All four of those women look exactly alike.
Stepford wives?
Posted on 03/08/2011 11:45:26 AM PST by reaganaut1
BRONXVILLE, N.Y. — This wealthy New York suburb prides itself on its public schools. Class sizes are small. Students can choose from an array of subjects not offered everywhere. Teacher pay ranks among the nation’s highest. And voters long approved high real estate taxes to pay for it all.
But even here — as in other affluent enclaves — corners are being cut, bringing home the wrenching debate that has caused turmoil in so many other communities. What some really fear is that the cuts will continue. “You hear people say they want Mandarin taught in the sixth grade or they want smaller class size or some other enhancement,” said Julie Meade, president of the Parent Teacher Association and mother of two school-age children. “But they don’t talk about raising taxes to pay for what they advocate. I haven’t heard anyone say raise taxes to pay for quality.”
Ms. Meade and others in her P.T.A. are beginning to suggest that austerity may be going too far, particularly in the matter of class size, which has crept up in kindergarten through fifth grade to an average of 22 from 19.9 in 2006-7, the last full school year before the recession. While 22 is hardly overcrowding by the standards of most American school districts, it does push the envelope in the wealthiest suburbs.
The traditional solution — add a class, hire another teacher, jack up the tax levy to cover the cost — is frowned on these days.
...
The property tax levied by the village on a typical Bronxville home is now $43,000, up 34 percent in the last five years, although the increase was negligible in the last two years as the mayor, the village trustees and school board members responded to their constituents’ concerns.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I take it to mean the property tax is $43K wow
“You hear people say they want Mandarin taught in the sixth grade”
People foolish enough to give government schools on average $43k/year are foolish enough to think that you can start Mandarin in 6th grade and expect to get results. But, I suppose it makes them feel proud to say that their little Buffy is studying Mandarin even though the odds are overwhelmingly that Buffy will never even be able to read a menu. (Yes, Mandarin is that hard)
They say this like it's a good thing. Reads like a teachers' union dream to me.
What’s the cost per student?
All four of those women look exactly alike.
Stepford wives?
Now that they have to cut costs, it's time to see if they can really do it.
No, Westchester WASPs.
Or as Tom Wolfe so eloquently put it in The Bonfire of the Vanities, X-rays.
Yikes-— and I’m squawking at having to pay $3k/year.
Many people, especially those who inherited their wealth, have no clue how to live on less.
What is really cool about that is, the Mandarins were the bureaucrats of China. They did so little work, that they could grow their nails exceedingly long to prove it. How fitting that the rich would want their young'ns to learn how to learn how to be a bureaucrat. It says a lot about their mindset, and here the commies worry about the rich attempting to build fortunes, when all they really want to do is build a private govt empire.
On second glance, why would anyone have a public school in this area? At 43K they could send the children to a private school, not even fund a public school. You do know that govt bureaucrats see this, and instead of wanting to allow people choice in education, want to take the money from these people, send it to DC, so EVERY single school district can be equally funded. Why again are these people not using private education? Three of them could ban together and hire a teacher, pay a great wage and set up a school with a 3 student class size.
I know Bronxville—they are probably Harvard MBA’s, who don’t have to work outside the home.
It states in the article that the only people who want to live in Bronxville are couples with 2 or 3 children, who would cost considerably more than $43K to send to private school.
The dirty little secret in many of these wealthy suburbs is that their public schools actually are private schools for all intents and purposes.
Think of most of that $43,000 annual property tax bill as nothing more than the tuition payment at an exclusive prep school. You didn't think there are any poor and/or minority kids in that school system, did you? LOL.
Just up the road a bit is Scarsdale, school tax was $2,000 in the 1960’s; of course our house is worth $750,000 now, even in the down market.
There should be NO property tax,this is insane,We now are renters!
The reason precisely that public education costs are out of control, is that people jumped on this bandwagon that smaller class sizes are better. Bullocks!!! There is nothing wrong with class sizes of 40, or even more students.
They’re liberals.
They hire the MOST Liberal teachers from the MOST “Liberal” schools.
Their kids are indoctrinated - for 12 years - with all the right things they need to say to their Liberal college professors when they get there, so that they will be seen as “smart” and can be passed into the world as “educated” - educated in the Marxist/Progressive/Liberal world view.
Yes, IT IS all VERY expensive.
It’s time the state’s taxes (and the total state tax budget) was relieved from supporting these school districts. They OBVIOUSLY have more than enough local resources to “give back” the state aid to the poorest school districts in the state. Oh, but then they would have to PRIORITIZE their 43K each, between all the different, and competing, “electives” they want included in their school.
I bet, that for something less than 43K per household, they could all send their kids to private schools and quit making this a “public” issue altogether.
What they don’t understand is, the school districts are rapacious. It doesn’t matter how wealthy the town is, the schools will always demand more money. There’s no end to it.
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