

 

You guys really keep telling on yourselves.  

 

You either didn't read my post, or you didn't read the article you posted.

10 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

I can attest that most people don't understand Roman Numerals, which is unfortunate when you're hiring in an industry that makes widespread use of them:

 

M = thousand

CM = hundred weight

MSI = thousand square inches

 

 

 

I have actually conducted a poll among my group of friends and Roman numerals seem to drop off among those born somewhere between 1984 and 1987. Apparently the schools stopped teaching them around that time thereby reducing their importance to only Super Bowls and Wrestlemanias.

6 minutes ago, Ineffable_Matt said:

Now you've gone and made me feel really old lol, Olmsted Falls class of 2000. FWIW, my BIL teaches AP and regular history at Solon High School. He's Polish Catholic, and I've not once heard him lament the demonization of Christ in the classroom. Teaching to the test, however, is another, and much more important, story.

 

Class of 2000 represent! 👊

 

And I also have a public high school teacher in my family.  But I'll have to keep that family member's sentiments on this bill, and the Scholarship Granting Organizations tax credit that's already been passed, confidential just in case.

 

17 minutes ago, X said:

You guys can't just live in peace with those who don't believe as you do.

 

Well, naturally.  We can't even live in peace with those who do believe as we do.

 

Somehow, though, for all that, we can, however, live in peace in our schools without hundreds of police encounters per year.  That's of more immediate concern.

2 hours ago, X said:

Using religion to build commonality only works if everyone is the same religion, unless the point is coersion of those who have minority or no religions.  Which is of course what most of us non Christians believe to be indeed the point.  You guys can't just live in peace with those who don't believe as you do.  Intolerance is at the very base of your religion.

 

Exactly. One cannot exclaim to be be for the tolerance of their own belief systems while trampling all over those of others. 

3 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

Without looking up the source, your thoughts on this?

 

 

 

Without knowing the full context of the argument, I'm not really sure how I can honestly respond. The snippet as provided seems at times to be talking about two different positions at the same time. 

2 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

 

I have actually conducted a poll among my group of friends and Roman numerals seem to drop off among those born somewhere between 1984 and 1987. Apparently the schools stopped teaching them around that time thereby reducing their importance to only Super Bowls and Wrestlemanias.

 

We just had the letter W get damaged on a sign.  People want me order a new one.  I told them not to worry about it because we have a spare Epsilon in the warehouse.  Nobody got it.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

Somehow, though, for all that, we can, however, live in peace in our schools without hundreds of police encounters per year.  That's of more immediate concern.

 

In regards to police encounters, there's a lot of evidence that schools are calling the cops over situations that used to be handled internally, and police tend to escalate every situation. Police officers in school have generally a very unfavorable effect on outcomes and general student attitudes toward police. 

2 minutes ago, jonoh81 said:

 

In regards to police encounters, there's a lot of evidence that schools are calling the cops over situations that used to be handled internally, and police tend to escalate every situation. Police officers in school have generally a very unfavorable effect on outcomes and general student attitudes toward police. 

 

On this point, I'm not surprised and I'd certainly be inclined to agree with the premise.

 

Where I imagine we'd differ is what to do about it; certainly Foraker and I would disagree on what to do about it.

 

If the school environment has gotten to the point where too much police presence (which could mean any police presence, if it's that detrimental to the learning environment) is required to preserve safety, then that's evidence for my point that we're letting too many disruptive and potentially dangerous individuals remain as students in the school.  Foraker says that with the right social and behavioral health resources, we can get those kids rowing in the right direction again.  I'm unconvinced, and think that the combination of resources spent on (a) social and behavioral health interventions, and (b) police presence because of the Sisyphean endless-failure-loop of the behavioral health intervention strategy, could be much better spent.

 

An interesting Christian conundrum, though.  Foraker takes the Christian line that no one is beyond salvation.  I take the Christian line of the Parable of the Sower--that there will be many seeds that you just can't expect to sprout.

52 minutes ago, jonoh81 said:

 

Without knowing the full context of the argument, I'm not really sure how I can honestly respond. The snippet as provided seems at times to be talking about two different positions at the same time. 

 

Interesting.  I tried to snip it down to a single topic, though maybe I left in enough that there were multiple strands there.  The full document is considerably longer and somewhat more wide-ranging.

 

That was from Rerum Novarum, the first major modern social encyclical of the Catholic Church, in 1891, near the height of the Gilded Age.  It threw the cultural weight of the Church clearly and firmly behind the nascent labor movement--hence the praise of unions and the harsh words for concentrated capital in that passage I quoted.  I was responding to this:

 

4 hours ago, jonoh81 said:

Yes, it's called democratic socialism and investment in communities. So an automatic non-starter for the Right. 

 

Whether or not it's a nonstarter for "the Right," it is emphatically not a nonstarter for the Church, which is nonpartisan and had existed for more than a millennium and a half before the terms "left" and "right" were first used as political shorthands, in the French Revolution, let alone how they're used today, which has evolved greatly over time and also differs from country to country.  We were one of the OG social-democratic factions, back when social democracy was a middle position between Das Kapital (1867) (~state owns all property) and laissez-faire capitalism (~robber barons own all property).  I could cite more examples over the subsequent century-plus.

22 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

Foraker says that with the right social and behavioral health resources, we can get those kids rowing in the right direction again.  I'm unconvinced, and think that the combination of resources spent on (a) social and behavioral health interventions, and (b) police presence because of the Sisyphean endless-failure-loop of the behavioral health intervention strategy, could be much better spent.

 

An interesting Christian conundrum, though.  Foraker takes the Christian line that no one is beyond salvation.  I take the Christian line of the Parable of the Sower--that there will be many seeds that you just can't expect to sprout.

Let me clarify -- I think we have a moral obligation to try to help every kid, and that the kids that come from lousy families need more help.  AND I said that disruptive kids need to be removed from the classroom ASAP.  I would agree that if you need more than minimal police presence in any school you have a real problem.

 

I did not say that I expected every kid to be turned into a model or even non-disruptive student, at least during the typical school years.  But I also think we need to put our heads together and figure out what best to do with the troubled kids who cannot be reformed into better students.  Maybe help them get a job once they're 16 and let them know that they can come back for more education when and if they're ready.  Something other than just kicking them out of school and waiting for them to injure (physically or financially) one of our fellow citizens and land in prison.

 

And I think you're missing the meaning of the Parable of the Sower if you think that Jesus was saying that some people are beyond saving.  Jesus says each individual must determine what kind of soil our hearts will be. We decide whether we will have a hard heart, a shallow heart, a crowded heart, or a receptive heart. "Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls" (James 1:21).  In fact, Jesus is encouraging his followers to be receptive to God's Word -- to let the seeds sprout.  Quite different from "Meh, some seeds just won't ever sprout.  C'est la vie."

Back to school funding.  The state constitution requires the adequate funding of a public school system.  If we were starting from scratch, how should we pay for the public schools?

 

We've tried relying on local property taxes, and that hasn't worked.  State funds (mostly generated via income tax) have been needed to fill the gaps, particularly in poorer communities which have greater needs and lower property values, and we have wide variations in property tax rates across the state.  A state property tax rate would be simpler.

 

We tried "public" charter schools run by private operators.  I don't think the charter school system has worked.  The "competition" has not improved traditional public schools. And the oversight of low-performing schools has been terrible.  We should shut that program down or be a lot stricter about closing failing charter schools that can't outperform the local public school.  Remember ECOT?

https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/07/07/ecot-owes-ohio-117-million-what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it/

 

Eliminating charter schools altogether would eliminate the need for oversight that the state has failed to do (let current charter schools operate as private schools if they like, and they can compete for voucher students with other private schools).

 

Beyond that, I'm also in favor of eliminating the use of property taxes to fund education.  Fund schools from the general fund (income taxes, or income taxes plus a state property tax).  Or restrict local property taxes for use for capital expenditures rather than operations, with the state funding operations.  Maybe it's time for a state property tax to fund other state priorities, perhaps transportation in the state, something more closely tied to the land use.  Or maybe we should allow local property taxes to go to the communities for roads and sidewalks and such, rather than schools -- infrastructure needs that seem much more tied to the property than schools.  I would retain local control over school spending, just change the source of funds to be 100% from the state.

 

Vouchers seem to be here to stay.  I'm in favor of fully funding the next step of the phase-in of the Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding Plan (I'd rather see it fully funded in a shorter time frame).  I'd like to see each public school student receive state funding that is no less than the funding that each voucher recipient receives, but I'm not optimistic.

 

What do you think?

3 hours ago, Gramarye said:

Somehow, though, for all that, we can, however, live in peace in our schools without hundreds of police encounters per year.  That's of more immediate concern.

 

Well, that's the advantage of being able to kick out the trouble kids into the public school system.  And the disadvantage to the public school system that has to pick up the pieces when private schools won't.

 

FWIW, I also think that disruptive students should be removed from the mainline classroom, but I believe that the public still owes them an education- that means providing alternatives to those mainline classrooms, whether that is online learning, special education for children with behavioral issues (i.e. a supportive, not punitive environment), or in the worst cases something akin to military school (is there a modern equivalent?)

 

It's worth noting that even certain public schools won't do much to help children with learning problems of whatever sort.  My nephew has learning (not behavioral) issues.  A certain local public school system, "very highly rated", basically told my sister there was little they could or would do for him.  Really hurts given that this is the school system we graduated from.  On second thought, it's totally unsurprising.  Anyhoo, she ended up looking around and moved to a different suburb, much less "highly rated", but with a very good special education program that was eager to help him.

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

 

On this point, I'm not surprised and I'd certainly be inclined to agree with the premise.

 

Where I imagine we'd differ is what to do about it; certainly Foraker and I would disagree on what to do about it.

 

If the school environment has gotten to the point where too much police presence (which could mean any police presence, if it's that detrimental to the learning environment) is required to preserve safety, then that's evidence for my point that we're letting too many disruptive and potentially dangerous individuals remain as students in the school.  Foraker says that with the right social and behavioral health resources, we can get those kids rowing in the right direction again.  I'm unconvinced, and think that the combination of resources spent on (a) social and behavioral health interventions, and (b) police presence because of the Sisyphean endless-failure-loop of the behavioral health intervention strategy, could be much better spent.

 

An interesting Christian conundrum, though.  Foraker takes the Christian line that no one is beyond salvation.  I take the Christian line of the Parable of the Sower--that there will be many seeds that you just can't expect to sprout.

 

But those things do work, despite your skepticism. The problem is that they are typically deeply underfunded, understaffed and largely disincentivized in a system that has, so far, mostly pushed purely punitive measures. Investing more in social programs does not mean every single person can be saved or rehabilitated. That's an unreasonable expectation. You don't have to save everyone to have it be a societal success. We don't save every cancer patient with chemo, but chemo is still a valuable treatment. 

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

 

Interesting.  I tried to snip it down to a single topic, though maybe I left in enough that there were multiple strands there.  The full document is considerably longer and somewhat more wide-ranging.

 

That was from Rerum Novarum, the first major modern social encyclical of the Catholic Church, in 1891, near the height of the Gilded Age.  It threw the cultural weight of the Church clearly and firmly behind the nascent labor movement--hence the praise of unions and the harsh words for concentrated capital in that passage I quoted.  I was responding to this:

 

Whether or not it's a nonstarter for "the Right," it is emphatically not a nonstarter for the Church, which is nonpartisan and had existed for more than a millennium and a half before the terms "left" and "right" were first used as political shorthands, in the French Revolution, let alone how they're used today, which has evolved greatly over time and also differs from country to country.  We were one of the OG social-democratic factions, back when social democracy was a middle position between Das Kapital (1867) (~state owns all property) and laissez-faire capitalism (~robber barons own all property).  I could cite more examples over the subsequent century-plus.

 

Okay, thanks for more clarification, but I'm still not entirely sure what kind of answer you're looking for. The Church being pro-union 132 years ago is arguably progressive for the time, and may still be in the modern era in which unions have been heavily marginalized and demonized in the capitalist profit-at-all-costs system that's been built. So good for them? But how does that connect with my suggestion that one of the answers to school issues is a strong and well-supported social support system? Are you agreeing with me? Because so far, you seem not to. A strong labor movement that emphasizes worker's rights, benefits and well-being would be part of that suggested system. 

Edited March 22, 20232 yr by jonoh81

3 hours ago, Foraker said:

Beyond that, I'm also in favor of eliminating the use of property taxes to fund education.  Fund schools from the general fund (income taxes, or income taxes plus a state property tax).  Or restrict local property taxes for use for capital expenditures rather than operations, with the state funding operations.  Maybe it's time for a state property tax to fund other state priorities, perhaps transportation in the state, something more closely tied to the land use.  Or maybe we should allow local property taxes to go to the communities for roads and sidewalks and such, rather than schools -- infrastructure needs that seem much more tied to the property than schools.  I would retain local control over school spending, just change the source of funds to be 100% from the state.

While I would personally love to eliminate property taxes to fund education (as you mention, they are not the best means to create the equitable education system) I do not think that the income tax plan is palatable for a number of reasons. 

 

Assuming you are no longer using property taxes to fund schools, then you figure property taxes are reduced significantly. Practically speaking income taxes would have to rise significantly to offset the loss in funding. That is fine as many people would ultimately see it as a wash because while their inocme tax would go up, they would save a ton on property taxes.  However, I think you would have a good number of those in the progressive camp unhappy with such a plan because the income tax (at least the initial withholding of it) would hit a lot more lower income individuals, many who may not pay tax but nonetheless still need to withhold the money, would not be paid as much by wealthier people who often have considerable wealth and assets tied up in real estate (which would be getting a huge tax break in this scenario).  

Just politically, I do not see how you could overcome these challenges, even if your funding proposal would the best way to fund the schools. 

14 hours ago, jonoh81 said:

But those things do work, despite your skepticism. The problem is that they are typically deeply underfunded, understaffed and largely disincentivized in a system that has, so far, mostly pushed purely punitive measures. Investing more in social programs does not mean every single person can be saved or rehabilitated. That's an unreasonable expectation. You don't have to save everyone to have it be a societal success. We don't save every cancer patient with chemo, but chemo is still a valuable treatment. 

 

When you say "these things do work," at what rate and at what cost?  And at what point does continued failure stop being evidence of underfunding and start being evidence of the fact that some seeds just won't ever sprout, c'est la vie?

 

14 hours ago, jonoh81 said:

Okay, thanks for more clarification, but I'm still not entirely sure what kind of answer you're looking for. The Church being pro-union 132 years ago is arguably progressive for the time, and may still be in the modern era in which unions have been heavily marginalized and demonized in the capitalist profit-at-all-costs system that's been built. So good for them? But how does that connect with my suggestion that one of the answers to school issues is a strong and well-supported social support system? Are you agreeing with me? Because so far, you seem not to. A strong labor movement that emphasizes worker's rights, benefits and well-being would be part of that suggested system. 

 

Honestly, that was something of an aside, maybe even just an FYI.  I got the sense (and, TBF, you didn't exactly say this, this was me connecting multiple things you wrote in ways that maybe you wouldn't do so yourself) that you were conflating "the Right" and "the Church."  It's definitely not so simple.  There's a reason (multiple reasons, in fact) why Catholics almost never split more than 55-45 either way in national elections.  But admittedly that might be getting a little OT from school funding, so I'll let that go.

 

15 hours ago, X said:

 

Well, that's the advantage of being able to kick out the trouble kids into the public school system.  And the disadvantage to the public school system that has to pick up the pieces when private schools won't.

 

And as I said upthread, that structural disadvantage is a policy choice that I'm more than ready to remedy.  The real issue is that most defenders of the public school system bemoaning that disadvantage don't actually want to eliminate it; they want to preserve it and then use it as an excuse.

 

15 hours ago, X said:

FWIW, I also think that disruptive students should be removed from the mainline classroom, but I believe that the public still owes them an education- that means providing alternatives to those mainline classrooms, whether that is online learning, special education for children with behavioral issues (i.e. a supportive, not punitive environment), or in the worst cases something akin to military school (is there a modern equivalent?)

 

At the moment, I do not believe there is a modern equivalent--and the reigning ideology (though of course they'll say "peer-reviewed research in the science of education") of public school pushes for the absolute minimum of sequestering such students from the regular school population.

 

15 hours ago, X said:

It's worth noting that even certain public schools won't do much to help children with learning problems of whatever sort.  My nephew has learning (not behavioral) issues.  A certain local public school system, "very highly rated", basically told my sister there was little they could or would do for him.  Really hurts given that this is the school system we graduated from.  On second thought, it's totally unsurprising.  Anyhoo, she ended up looking around and moved to a different suburb, much less "highly rated", but with a very good special education program that was eager to help him.

 

I think the key here, or perhaps not the "key" but just the reason this is different, is because you said that this is a learning issue, not a behavioral issue.  Any school above a certain size has the ability to create different tracks for different learning speeds and styles.  That might have some impact on the learning environment in terms of resourced directed to IEPs or remedial education not being available for gifted programs or extracurriculars, but that's a second-order concern.  Those articles about APS that I posted earlier weren't about inability to track, they were about teachers getting attacked by their own students and the school feeling (or acting) helpless to do anything about it other than call the police (including have a constant in-school police presence).  The barely-averted teachers strike (and the resignation of the superintendent as part of the package) was about pay and safety, not pay and insufficient resources for extracurriculars.  We can't be so committed to avoiding the school-to-prison pipeline that we turn schools into prisons.

1 hour ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

While I would personally love to eliminate property taxes to fund education (as you mention, they are not the best means to create the equitable education system) I do not think that the income tax plan is palatable for a number of reasons. 

 

Assuming you are no longer using property taxes to fund schools, then you figure property taxes are reduced significantly. Practically speaking income taxes would have to rise significantly to offset the loss in funding. That is fine as many people would ultimately see it as a wash because while their inocme tax would go up, they would save a ton on property taxes.  However, I think you would have a good number of those in the progressive camp unhappy with such a plan because the income tax (at least the initial withholding of it) would hit a lot more lower income individuals, many who may not pay tax but nonetheless still need to withhold the money, would not be paid as much by wealthier people who often have considerable wealth and assets tied up in real estate (which would be getting a huge tax break in this scenario).  

Just politically, I do not see how you could overcome these challenges, even if your funding proposal would the best way to fund the schools. 

Glad that you agree that property taxes are not the best way to fund schools.

 

But it seems like you're not disagreeing with me that state income tax funding would be a suitable substitute, only that it wouldn't work politically.  To that I would say (1) I doubt that property taxes would disappear entirely, those funds would just be shifted to another use.  Limiting property taxes to county-wide or state-wide rates would simplify tax collection and make it easier for companies having multiple properties across the state (or in encouraging out-of-state companies to locate in Ohio without them having to dig through all the different tax rates in every municipality); and (2) I don't think that the income tax issue is as big of a problem as you do.  I'm guessing we disagree on whether Ohio's income tax rates are high enough (no) or flat enough (too flat already).

 

As a "self-employed" professional, I pay no state income tax.  Which is RIDICULOUS.

40 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

And as I said upthread, that structural disadvantage is a policy choice that I'm more than ready to remedy.  The real issue is that most defenders of the public school system bemoaning that disadvantage don't actually want to eliminate it; they want to preserve it and then use it as an excuse.

Do you have any receipts for this, or is this just, like, your opinion, man?

 

40 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

Those articles about APS that I posted earlier weren't about inability to track, they were about teachers getting attacked by their own students and the school feeling (or acting) helpless to do anything about it other than call the police (including have a constant in-school police presence).  The barely-averted teachers strike (and the resignation of the superintendent as part of the package) was about pay and safety, not pay and insufficient resources for extracurriculars.  We can't be so committed to avoiding the school-to-prison pipeline that we turn schools into prisons.

Teachers getting attacked is horrible and inexcusable, full stop. Essentially, you keep asking, "What can we do to stop it?". And your answer is to simply get rid of them. But we also need to know why it happens. If your car breaks down, you don't just immediately replace the engine, you troubleshoot and go try to fix the actual problem. Loose analogy, I know, but I think the Spartan solution does far more harm than good in the long run. 

 

Do you really think all these kids are born with an abject hatred of teachers?

20 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

 

I have actually conducted a poll among my group of friends and Roman numerals seem to drop off among those born somewhere between 1984 and 1987. Apparently the schools stopped teaching them around that time thereby reducing their importance to only Super Bowls and Wrestlemanias.

 

This reminded me of the time about ten years ago when I was in a Saturday morning safety meeting and it became known that a warehouse worker, who was about 50, didn't know what a ? means.  The guy had somehow gotten through life without understanding basic punctuation.  Oddly, he had a collection of license plates above his work space.  Looking back, I wonder if he thought by displaying all of those collected license plates, he sought to project the ability to fully comprehend the written English language. 

 

A lot of license plates have decorative cursive.  Will public school students be able to read "California"?

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

17 minutes ago, Ineffable_Matt said:

Teachers getting attacked is horrible and inexcusable, full stop. Essentially, you keep asking, "What can we do to stop it?". And your answer is to simply get rid of them. But we also need to know why it happens. If your car breaks down, you don't just immediately replace the engine, you troubleshoot and go try to fix the actual problem. Loose analogy, I know, but I think the Spartan solution does far more harm than good in the long run. 

 

Do you really think all these kids are born with an abject hatred of teachers?

 

At some point, root cause analyses become parodic.  Root causes themselves have root causes, and eventually you dig your way back to: "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

 

We don't necessarily need to know all the root causes of a disease to treat it, and that applies to more than just negative phenomena like disease, it applies to positive phenomena, too.  The Roman Empire was building arched bridges more than a millennium before Sir Isaac Newton developed the principles of calculus that allowed mankind to explain the physics behind the load-distributing effects of a curved structure.

19 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

At some point, root cause analyses become parodic.  Root causes themselves have root causes, and eventually you dig your way back to: "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

 

We don't necessarily need to know all the root causes of a disease to treat it, and that applies to more than just negative phenomena like disease, it applies to positive phenomena, too.  The Roman Empire was building arched bridges more than a millennium before Sir Isaac Newton developed the principles of calculus that allowed mankind to explain the physics behind the load-distributing effects of a curved structure.

Reductio ad absurdum is unbecoming. Public schools are a microcosm of our society, ergo addressing the problem through that lens is prudent. Throwing bad apples in prison for the past however many thousands of years hasn't eliminated crime.

50 minutes ago, Foraker said:

Glad that you agree that property taxes are not the best way to fund schools.

 

But it seems like you're not disagreeing with me that state income tax funding would be a suitable substitute, only that it wouldn't work politically.  To that I would say (1) I doubt that property taxes would disappear entirely, those funds would just be shifted to another use.  Limiting property taxes to county-wide or state-wide rates would simplify tax collection and make it easier for companies having multiple properties across the state (or in encouraging out-of-state companies to locate in Ohio without them having to dig through all the different tax rates in every municipality); and (2) I don't think that the income tax issue is as big of a problem as you do.  I'm guessing we disagree on whether Ohio's income tax rates are high enough (no) or flat enough (too flat already).

 

As a "self-employed" professional, I pay no state income tax.  Which is RIDICULOUS.

What you propose is an extremely heavy lift. Not saying it cant be done but extremely difficult politically and you would have factions on both sides coming at you with knives out. Sometimes better ideas cause strife across all political spectrums. 

 

To your points 1) in many areas on average 55-68% of property taxes are allocated toward schools. The rest is allocated to other matters like the Zoo levy, libraries, Parks, etc. From a general funding standpoint the county/city gets very little. Cities, county and townships feast off the income tax, the income tax feeds their coffers. I would imagine flipping the funding between the various parties would be extremely hard and run into constitutional issues but assuming it could be done. 

2) Also, regarding simplifying corporate rates, etc. - Ohio has a very convoluted tax structure and a lot of it has to do with the income tax. with so many different municipalities in the state who can levy their own income taxes Ohio is a difficult state to do business simply due to the tax code. Service companies like Janitorial, construction, etc. who place employees on job sites for a short period of time, or move them around to numerous job sites in the same county have a myriad of income tax reports they need to file with each municipality that they do business. This is what really complicates things. Having to file a tax return and withhold taxes for a 3 week job employees perform in say Dublin and then another 3 week job in UA or Westerville is highly burdensome and the amounts due to these small cities are often very diminimus. If Ohio really wanted to clean up the tax code and make things more efficient, they could start by abolishing municipalities to levy income taxes at the local level. Start at the county level or force the merger of many small municipalities. I think Kaisich was trying to spur this when he was in office and it helped some but still had a long way to go.

 

3) the other question about the state income tax issue is (assuming you substitute the funding from property to income and vice versa for cities/townships/etc.) does the state income tax in its current setting generate enough to fund the schools? Or how much would it need to go up in order to fund the schools. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

When you say "these things do work," at what rate and at what cost?  And at what point does continued failure stop being evidence of underfunding and start being evidence of the fact that some seeds just won't ever sprout, c'est la vie?

To your point, too often the answer you hear about education is that we need more money to fund the schools so that we can attract and retain good teachers.  Now, I do not want to argue whether teachers are paid well enough or not, but if it were simply about paying teachers the results should already be much better than they are and to date, I have not seen a study directly correlating teacher pay to student results. 

 

If you use the Catholic schools as an example (and again, it does not exactly correlate) most people would argue that children in the Catholic school system tend to achieve pretty good results overall. However, if you compare facilities most public schools have better facilities than most Catholic Schools and if you look at teacher pay, teachers on average earn about 30-40% less than what is paid by the comparable public school.

At my children's school, one of the working groups I have been on has been working to adjust teacher pay so that it can at least get to 75% of what the comparable public school teacher in the peer public schools that our school pulls students from would earn, and our school pays their teachers more than many of the other schools in the archdiocese.  With that being said, yes, every year, some teachers, especially in the 3-5 years of experience range will leave to go to public schools, but at the same time, they are able to attract new teachers who are qualified and good, and often times they will attract some of those public school teachers back in 3-5 years too who are willing to take the pay cut to do so.  

I am not saying teachers do not earn their pay or if some are underpaid, but for those who argue that teacher pay = results, I do not think that necessarily correlates. 

13 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

To your point, too often the answer you hear about education is that we need more money to fund the schools so that we can attract and retain good teachers.  Now, I do not want to argue whether teachers are paid well enough or not, but if it were simply about paying teachers the results should already be much better than they are and to date, I have not seen a study directly correlating teacher pay to student results. 

 

If you use the Catholic schools as an example (and again, it does not exactly correlate) most people would argue that children in the Catholic school system tend to achieve pretty good results overall. However, if you compare facilities most public schools have better facilities than most Catholic Schools and if you look at teacher pay, teachers on average earn about 30-40% less than what is paid by the comparable public school.

At my children's school, one of the working groups I have been on has been working to adjust teacher pay so that it can at least get to 75% of what the comparable public school teacher in the peer public schools that our school pulls students from would earn, and our school pays their teachers more than many of the other schools in the archdiocese.  With that being said, yes, every year, some teachers, especially in the 3-5 years of experience range will leave to go to public schools, but at the same time, they are able to attract new teachers who are qualified and good, and often times they will attract some of those public school teachers back in 3-5 years too who are willing to take the pay cut to do so.  

I am not saying teachers do not earn their pay or if some are underpaid, but for those who argue that teacher pay = results, I do not think that necessarily correlates. 

But he is talking about other programs, guidance counceling, etc., not teacher pay. We say teachers deserve to be paid more, and its mostly for hazard pay (a point on which I think we all agree). But simply paying teachers more money to endure the troubles associated with not being able to cherry pick the student body doesn't solve anything. Neither does throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

2 minutes ago, Ineffable_Matt said:

But he is talking about other programs, guidance counceling, etc., not teacher pay. We say teachers deserve to be paid more, and its mostly for hazard pay (a point on which I think we all agree). But simply paying teachers more money to endure the troubles associated with not being able to cherry pick the student body doesn't solve anything. Neither does throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

TBF he was not necessarily saying anything about teacher pay. I was just referencing that as an anecdotal issue that school funding proponents cite. The problem I see with that is without drilling down deeper, you are just throwing money at something looking to solve a problem without any metrics to see if that is effective. It is akin to the problem you see in politics. Politicians pass a bill to address a perceived problem, they pat themselves on the back and take a victory lap, and in reality their bill really does nothing to actually address the problem and creates additional problems to be solved. 

 

To your point, certainly, there are some teachers that need more pay, some districts need to hire more specialists and staff to handle more challenging students, but it that true across the board? I would have my doubts on that.  The one thing you do not see in education (albeit, it is challenging to get good data) is good metrics to measure where the money actually needs to be spent and what yields the best results. 

LeBron James’ promise to Akron gets more ambitious

His I Promise School now includes housing, job training and health care

By Justin TinsleyMarch 27, 2023

 

AKRON, Ohio — When LeBron James was in grade school, he wondered why the maps in his classrooms showed Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, but not Akron. Now, 20 years into his NBA career, James is building a whole world in his hometown 40 minutes south of Cleveland, an audacious community revitalization project rooted in education while encompassing everything from housing and health care to job training and a laundry.

 

James started with a tutoring and college scholarship program in 2011. That led to the ballyhooed opening of the I Promise School in 2018, a public school for third through eighth graders with an extensive support program funded by The LeBron James Family Foundation.

 

Nearly a half-decade later, the school remains. But what James, his foundation and supporters across the city have come to understand is that success in the classroom is about so much more than the actual classroom.

 

 

https://andscape.com/features/lebron-james-promise-to-akron-gets-more-ambitious/

😒

 

Ohio Schools Have Begun Arming Teachers & Staff

 

Twenty-two Ohio school districts and one Christian school have staff members who are either authorized or in the training process to carry weapons on school grounds as of Wednesday, according to the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 99 — which grants local boards of education authority to decide whether to allow their teachers and school workers to carry firearms — into law in June and it went into effect Sept. 12. 

...

The school districts and school that have completed or are currently going through training

• Adams County Christian School in Adams County.
• Carrollton Exempted Village School District in Carroll County. 
• Clay Local School District in Scioto County.
• Claymont City in Tuscarawas County. 
• Fort Loramie Local Schools in Shelby County. 
• Garaway Local Schools in Tuscarawas County.  
• Highland Local Schools in Morrow County. 
• Indian Lake Local Schools in Logan County.
• Jefferson County Educational Service Center in Jefferson County. 
• Knox County Career Center Schools in Knox County. 
• Mad River Local School District in Montgomery County. 
• Maplewood Career Center in Portage County.
• Martins Ferry City School District in Belmont County.
• Morgan Local School District in Morgan County. 
• River Valley Local Schools in Marion County. 
• Rolling Hills Local School District in Guernsey County. 
• Russia Local School in Shelby County. 
• St. Clairsville-Richland City Schools in Belmont County. 
• St. Marys City Schools in Auglaize County.
• Streetsboro City Schools in Portage County. 
• Tuscarawas Valley Local School District in Tuscarawas County. 
• Upper Scioto Valley in Hardin County. 
• Williamsburg Local School District in Clermont County.

More below:

https://columbusunderground.com/ohio-schools-have-begun-arming-teachers-staff-ocj1/

 

Gov. DeWine Goes on Statewide Elementary School Tour

 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine nodded along and smiled as the second grade students in Bernadette Monroe’s Southwood Elementary School classroom sounded out words like whistle, sketch and chuckle by emphasizing each letter Thursday morning. 

 

Across the hall, in Robin Thalgott’s third grade classroom, students were practicing their syllables and studying words such as define, apron, and donate.  

 

DeWine’s classroom visit to the state’s largest school district is part of his statewide tour of visiting schools that teach the science of reading. He has visited eight schools so far and plans to visit more classrooms around the state. 

 

“I’ve been very impressed by what I’ve seen,” DeWine said. 

 

DeWine’s proposed budget includes $64 million for science of reading curricula, $43 million each year for the next two years to offer science of reading instruction for educators, and $12 million to support 100 literacy coaches in schools and districts. 

 

More below:

https://columbusunderground.com/gov-dewine-goes-on-statewide-elementary-school-tour-ocj1/

 

Ohio Higher Ed Bill Receives Large Community Backlash

 

Concerned college students, worried university staff, and outraged advocates packed the Ohio Statehouse Wednesday to speak against a massive higher education bill that would significantly change college campuses.

 

More than 500 people submitted opponent testimony to Senate Bill 83, which would, among other things, require American history courses and tenure evaluations based on if the educator showed bias or taught with bias, and prohibit university staff and employees from striking.

 

SB 83, which was introduced in March by state Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, would also ban programs with Chinese schools. 

 

People testified for just over seven hours during Wednesday’s marathon Senate Workforce and Higher Education committee meeting. A little more than 100 people were actually able to testify in opposition before the meeting ended around 11:30 p.m. 

 

SB 83 primarily affects public schools, but would mandate that private schools that want to use public funds sign paperwork saying they are following free speech guidelines. 

 

More below:

https://columbusunderground.com/ohio-higher-ed-bill-receives-large-community-backlash-ocj1/

 

Ohio Budget Cutting Back on Education Funding

 

The science of reading remains in Ohio’s proposed operating budget, but the House cut back on the amount of money that would be allocated toward funding the implementation. 

 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget — which was introduced earlier this year — included $64 million for science of reading curricula, $43 million each year for the next two years to offer science of reading instruction for educators, and $12 million to support 100 literacy coaches in schools and districts. 

 

The Ohio House budget recently approved their version of the budget which includes $44 million for science of reading curricula, $21.5 million each year for the next two years to offer science of reading instruction for educators, and $6 million in fiscal year 2024 and $12 million in fiscal year 2025 for literacy coaches. 

 

The science of reading is based on decades of research that shows how the human brain learns to read and incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

 

The budget is in the Senate and must be signed by June 30 for it to take effect on July 1, the first day of the new state fiscal year.

 

More below:

https://columbusunderground.com/ohio-budget-cutting-back-on-education-funding-ocj1/

 

4 minutes ago, ColDayMan said:

The science of reading is based on decades of research that shows how the human brain learns to read and incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

 

 

It's old school Hooked on Phonics...so why does it require $100 million+ for "new curricula"?

 

I remember back in Kindergarten and First Grade the teacher going over letter combinations like TH and PH and QU right after teaching us the alphabet.  On a blackboard.  With chalk.  Everyone would read out tricky words as a group.  Then - get this - we learned cursive.  

 

This stuff isn't difficult.  

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

It's old school Hooked on Phonics...so why does it require $100 million+ for "new curricula"?

 

I remember back in Kindergarten and First Grade the teacher going over letter combinations like TH and PH and QU right after teaching us the alphabet.  On a blackboard.  With chalk.  Everyone would read out tricky words as a group.  Then - get this - we learned cursive.  

 

This stuff isn't difficult.  

Are you surprised that educating children costs money?

 

Also, the phonics-based reading instruction is critical because the in-vogue reading instruction method DOESN’T include phonics and it’s been an absolute disaster. There is 20+ years of failed instruction to undo. 

I have a 2nd grade phonics game for an Atari computer. I can only finish the first level because I grew up with Whole Language instead. It's hilarious. The rabbit in the game is disappointed with me.

I hate cursive. Just looks like a bunch of l's. Definitely remember people rejecting my signature 25 years ago because it was in monogram. But you know it is way easier to make your signature look like a metal band logo in monogram.

On 3/21/2023 at 8:31 PM, Gramarye said:

Though I question whether “proximity” alone “brings people together” in any more than the literal sense. 

 

It does not, any more.  Thanks to tech.   Which I am convinced is something collective minded people resent about tech.

 

Quite often, when someone is on their device instead of gabbing about nothing with whomever randomly happens to be around, they are indeed interacting....with who they choose to.

On 3/22/2023 at 12:48 AM, Gramarye said:

 

There are a small number of private operators of charter schools where there will be a few people able to make real money.  They operate on the franchise model, essentially, so no one school makes that much money but they operate networks of schools and profit from scale.  So maybe you can technically get away with saying "many."  But overall, you'll see more six-figure salaries in public schools than in private ones.  The base salary of the Akron Public Schools superintendent, who was recently forced out of office, was $228,200, so it's not like the people at the top of public school systems are financially hurting, either.  We've thrown mountains of money over the past multiple generations at public schools, with every failure being cited as proof that an even bigger mountain of money will be needed next time, rather than as proof that more fundamental structural changes are needed (e.g., the ability to to "exclude certain types of students," not because it's good for business but because it's good for the rest of the students).  

 

As for Catholic schools charging tuition but also being subsidized by both private and public money, and not being open to all comers: That's exactly the model of Ohio's public schools ... at the postsecondary level.  The Ohio State University has a massive endowment (including my own modest contributions), plus state support, plus the ability to charge tuition, plus the ability to pick who it admits.  It very much is run "as a business," but not a for-profit business.  People tend to forget that nonprofits more often than not are businesses--all charities are nonprofits but not all nonprofits are charities.  As for the fact that Catholic schools are private nonprofits instead of public ones, well, the same could be said not only of private colleges (which also get various forms of public money), but for a great many other private businesses that receive public money to provide all kinds of services at reduced cost to the end-user.

 

As I noted upthread, the administrative overhead at my kids' school is nearly nonexistent.  And even the principal isn't making any more than a middle-class income.  The average Catholic school principal in Ohio makes around $62k.  And I'm sure you're aware that the teachers make considerably less than their public school counterparts.  There are certain shared services that are handled at the diocesan level, things like school lunch purchasing and vendor management and the like, but that's a pretty small overlay shared among 107 schools, and the people up there aren't making much, either.  (Heck, even the bishop makes very little in spending money, though that's admittedly understating the case because of the residence and other resources that come as part of the job.)

 

I think that at some level, you're well aware that Catholic schools, and most other religious schools, really aren't in it for the money.  Your real objections to them are ideological based on the content of the coursework, first and foremost the religious instruction, but probably also the less ideologically charged curriculum in secular subjects, too, since you're less likely to find woke history and similar postmodern revisionist folderol in Catholic schools.  What distresses you isn't the possibility that we're secretly cynical unbelievers just milking all the gullible doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers, and corporate mangers for as much of their hard-earned money as we can.  What distresses you is the knowledge that we aren't, and that large numbers of high-income professionals are willing to pay over and above their property taxes to ensure that their children have not just a top-tier STEM education, but also one that defends both the eternal and timeless truths of the Church about both human nature and flourishing and the history of Western civilization (including its Christian heritage) that are emphatically rejected by modern secularism, particularly its most censorious woke commissars.  And that even more people might want just such an education for their kids if the bite of double-dipping were removed or reduced.

 

This is why a deist highly skeptical of organized religion such as myself was quite happy to help pay for my daughter to go to a Christian school.

16 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Are you surprised that educating children costs money?

 

I am baffled by what goes on in the schools I didn't attend, because I don't recall a single person who was unable to read, write, or do math at a decent level pretty much...right away.  By like the first or second grade.  

 

I remember losing in the first round of a spelling bee in first grade because I misspelled "eight".  No, I didn't spell it a-t-e, I knew there was a trick.  As soon as the teacher wrote the word on the board I remember thinking "oh yeah, I've seen that".  

 

This was one of those spelling bees where you had to stand up in front of everyone and I remember being a little embarrassed that I had misspelled a word in the first round.   Maybe they have support dogs ready for kids now when they misspell words.   

 

 

 

 

On 3/22/2023 at 12:48 AM, Gramarye said:

 

There are a small number of private operators of charter schools where there will be a few people able to make real money.  They operate on the franchise model, essentially, so no one school makes that much money but they operate networks of schools and profit from scale.  So maybe you can technically get away with saying "many."  But overall, you'll see more six-figure salaries in public schools than in private ones.  The base salary of the Akron Public Schools superintendent, who was recently forced out of office, was $228,200, so it's not like the people at the top of public school systems are financially hurting, either.  We've thrown mountains of money over the past multiple generations at public schools, with every failure being cited as proof that an even bigger mountain of money will be needed next time, rather than as proof that more fundamental structural changes are needed (e.g., the ability to to "exclude certain types of students," not because it's good for business but because it's good for the rest of the students).  

 

As for Catholic schools charging tuition but also being subsidized by both private and public money, and not being open to all comers: That's exactly the model of Ohio's public schools ... at the postsecondary level.  The Ohio State University has a massive endowment (including my own modest contributions), plus state support, plus the ability to charge tuition, plus the ability to pick who it admits.  It very much is run "as a business," but not a for-profit business.  People tend to forget that nonprofits more often than not are businesses--all charities are nonprofits but not all nonprofits are charities.  As for the fact that Catholic schools are private nonprofits instead of public ones, well, the same could be said not only of private colleges (which also get various forms of public money), but for a great many other private businesses that receive public money to provide all kinds of services at reduced cost to the end-user.

 

As I noted upthread, the administrative overhead at my kids' school is nearly nonexistent.  And even the principal isn't making any more than a middle-class income.  The average Catholic school principal in Ohio makes around $62k.  And I'm sure you're aware that the teachers make considerably less than their public school counterparts.  There are certain shared services that are handled at the diocesan level, things like school lunch purchasing and vendor management and the like, but that's a pretty small overlay shared among 107 schools, and the people up there aren't making much, either.  (Heck, even the bishop makes very little in spending money, though that's admittedly understating the case because of the residence and other resources that come as part of the job.)

 

I think that at some level, you're well aware that Catholic schools, and most other religious schools, really aren't in it for the money.  Your real objections to them are ideological based on the content of the coursework, first and foremost the religious instruction, but probably also the less ideologically charged curriculum in secular subjects, too, since you're less likely to find woke history and similar postmodern revisionist folderol in Catholic schools.  What distresses you isn't the possibility that we're secretly cynical unbelievers just milking all the gullible doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers, and corporate mangers for as much of their hard-earned money as we can.  What distresses you is the knowledge that we aren't, and that large numbers of high-income professionals are willing to pay over and above their property taxes to ensure that their children have not just a top-tier STEM education, but also one that defends both the eternal and timeless truths of the Church about both human nature and flourishing and the history of Western civilization (including its Christian heritage) that are emphatically rejected by modern secularism, particularly its most censorious woke commissars.  And that even more people might want just such an education for their kids if the bite of double-dipping were removed or reduced.

Where to begin:

You can't compare Catholic K-12 schools with public postsecondary schools; K-12 school is compulsory, and thus requires every person to attend a school, which is why it's important to keep them open to all students. College is not compulsory.

 

School is not a business. Professor of 17 years here. We don't have customers, and students are frequently wrong. Students don't buy grades; they buy work. Colleges have budgets, but they don't run "like businesses". The purpose of a business is to profit. It's not a business without profit. Universities are small cities, little socialist communities with pseudo-democratic governance structures. They are not businesses, nor do they operate like businesses.

 

Catholic schools do not require any state certification to teach or be a principal. That's a large part of why their teachers are poorly paid, they are not required to have any professional preparation in education.

 

Did the Pope write this, or AI? "one that defends both the eternal and timeless truths of the Church about both human nature and flourishing and the history of Western civilization (including its Christian heritage) that are emphatically rejected by modern secularism, particularly its most censorious woke commissars." Hahahhaa "Eternal and timeless truths" sounds about as censorious as one can get! 

 

Read more about the history of Catholic and public schooling, and why over and over, the poor quality, abusive environments with no public oversight (my parents' experience), and doctrinaire teachings have led people over and over to prefer public schools to Catholic schools. My parents didnt dare send their kids to Catholic school. 

 

 

 

 

I don't have a problem with Catholic schools but my I did enjoy your post.

The trailer park I grew up across from had plenty of kids with reading issues. And speech ones.

1 hour ago, westerninterloper said:

 My parents didnt dare send their kids to Catholic school. 

 

Pat, I would like to buy an apostrophe.  

21 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Are you surprised that educating children costs money?

 

Also, the phonics-based reading instruction is critical because the in-vogue reading instruction method DOESN’T include phonics and it’s been an absolute disaster. There is 20+ years of failed instruction to undo. 

 

I think @Lazarus and I agree that phonics instruction is critical.  My wife and I made sure that the school we were going to send our kids to had a strong phonics-based curriculum before we made the decision.  His real eye-bulge was the cost, based on the fact that this is curricular material that shouldn't have changed much in 50 years.  Kind of like calculus, where I think the book I had in the 1990s was the 7th or 8th edition of whatever it was, and I remember thinking, "did they really make any substantive breakthroughs in mathematics between the 1st edition and this one?"

 

That said, if you want to talk about a crony capitalist racket, we could have quite a talk about academic textbook publishers.  That $100 million that Lazarus thinks is too much will probably buy enough textbooks for one normal-sized first grade class at this point.  Oh, and it'll be a digital subscription to the 58th edition of Pearson Digital Detritus, which will expire and brick any machine that tries to read it after the 59th edition comes out.

 

1 hour ago, westerninterloper said:

Read more about the history of Catholic and public schooling, and why over and over, the poor quality, abusive environments with no public oversight (my parents' experience), and doctrinaire teachings have led people over and over to prefer public schools to Catholic schools. My parents didnt dare send their kids to Catholic school. 

 

 

Shall we compare test scores?  Performance in college?

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

Kind of like calculus, where I think the book I had in the 1990s was the 7th or 8th edition of whatever it was, and I remember thinking, "did they really make any substantive breakthroughs in mathematics between the 1st edition and this one?"

 

 

 

I went to the top academic high school in my city, a Jesuit all-boys school.  Our textbooks were public school hand-me-downs, meaning they were all 15+ years old.  I don't really recall that the pages were falling out or turning yellow or any of that.  

 

The public grade school I went to was an almost brand-new building with air conditioning and televisions permanently installed in every room.  It was fully ADA compliant.  The Catholic grade school I switched to had the original desks and lockers, no televisions, and steeply inclined ramps serving as bootleg ADA compliance.  The gym was an improvised L-shaped space with plywood backboards and homemade cages over the windows.  

 

The Catholic grade school is now well over 100 years old and still going.  Still no AC or any of that.  Meanwhile, that brand-new public grade school has been torn down (it only existed for about 40 years), the students were shifted to an even newer school a half mile away, and the district keeps coming at homeowners wanting to tear down and rebuild both high schools.  The older of the two high schools opened around 1965 and the newer one opened around 1980.  

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 20232 yr by Lazarus

1 hour ago, westerninterloper said:

Where to begin:

You can't compare Catholic K-12 schools with public postsecondary schools; K-12 school is compulsory, and thus requires every person to attend a school, which is why it's important to keep them open to all students. College is not compulsory.

 

That doesn't change the truth of anything I said, though.  It's orthogonal to my point.  What I said would still be true if we made undergraduate attendance compulsory or ceased making high school attendance so.

 

1 hour ago, westerninterloper said:

School is not a business. Professor of 17 years here. We don't have customers, and students are frequently wrong. Students don't buy grades; they buy work. Colleges have budgets, but they don't run "like businesses". The purpose of a business is to profit. It's not a business without profit. Universities are small cities, little socialist communities with pseudo-democratic governance structures. They are not businesses, nor do they operate like businesses.

 

I think you're living in denial here, sorry.  Schools not only are run like businesses, but they have never been more run like businesses, particularly at the university level.  Not to mention that you didn't read my post very closely if you're talking about profit, when I was very clear in my post that I was making a not-for-profit business analogy:

 

Quote

It very much is run "as a business," but not a for-profit business.  People tend to forget that nonprofits more often than not are businesses--all charities are nonprofits but not all nonprofits are charities.  As for the fact that Catholic schools are private nonprofits instead of public ones, well, the same could be said not only of private colleges (which also get various forms of public money), but for a great many other private businesses that receive public money to provide all kinds of services at reduced cost to the end-user.

 

Or do you also deny that all not-for-profit corporations are businesses, too?

 

You don't have business metrics like return on equity because there are no equity holders in a nonprofit (including a school).

 

1 hour ago, westerninterloper said:

Catholic schools do not require any state certification to teach or be a principal. That's a large part of why their teachers are poorly paid, they are not required to have any professional preparation in education.

 

And yet they generally teach very well, and I haven't seen any evidence yet that turnover is substantially greater than among public school teachers.  Not a great advertisement for the need for cartelization of the teaching profession.

 

Also, Catholic schools do require state certification to be a school in the first place, at the institutional level.  Just not at the individual teacher level.

 

1 hour ago, westerninterloper said:

Read more about the history of Catholic and public schooling,

 

"Do your own research."  (And "you'll know your research is complete when you agree with me.")  Classic.

 

1 hour ago, westerninterloper said:

why over and over, the poor quality, abusive environments with no public oversight (my parents' experience), and doctrinaire teachings have led people over and over to prefer public schools to Catholic schools. My parents didnt dare send their kids to Catholic school. 

 

And I wouldn't dare send my kids to Akron Public.  Different strokes for different folks, perhaps.  But I think the more likely reason that "over and over ... people ... prefer public schools to Catholic schools" is that one is free to the customer consumer and one is not.  At least for the moment.  Of course, if a strong version of the backpack bill that started all this discussion passes, we may get something approaching real cost parity, and then we'll see what people actually prefer.

 

In the current environment, saying that people prefer public schools to private schools is like saying that they prefer cars and autocentric suburbs to walkable neighborhoods and good transit options, after 75 years of overwhelmingly directing government money to one over the other.

38 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

I went to the top academic high school in my city, a Jesuit all-boys school.  Our textbooks were the old ones thrown out by the surrounding public school district, meaning they were all 15+ years old.  I don't really recall that the pages were falling out or turning yellow or any of that.  

 

The public grade school I went to was an almost brand-new building with air conditioning and televisions in every room.  It was fully ADA compliant.  The Catholic grade school I switched to had the original desks from each of the expansions, no televisions, and steeply inclined ramps serving as bootleg ADA compliance.  

 

The Catholic grade school is now well over 100 years old and still going.  Still no AC or any of that.  That brand-new public grade school has been torn down, the students shifted to an even newer school a half mile away, and the district keeps coming at homeowners wanting to tear down and rebuilt both high schools, which were built in the 1960s and early 1980s.   

 

 

 

 

I like the schools that got torn down by using the internet as an excuse. Like they didn't see wireless coming so 5 years of no wireless happened and every school gets torn down then even caves and mountain bikes can connect to your phone.

What a lot of the comments in this thread are overlooking is the fact that Catholic (and other private) schools do not have the obligation to serve everyone like public schools do. I'll only speak to Catholic schools since I attended them from K-12. I saw them kick out (or quietly tell the families to enroll elsewhere) about a dozen overly disruptive kids during my time, particularly at my high school. A public school district has a much higher level of burden of proof before they can expel someone who lives in their district. Catholic schools, as long as it isn't protected by federal discrimination laws, can use pretty much any reason to not allow a kid back in the classroom. My sister's Catholic high school kicked a girl out in March of her senior year for getting pregnant, even though she would have graduated before having the baby.

 

Also, Catholic schools often do not provide any special education services, so they don't have to expend the extra resources to educate those students. Public schools don't have a choice.

 

I'm thankful for the mostly great education I received from Catholic schools, and for my parents who sacrificed a lot financially to send me there. But I would be burying my head in the sand if I said that Catholic/private schools and public schools were on a level playing field when it came to their student populations.

^One of my brothers was expelled from his high school for taking several coins that a vending machine returned in error.  This event occurred about six weeks into his freshman year.  

 

Unfortunately, the Catholic Schools can't be as strict as they used to be since they need the tuition money.  Their expenses have gone up in part because healthcare costs are out-of-control but also because the vouchers have motivated them to fix up the buildings (suddenly, after 100 years, air conditioning is a must!) and add ridiculous administrative positions to boost recruitment.  

 

My high school now has a therapy dog that it parades around town as a recruiting tool.  For example, if a grade school kid dies in a car accident, they'll send the therapy dog over to show everyone how much they care.  The extracurricular activities of this dog are actually reported in the local news.  You can't make this crap up.  

 

 

 

 

 

39 minutes ago, OliverHazardPerry said:

My sister's Catholic high school kicked a girl out in March of her senior year for getting pregnant, even though she would have graduated before having the baby.

 

Good.  

 

Nearly all (upwards of ten) of the teenage waitresses at the restaurant I worked at in high school were pregnant or already had kids.  It was a disaster zone.  The place was a swirl of alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, pregnancies, scratch-off lotto tickets, and cars dragging their mufflers behind them.  Those people all made fun of me for not getting involved in any of it, but I wasn't tempted for even a second.