Posted on 02/24/2008 8:00:19 AM PST by SoftballMominVA
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee testified yesterday that she plans to move the central office out of leased space and into a school building within a few years; boost the number of high school extracurricular activities by fall; and complete teacher contract negotiations by March 30.
.....
The council last month passed emergency legislation making the employees "at-will" workers, meaning that they could be terminated at any time.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Can she get the schools back on track? The jury is still out. I'm waiting to see what type of budget she proposes
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Were DC public schools ever "on track?"
The only thing that can save students in DCPS is if the Federal government were to impose mandatory school choice for all students in the system.
But we are talking 50 + years ago, so you are right that the schools are in trouble. Personally I think it will be the first public school system to implode and go completely charter/voucher
The only way public schools can be held accountable is if people who send their children to private schools and/or homeschool were to be allowed to deduct this tuition from their local property tax. If the tuition is more than the property tax then people wouldn't pay any property tax.
Public schools would either improve overnight or shut down due to lack of funding. As for vouchers... while I do support the idea of school choice I am worried that government would still be able to exercise control over the schools that receive funding via vouchers. That's one reason to take the middleman out of the picture and have people pay private school tuition directly.
Of course, this idea completely contradicts my belief that personal property taxes should be outlawed by a constitutional amendment.
While I agree with you in principle in regard to property taxes, on must remember those taxes are not just for the funding of public schools. Property taxes also go toward county and/or municipal services which do need to be paid for in some manner.
I think these services should be funded by income and sales taxes. At the very least there would be a more equitable distribution of the tax burden if this was the case.
I'm inclined to agree with this in regard to income taxes, but not in regard to sales tax. Sales taxes are inherently regressive and hurt those with less money harder than those in upper tax brackets.
But in terms of equitable, why do you not think the use of property tax is equitable? The higher the property value, the higher the tax generated, yet all are paying the same rate.
Nope, that “honor” belongs to the Chester-Upland School District in Chester, PA. They’ve been wards of the state with private companies running moost all the schools for at least 10 years now.
Funny, since the state controls the SD the place is still the same mess it was - they are still the worst SD in PA in terms of graduation rates and test scores.
Interesting - learn something new every day around here.
I’ve always felt that property taxes were some of the most equitable to tax citizens. Folks that own a big house, big car, pay the most. Those that are frugal and live within their means, certainly not above it, pay less. Plus typically, those in larger houses are in larger houses because of 2 or more kids. Of course, not always - but it’s a trend.
That would have been true if property tax was still a reasonably small expense that wasn't too much of a burden on the average homeowner, but for me personally, my escrow payment is like a second car payment. I know that compared to most homeowners I still have it good.
There are many homeowners whose incomes are not growing fast enough to pay skyrocketing property taxes. Nobody mentions the homeowners who were able to make their mortgage payments only to be forced to sell their homes because property taxes got too high. At least a flat income tax is based on one's ability to pay.
I’m a fan of the flat tax - and I’d take it one step further. I would like the ability to direct my taxes to where I want them spent.
Yeah, amazing, isn’t it. One of those private companies is Einstein.
The real lesson is that the private companies were “forced” into certain conditions to get the contracts - to hire the same teachers that used to teach in their public schools, thereby guaranteeing incompetent union hacks, and to use the same textbooks and curriculum as the Philadelphia SD - black studies for so-called history, Chicago math, non-phonics-based reading programs - so they have incompetent teachers using crap curriculum all overseen by the head idiots at the state education department.
Private it is not - it’s more of a fascist model in practice.
While I do agree, pnh102 brings up a valid point in regard to recent trends of skyrocketing real estate taxes.
In the county where I live reassessments were done last year and the increase (or decrease) will be reflected in our June tax bill. We appealed our assessment because it tripled the value of our property, yet the bank says it it is only worth double the previous assessment, but I digress.
The county is only permitted to see a 1% increase in real estate tax collections due to reasswessment, so while there are going to be increases pretty much across the board, the basic tax rate itself will most likely be cut so as not to go over the max permissible.
I guess what I’m saying is that my personal circumstances clouds my judgement in regard to property taxes. I don’t like taxes anymore than anyoe else, but I am also realistic enough to understand that a certain amount of government services are needed and they have to be funded in some manner.
Holey quacamoley -— what an awful mess. You are absolutely correct, that is NOT private. SHEESH
And unfortunately, it gives privatizing education a bad image.
You know, “See privtazing schools doesn’t educate the kids either” type talk.
This amazes me. "Changes" are put into place, but nothing is accomplished and they just continue to stick with that. Are they waiting for a miracle to occur?
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Thank you,
Wintertime
Let’s do our own math here:
12 years x $13k = $156,000 (cost to graduate one student)
$156k / 0.20 = $780,000 (cost to graduate a single student proficient in math or science).
The Left/MSM made much about declaring Bush’s strategy in Iraq a failure. How high does the pile of failure have to be before the Left/MSM will allow the idea to creep into the public discourse on education that the model failed long ago.
Since when is it successful public policy to spend well in excess of $3/4 million to graduate a single proficient student from a public school system? I would ask how high the amount has to be before failure is obvious, but I already know the answer: no matter how high it gets, we are still guilty of underfunding it.
(The sad joke on the taxpayers is that the per pupil expenditure figures don’t include the capital costs, such as buildings, real estate and capital repairs. It many not even include the cost of the school buses. So, the cost per pupil is really much higher than stated.)
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