The American Constitution

[Alan Klein]

What I find curios is that you, and Krugman et al, find it all of a sudden curious that taxing the rich is used to help the poor. Isn't that the whole mantra of the left? As faberryman rightly noted: "Lower incomes means less federal taxes, and more federal welfare benefits." So, it is not that the federal government is subsidizing Kentucky or other poorer states, it sends benefits to individual citizens that happen to live in a particular state at the moment. My social security benefit (pension) is not sent to Florida state first, so that FL can pay me. It is sent to my bank account, and I just happen to live in FL at the moment.

Good point.  Tax dollars don't help poor states.  They help poor people.  Of course, I have to admit that living in New Jersey, a very high property tax state, is costing me more money since the tax laws were changed by Trump and the Republicans.  So the poorer states and poorer people get more of my money.  Also, 66% of my local property taxes go for education of children here in my town.  I don't have any kids here as a senior.  However, I still have to pay school taxes.  In some states, there are reductions for school taxes if you're a senior.  Not here where I live.  A lot of seniors and others move out of New Jersey because of it to states that have lower taxes like Florida and Texas.

[Alan Klein]

We don't get a choice.  It is the states that got to decide if they wanted to do Medicaid expansion.  With the exception of Kentucky, I think most of the southern states elected not to do so and that's why there are large numbers of uninsured in those states these days.  Why didn't Louisiana contribute any money to fixing the New Orleans flood control system after Katrina instead of relying on the Federal government for over $12B.  States are all for their own way of doing something until something bad happens and then they come to the US government for help.  I guess that's why they are able to keep state taxes so low.

BTW, most of the illegal immigrants are those who overstayed legitimate visas, not those who sneak into the country.

NYC, the richest city in America, in NYS among the richest states in the country, will be getting another $7 billion from the Federal government to help first defenders who got cancer from breathing in cancerous materials  helping out at the World Trade Center after the attack.  Help is not a one-way street. 

Regarding illegals, whether the overstayed their visa or sneaked in, they're getting a lot of free services paid by our taxes.  It's not fair when people call us uncharitable. But there is a limit.  And they should be acting in a legal way.  When you're a guest, you should follow the rules of the household and not take advantage of the homeowner.

[Peter McLennan]

I don't have any kids here as a senior.  However, I still have to pay school taxes. 

Stop whining. I'm as old as you, I have NO kids and I've paid school taxes my entire life.  I don't begrudge a penny of them.

They're for the common good. Everyone benefits from an educated populace.

[Alan Klein]

Stop whining. I'm as old as you, I have NO kids and I've paid school taxes my entire life.  I don't begrudge a penny of them.

They're for the common good. Everyone benefits from an educated populace.

I don't want to begrudge kids.  But it is very expensive.  $6500 per year for us.  That's a lot of money.  Also, our community is not getting "its fair share" from the state.  And our representatives are morons who don't know how to get that changed.  Also, many seniors can't keep up with inflation with static social security and income.  So they're forced to sell their home and move to another state with less taxes.  That's not right either. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Stop whining. I'm as old as you, I have NO kids and I've paid school taxes my entire life.  I don't begrudge a penny of them.

They're for the common good. Everyone benefits from an educated populace.

Yes, but truly educated, not the product of the loonie left's re-education camps, a.k.a. American schools.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Yes, but truly educated, not the product of the loonie left's re-education camps, a.k.a. American schools.

You prefer Czech schools?

Cheers,
Bart

[Rob C]

Yes, but truly educated, not the product of the loonie left's re-education camps, a.k.a. American schools.

Schools are a tricky subject.

Schools that you get for free, which like the UK health system are free at point of use (must I state again that of course they are paid for during working life via taxation and national insurance contributions?) do not always have pupils with an education-centric background. That's a huge disadvantage that the schools cannot balance: those kids go home. If parents don't insist the kids do homework etc. what, realistically, can the teachers do? They can only mark the kids accordingly and face irate parents when their little angels fail exams. You know as wel as I do that everybody has super clever brats and that if the teachers did their job properly all kids would top the class.

So, you get folks spending huge sums of money in sending their darlings tp private schools where the ethos is different, and where the parents are generally keen to be involved and do their bit in encouraging the kids to study, if only not to waste the parents' substantial expenditure. Education is an inclusive process that requires kids get home support as well as a classroom experience conducive to learning, not playing with their cellphones instead.

If reality approaches The Blackboard Jungle example, heaven help us all. It's bad enough with religious interference ever more present and matters such as sex education, best left as an eternal parental duty to impart, being increasingly shoved onto the third-party shoulders of teachers!

[Alan Goldhammer]

Schools in Maryland are funded at the county level.  Our daughters both went to local public schools and received excellent educations.  Here is a worthwhile article by a venture capitalist who was quite active in the charter school movement.  He's now changed his mind and believes the big impediment to getting a good education is income inequality:  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/  It would be useful for folks to read it before commenting otherwise they show their ignorance of the topic.

[LesPalenik]

You prefer Czech schools?

Cheers,
Bart

Actually, Czech schools are pretty good. No money and money wasted on school buses and security guards with guns, more discipline, more physical ed, more history, more traditional teaching.

https://dspace5.zcu.cz/bitstream/11025/19218/1/Bakalarska%20prace%20-%20Petra%20Silpochova.pdf

[Rob C]

Schools in Maryland are funded at the county level.  Our daughters both went to local public schools and received excellent educations.  Here is a worthwhile article by a venture capitalist who was quite active in the charter school movement.  He's now changed his mind and believes the big impediment to getting a good education is income inequality:  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/  It would be useful for folks to read it before commenting otherwise they show their ignorance of the topic.

My daughter went to a state school and then on to university and after some time doing other things, to teaching. The kids are as good as the schools, and the schools as good as the kids and the families allow them to be and to function. I hardly expect any teacher takes the job intending to ruin kids' lives.

My granddaughters, on the other hand, both went to expensive private schools because the parents, both teachers, understood only too well the ethos of the state classroom. The two girls didn't waste the sacrifice the parents made: one is a doctor and the other a lawyer. Reality is one tough mother.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

You prefer Czech schools?

Why Czech?

[Alan Goldhammer]

My daughter went to a state school and then on to university and after some time doing other things, to teaching. The kids are as good as the schools, and the schools as good as the kids and the families allow them to be and to function. I hardly expect any teacher takes the job intending to ruin kids' lives.

My granddaughters, on the other hand, both went to expensive private schools because the parents, both teachers, understood only too well the ethos of the state classroom. The two girls didn't waste the sacrifice the parents made: one is a doctor and the other a lawyer. Reality is one tough mother.

Interesting how things turn out.  Both of our daughters work with at risk children.  One teaches special education and the other is a music therapist at a major research children's hospital that treats the worst medical conditions imaginable. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... when their little angels fail exams...

That doesn't happen in American schools, Rob. Kids get extra points for bad parents, bad neighborhood, and being gang members.

[Alan Klein]

Schools in Maryland are funded at the county level.  Our daughters both went to local public schools and received excellent educations.  Here is a worthwhile article by a venture capitalist who was quite active in the charter school movement.  He's now changed his mind and believes the big impediment to getting a good education is income inequality:  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/  It would be useful for folks to read it before commenting otherwise they show their ignorance of the topic.

I disagree with his point that income inequality prevents a good education.  It's family disintegration that does.  Children need parents who take an interest in their kids education.  When the family disintegrates because of divorce or you have children born out of wedlock, the child does not get the attention they need at home to produce good educational results.  (coincidentally there is poverty often in these families.  Single mothers taking care of children where the father doesn't contribute to the family makes them very poor.) His argument that education started to go downhill inn the 1970's coincides very nicely with out-of-wedlock births. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fthesocietypages.org%2Fgraphicsociology%2Ffiles%2F2010%2F10%2Fmaritaldecline.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fthesocietypages.org%2Fgraphicsociology%2F2010%2F10%2F18%2Fout-of-wedlock-childbirth%2F&docid=lYUfQ3IRiFdxgM&tbnid=Uo5WYK-Mht0svM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjwrKuNrqHjAhUohOAKHaJ7CakQMwhLKAEwAQ..i&w=575&h=449&bih=961&biw=1745&q=out%20of%20wedlock%20children%20rates&ved=0ahUKEwjwrKuNrqHjAhUohOAKHaJ7CakQMwhLKAEwAQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

There's plenty of poor people around the world. But if the family is intact, the children are educated and more healthy to boot.  This whole argument about income inequality is another justification for the redistribution of wealth. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... There's plenty of poor people around the world...

I grew up in a relatively poor country, in a working class family. My schools did not have computers, tv, cell phones, Google, Wikipedia, etc. Nada. Just a textbook, professor, and a public library. It was a desire to learn that got me educated. And my parents, although divorced, that put education first. I grew up in my grandmother's home, a woman with only elementary school, who never stopped reading and never ceased encouraging me to read too. While my friends were playing soccer outside, I was reading.

It is what you put into your education, not how rich or poor your school is.

[JoeKitchen]

Schools in Maryland are funded at the county level.  Our daughters both went to local public schools and received excellent educations.  Here is a worthwhile article by a venture capitalist who was quite active in the charter school movement.  He's now changed his mind and believes the big impediment to getting a good education is income inequality:  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/  It would be useful for folks to read it before commenting otherwise they show their ignorance of the topic.

As a former teacher, I can tell you the number one reason, far above all others, to getting a good education is having parents that are involved.  No amount of money will change that.  Without addressing this, everything else is just window dressing, even more school funding. 

So many parents expect that the school should be able to handle everything and that they need not take any responsibility.  I can remember on parent teacher nights, every student who was doing bad, no parents showed.  Every student that was doing well, all their parents showed. 

All this talk about better funding misses the most important issue and muddys the water. 

[Alan Klein]

I grew up in a relatively poor country, in a working class family. My schools did not have computers, tv, cell phones, Google, Wikipedia, etc. Nada. Just a textbook, professor, and a public library. It was a desire to learn that got me educated. And my parents, although divorced, that put education first. I grew up in my grandmother's home, a woman with only elementary school, who never stopped reading and never ceased encouraging me to read too. While my friends were playing soccer outside, I was reading.

It is what you put into your education, not how rich or poor your school is.

I didn;t mean to say that divorce in itself hurts education.  It's only when the parents have lost interest in the child's education.  My own daughter is a product of divorced parents.  But she did well in school getting her masters.  As Joe said, having parents involved is the key.   

[Rob C]

As a former teacher, I can tell you the number one reason, far above all others, to getting a good education is having parents that are involved.  No amount of money will change that.  Without addressing this, everything else is just window dressing, even more school funding. 

So many parents expect that the school should be able to handle everything and that they need not take any responsibility.  I can remember on parent teacher nights, every student who was doing bad, no parents showed.  Every student that was doing well, all their parents showed. 

All this talk about better funding misses the most important issue and muddys the water.

As father of a teacher, I can confirm her recounted experiences are very close to yours, with the difference that on Parents/Teachers nights, many parents of bad pupils do show up and pretty much threaten teachers over their kids. Yes, there are bad/indifferent/lousy parents as good, but don't forget that not all kids who do badly have anyone but themselves to blame: they are, basically, little shits with but a single ambition, which is to destroy the class atmosphere. Parents, too, can be forced to give up in the face of such children. All of which ignores the important fact that not all children are equally capable, despite what some of the political theorists claim

[jeremyrh]

not all children are equally capable, despite what some of the political theorists claim

Can you provide us with an example of such a claim ?

[LesPalenik]

Shirley McLane, Wolfgang A.Mozart, John von Newman