Comment by inetknght
4 days ago
> For some reason outside my understanding, a lot of small towns have shuttered the school in walking distance and moved to "consolidated" schools
In my experience it's because schools are being treated as a business, and businesses are usually more efficient when there's consolidation of expenses. Why pay for 3 schools with 10 teachers each when you could instead consolidate classes and pay for 1 school with 15 teachers? To a business, the decision is purely made out of cost. Alas, a lot of governments have such tight budgets (for many legitimate and illegitimate reasons) that cost benefits outweigh the human benefits.
Depends on area. Portland schools have plenty of money but still struggle. Administration and retirement perks eat up most of the budget. In a sense its that they are not a business that leads to that kind of issue.
But ultimately its a complex issue. eg voucher systems would resolve the above issues, but create entirely new sets of problems which may be worse along the way.
Not sure if I agree with this. Schools are not exactly run by the government, rather local school districts.
My (not data based) impression of school levies is that they nearly always get approved by voters, even in tax-averse areas, so if there is a lack of funding, it is usually real, rather than through a misplaced need to be "efficient".
> Schools are not exactly run by the government, rather local school districts.
What gets approved by voters? Ahh, right, government services. How are those paid? By taxes. Who collects taxes? Governments, of course.
I don't know where you are in the world. In the US, public schools are funded by government money counted by number of students and their test scores. So more students = more funding, better scores = more funding. There are other kinds of schools, private schools and charter schools come to mind, with different funding types. But often those include additional costs to the parent on top of the taxes they already pay.
How do public schools get managed by the district? Again I'm not sure where you are, but here the public school administration gets voted in during government elections. The public education system's requirements are defined by law and, above the district level, managed by county or state education services.
> if there is a lack of funding, it is usually real, rather than through a misplaced need to be "efficient"
Don't get me wrong, I think efficiency has its place. But I think it is extremely easy for school administrators to end up in a business-first mindset instead of a serve-people-by-educating-them mindset.
In many places in the US, though probably not all, school districts levy their own taxes independent of municipal or county governments. The reason we might not describe school boards as "the government" is, well, they don't govern us and are distinct from the organizations which do. They don't have the power to levy taxes or pass laws. Its almost like a large co-op where all the citizens of an area fund and vote on the inner workings of the school.
And, as you say, they are regulated by the government but so is everyone and everything else. In my view, its appropriate to describe public schools as part of "the government" but I also respect the GP's view that they're independent enough to be describe as not "the government".
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