The Depressing Fall of the Middle Class

[American GenX]

Are you going to argue next that those without children, or those who’s children have grown into adults shouldn’t pay for schools either?

That wasn't asked of me, but that's the position I take for people that NEVER had kids.  As it is now, those people are paying higher taxes - they don't those child tax credits and deductions, yet they never had kids in school while paying more.  More, or rather all, of the cost burden should be on those actually using the schools.   More kids in school, pay higher taxes or fees.  Child tax credits should be completely eliminated.  You shouldn't be rewarded with more of my money simply because you chose to have a bunch of kids while I'm paying for your kids' education at the same time.

[snowball]

I've never understood this "give them their money back" attitude either.

I enjoy living in a first world country which educates all students from the general tax fund.  It's a clear benefit to all of us to have an educated populace.

But if we taxpayers are suddenly allowed to cherry pick what we will and will not pay for, where does it end?  How about I decide I no longer want to use public parks but instead demand a refund of my tax money that supports the parks so I can use it for a vacation at a resort?   
Or I demand a refund of my tax money that supports libraries because I buy all of my own books and never use the library? 
Or I decide that because I never use the roadways in the rural parts of the state that my taxes supporting those roads should be refunded to me?

I wish all of these libertarian types would all move to one area and enjoy their dog-eat-dogistan life.

Exactly.  There are a ton of worthwhile public services that I don't personally use.  I still support them, and I can make a strong case for them out of pure enlightened self-interest;  no idealism is required (though I can certainly also make an ethical case that we should, in fact, care about our neighbours and communities, and dedicate some resources to the common good).

But even just from a selfish perspective, I benefit hugely from living in a society with near-100% literacy, where we don't have people dying of starvation, where there's legislation protecting workers' rights, etc etc.  Of course it's not perfect, but dismantling institutions like public education is not going to lead to improvement.

There are plenty of countries with much less in the way of public services.  As a result, they are much less pleasant places to live, and somehow I never see libertarians wanting to move there to enjoy the real-world consequences of the policies they support.

[OtherJen]

Are you going to argue next that those without children, or those who’s children have grown into adults shouldn’t pay for schools either?

That wasn't asked of me, but that's the position I take for people that NEVER had kids.  As it is now, those people are paying higher taxes - they don't those child tax credits and deductions, yet they never had kids in school while paying more.  More, or rather all, of the cost burden should be on those actually using the schools.   More kids in school, pay higher taxes or fees.  Child tax credits should be completely eliminated.  You shouldn't be rewarded with more of my money simply because you chose to have a bunch of kids while I'm paying for your kids' education at the same time.

I don't and won't have kids. I am hugely in favor of my tax dollars supporting public education because I'm looking beyond myself and toward the future. Again, for libertarians, where does it end? Most of us DO value living in a society with public goods and services.

[nereo]

Are you going to argue next that those without children, or those who’s children have grown into adults shouldn’t pay for schools either?

That wasn't asked of me, but that's the position I take for people that NEVER had kids.  As it is now, those people are paying higher taxes - they don't those child tax credits and deductions, yet they never had kids in school while paying more.  More, or rather all, of the cost burden should be on those actually using the schools.   More kids in school, pay higher taxes or fees.  Child tax credits should be completely eliminated.  You shouldn't be rewarded with more of my money simply because you chose to have a bunch of kids while I'm paying for your kids' education at the same time.

I don't and won't have kids. I am hugely in favor of my tax dollars supporting public education because I'm looking beyond myself and toward the future. Again, for libertarians, where does it end? Most of us DO value living in a society with public goods and services.

Everything I’ve seen suggests that money spent on public K-12 education has one of the highest returns (i.e. “multipliers”) of any expenditures, albeit  with a multi-year lag.  One of the few things that is higher is pre-K programs (and it still blows my mind that the US is somehow the only developed nation that lacks this public service).

Funding education is much different from incentivizing having children through things like the Child Tax Credit. The former doesn’t result in money transferred to individual families, while the latter does.

[PDXTabs]

The US public education system sucks. If money will make it better we need to spend more, not less, money on it. For anyone who doubts my assertion that US public education sucks I would direct you to the most recent OECD PISA results. This is for secondary school education, not post secondary where the USA still scores very well. But not everyone goes to post secondary education. China, Singapore, South Korea, Estonia, Poland, Canada, Finland, and New Zealand scored better than the USA in ever single metric (Mathematics, Science, and Reading). Surely that has an impact in economic productivity and competitiveness in the long term. Surely an investment in education is an investment in long term economic prosperity for the whole country.

[nereo]

The US public education system sucks. If money will make it better we need to spend more, not less, money on it. For anyone who doubts my assertion that US public education sucks I would direct you to the most recent OECD PISA results. This is for secondary school education, not post secondary where the USA still scores very well. But not everyone goes to post secondary education. China, Singapore, South Korea, Estonia, Poland, Canada, Finland, and New Zealand scored better than the USA in ever single metric (Mathematics, Science, and Reading). Surely that has an impact in economic productivity and competitiveness in the long term. Surely an investment in education is an investment in long term economic prosperity for the whole country.

I agree that on average the US public education system is far behind many other nations, but I’d say there’s a bit more nuance there. The US does have many counties and districts with excellent school systems.  Not surprisingly, these systems overwhelmingly in areas with a lot of local support (i.e. funding).

A perpetual problem of the “US Public Education System” is that there is no real US Education system, but rather a system largely in control by the states and local municipalities. The resources, standards and opportunities available to kids in one county can be vastly different from those available to kids in another.

[poxpower]

Legally that money isn’t yours

There's really no arguments to be made against people who equate morality and legality.

You shouldn't be rewarded with more of my money simply because you chose to have a bunch of kids while I'm paying for your kids' education at the same time.

How selfish of you to only want to pay for things you use!

But even just from a selfish perspective, I benefit hugely from living in a society with near-100% literacy

I'd just ask you to consider that maybe 13 years at a rate of 13 000$ a year isn't the best and only way to teach a kid to read and write.

Again, for libertarians, where does it end?

You're on a forum about retiring EARLY but you're supporting a massive apparatus that, over your lifetime, confiscates probably half your wealth in some form or another.

There was no income tax before western states started declaring world wars against each other. No income tax. It was an emergency measure in Canada and now if you live in Quebec and make a lot of money, it can account for 50% of your income.

It went from not existing to being half of the time you spend working.

I ask you: Are you getting your money's worth, you think?

Is it really 100% of all of this, or nothing and there's no other option?

Everything I’ve seen suggests that money spent on public K-12 education has one of the highest returns (i.e. “multipliers”) of any expenditures, albeit  with a multi-year lag. 

If that were true ( it's not ) then you wouldn't need state funding, people would buy it themselves.
The actual valuable part of a K-12 education ( that you can quantify ) is the diploma, which you can get for a few hundred dollars ( the GED )

Beyond that I don't know why people would make this argument other than with the completely unfalsifiable "it makes society better" claim.

Anyway I didn't want to get into a whole public education debate here as it wasn't even the scope of what I wrote. Just notice that all of you didn't even question the amount spent for one second, you went right to "well the alternative to spending 13k is spending zero".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1hB_qdXrmI

[poxpower]

If money will make it better

It hasn't and cannot.
Education isn't about ( much ) money.

Same as fitness. Lack of money is not the reason why someone can't get in shape. While it's easy to spend tens of thousands on fitness related purchases, 99% of what will make you succeed or fail is you.

Similarly you can have the most expensive building, the best trained teachers who all make 10 million a year and a new ipad every month but none of that will make any kid remember state capitals when they're 35.

[PDXTabs]

A perpetual problem of the “US Public Education System” is that there is no real US Education system, but rather a system largely in control by the states and local municipalities. The resources, standards and opportunities available to kids in one county can be vastly different from those available to kids in another.

I agree entirely. This problem is not unique to the public education system either. I would argue that the USA wishes to compete as a modern nation state but isn't architected as a modern nation state.

[PDXTabs]

If money will make it better

It hasn't and cannot.

Do you have some data to cite? Because I have this statistical meta-analysis that states that:

Method of moments estimates indicate that, on average, a $1000 increase in per-pupil public school spending (for four years) increases test scores by 0.044σ, high-school graduation by 2.1 percentage points, and college-going by 3.9 percentage points. The pooled averages are significant at the 0.0001 level. - The Distribution of School Spending Impacts by Jackson and Mackevicius

But obviously there are other ways that we can support students besides direct school district funding. I know from personal experience that it is much easier to focus on your studies when you know that you will have food and a warm place to sleep at night.

[nereo]

Legally that money isn’t yours

There's really no arguments to be made against people who equate morality and legality.

I didn’t.  However I’ll add that I believe it’s morally wrong not to pay your taxes - particularly ones made in a democratic society and duly enacted. 

[American GenX]

Legally that money isn’t yours

There's really no arguments to be made against people who equate morality and legality.

I didn’t.  However I’ll add that I believe it’s morally wrong not to pay your taxes - particularly ones made in a democratic society and duly enacted.

But unfairly enacted because so many people aren't paying their fair share, and that can be on both sides of the spectrum.  I already gave an example of child tax credits earlier.

[JoePublic3.14]

Are you going to argue next that those without children, or those who’s children have grown into adults shouldn’t pay for schools either?

That wasn't asked of me, but that's the position I take for people that NEVER had kids.  As it is now, those people are paying higher taxes - they don't those child tax credits and deductions, yet they never had kids in school while paying more.  More, or rather all, of the cost burden should be on those actually using the schools.   More kids in school, pay higher taxes or fees.  Child tax credits should be completely eliminated.  You shouldn't be rewarded with more of my money simply because you chose to have a bunch of kids while I'm paying for your kids' education at the same time.

I don't and won't have kids. I am hugely in favor of my tax dollars supporting public education because I'm looking beyond myself and toward the future. Again, for libertarians, where does it end? Most of us DO value living in a society with public goods and services.

I don’t mind the taxes, but I do agree with the viewpoint that more kids should equal more taxes, not the opposite. And I’d like it to be quite progressive. That may even help a couple other issues…

[poxpower]

I'd just ask all of you who chose an alternative lifestyle to others ( early retirement ) to ask yourselves if you want the majority to decide things for you. The majority which you routinely mock for their poor decision making skills. Do you want them to be in charge of more, or less aspects of your lives?

particularly ones made in a democratic society and duly enacted.

Ok well here's just some questions for you to ponder in your spare time... you don't have to reply to this, just maybe notice that you might never asked any of these questions before.

What about majority rule makes something moral?
What does "duly enacted" mean? People constantly complain about politicians lying and being bought by corporate interests. Are those laws duly enacted and to be followed?
If you question the result of an election, how can it be moral to follow the laws? Democrats and Republicans accuse each other of election fraud every cycle. How can it be legitimate to follow the law if you think the election was a fraud? If 55% of people "won" the election but the other 45% question it, what's the moral claim the 55% have to now rule the 45%?

Who gets to vote? Not everyone has a vote now or has had a vote historically. The US constitution was formed before most people even could vote and it stands to this day. How can you claim that is a legitimate system even by your own standards?

How can a system of laws that was voted into being centuries before you even existed morally bind you? Are you truly following these because you believe they are legitimate or because you go to jail if you don't? Which one of these two incentives is acting more strongly to make you follow these laws?

Then if something is moral, why is force necessary to make you obey it? I think murder is wrong. It's not the existence of jails that makes me not murder. So do you believe the laws you follow are moral and legitimate or are you just following the vast majority of them because you fear punishment?

In which case, again: Is that morality?

[nereo]

@poxpower - Every few months a poster will present similar libertarian ideas, often as “thought exercises” as if the problem with their unpopularity is simply that none of us had ever thought about the costs and benefits of taxation and government programs. Feel free to use the search function to read through them (hint: ‘taxation is theft’ is often proclaimed).

I’ll just conclude that I think your proposal would be a dystopian hell.

[snowball]

But even just from a selfish perspective, I benefit hugely from living in a society with near-100% literacy

I'd just ask you to consider that maybe 13 years at a rate of 13 000$ a year isn't the best and only way to teach a kid to read and write.

I'd ask you to consider that a lot more is taught over the course of those 13 years.  My example of literacy was one example of something taught in public school - and the way you responded to this makes me feel like you're arguing in bad faith, because you're reframing my argument to one that says literacy is the only benefit of public schools.  Which is not true, and which I never implied I thought was true;  this sentence contained a list of illustrative examples, not an exhaustive list, and it was pretty clearly phrased that way.

I don't have kids.  I will never have kids.  I still want to live in a society with some level of widespread education, and the only way to achieve this that's been historically effective is through publicly supported institutions.  If there are problems with the school system - and I agree that there are - the solution isn't to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  The solution is to engage with the specific problems and look at practical solutions.  And not base those solutions on ideology;  rather, engage with real-world data on what's proven to improve outcomes, and continually make further improvements based on studying those outcomes.

@poxpower, to be honest - and not trying to start a fight here - I feel like you have a pattern of not really arguing in good faith, because every time I've seen someone specifically counter one of your points, you haven't engaged with it...you've just changed the subject slightly.  As happened when I countered your points about homeschooling;  you dropped it without acknowledgement and moved on.  I keep seeing you do that repeatedly.

How is it possible to have a productive conversation under those circumstances?  I don't think it is.

I'm honestly not trying to insult you, or do the Grand Internet Flounce Out Of The Room.  But I also don't see a point in trying to engage with you further if you're not yourself willing to engage with any data that does not support your pre-determined beliefs, or provide any opposing data.

[kenner]

If money will make it better

It hasn't and cannot.
Education isn't about ( much ) money.

Same as fitness. Lack of money is not the reason why someone can't get in shape. While it's easy to spend tens of thousands on fitness related purchases, 99% of what will make you succeed or fail is you.

Similarly you can have the most expensive building, the best trained teachers who all make 10 million a year and a new ipad every month but none of that will make any kid remember state capitals when they're 35.

If education to you means 'remember state capitals when they're 35' I think you've got a rather simplified notion of an educated population.  In second or third grade I sang along to an Animaniacs song about state capitals as a fun activity...and then we looked at maps of the US showing where the various state capitals were located, talked about why people might build cities in certain places, and wrote reports ('reports' since we were eight or nine) about where we might put capitals if we were picking new locations today.  Want to guess which portion of that was the actual lesson?  Although I guess I can still sing the Animaniacs song now that I think about it, so...yay?  I suppose that public school teacher did their job if easily-searchable facts are really the scale you're using.

Personally, as an adult with no children and no interest in having children, I absolutely support my dollars going to public school systems.  I want an population with at least a decent educational basis (again, I don't equate this to rote memorization) and pretending that all kids are getting that at home is kind of naïve.  Could the money be better used than it currently is?  Certainly, in my area there's a well-publicized imbalance in the dollars spent on administration and what amounts to security theater versus classroom supplies and teacher pay.  And there are as many bad-to-middling teachers as there are good-to-great ones since measuring teacher performance isn't nearly as straightforward as people would like it to be when you get down into those pesky actual details.  But I'd prefer to work to make it better, not write the whole system off.

I also don't find homeschool some kind of panacea--leaving aside the amount of privilege you have to have to be a homeschooling family in the first place, there's good and bad homeschooling just the same as there are good and bad school teachers (and weirdly enough, the good homeschoolers tend to be the ones who find outside resources to help their kids after they've gone beyond a certain level...almost like professionals in those specific areas...).  Claims that all homeschoolers are better educated and better socialized fall amazingly flat after you've had your first tutoring session with  !!NumberOneEngineer!!BestMathStudentEver!! only to find that he isn't competent beyond middle school algebra and yet completely believes he's on par with all of the other students in his engineering program despite the referral for special tutoring.  And yes, this is an anecdote, but it's one of many after being a tutor all through college and then for various volunteer orgs in the 15ish years since...I get plenty of public school kids who are behind too, but they tend to have a better grasp of what their actual skills are.

[Morning Glory]

Are you going to argue next that those without children, or those who’s children have grown into adults shouldn’t pay for schools either?

That wasn't asked of me, but that's the position I take for people that NEVER had kids.  As it is now, those people are paying higher taxes - they don't those child tax credits and deductions, yet they never had kids in school while paying more.  More, or rather all, of the cost burden should be on those actually using the schools.   More kids in school, pay higher taxes or fees.  Child tax credits should be completely eliminated.  You shouldn't be rewarded with more of my money simply because you chose to have a bunch of kids while I'm paying for your kids' education at the same time.

I don't and won't have kids. I am hugely in favor of my tax dollars supporting public education because I'm looking beyond myself and toward the future. Again, for libertarians, where does it end? Most of us DO value living in a society with public goods and services.

I don’t mind the taxes, but I do agree with the viewpoint that more kids should equal more taxes, not the opposite. And I’d like it to be quite progressive. That may even help a couple other issues…

Why?
Who do you think will pay into social security to fund your benefits,  and keep the economy growing, and wipe your ass for you when you get too old? We already disincentivize having kids enough in this country with high hospital bills and childcare costs, and shitty parental leave policies, to that point that economists are worried about birth rates falling below replacement levels for the first time ever.

[YttriumNitrate]

I'd also like to point out that those rosy '60s really sucked if you weren't white.  Or male.  Or straight.  Any of which could prevent you from providing for a family.

I'd also add "or rich enough to avoid being sent to off to some pointless war."

[snowball]

Claims that all homeschoolers are better educated and better socialized fall amazingly flat after you've had your first tutoring session with  !!NumberOneEngineer!!BestMathStudentEver!! only to find that he isn't competent beyond middle school algebra and yet completely believes he's on par with all of the other students in his engineering program despite the referral for special tutoring.

Hah, I can just see it.

Claims that homeschool is TheBestThingEver!!!1! fall amazingly flat for a heckuva lot of ex-homeschooled-kids like me, too.  Most kids who are currently in homeschooling have drunk the koolaid and will tell you it's great (because that's what their parents have told them, and as kids they don't have the perspective yet to be able to critically evaluate it).  You talk to us as adults and you'll often hear a very different story.

And the kids for whom it genuinely works out well...those are the kids with involved, smart, competent parents.  Those kids were always going to get a great education whether they went to public school or not, because their parents make sure of it.  The rest of the homeschooling crowd?  Those are the ones who need the intervention of public school.  And I suspect they outnumber the first category.

Edited to add:  And...the way we just leave it up to parents to self-assess whether they'll be good at homeschooling, then let them do whatever they want with little oversight, is just ridiculous if you think about it.  Almost every single homeschooling parent will tell you that they're in that first category and doing a better job than public schools could.  People have an amazing ability to believe in their own competence, sometimes in the face of immense evidence to the contrary.  My mother believes to this day that she did a fantastic job of both parenting and homeschooling her kids.  The fact two of her adult children have been no-contact with her for years is utterly inexplicable.  I guess that could happen to any fantastic parent;  must just be bad luck.

[DaTrill]

Daily I notice brand-new $60k pickup trucks speeding past me going 90 on the highway, rushing home to their 3-car garages in $450k McMansions, as their owners slave away for 40 years, >40 hours a week, just to pay for these things.* They blindly believe they're getting 25 MPG.** I work with these people. I used to use them as a reminder of what not to do. Now, I feel sorry for them when they can't afford to go out to lunch on Fridays. In the 60s, a man with a normal job was able to provide for a family of 4, in a normal neighborhood, owning a normal car, with a color TV. Today, the same is not possible, due to several factors. We are slaves. I'm cheap so I'm fine, but I'm depressed because not only do I see people suffering, and not only is the suffering due to things they bought that they don't need, but because they argue with me about it!

First, let's look at how we got here. I'll use General Motors and Telsa as examples, as I'm in the industry. GM went bankrupt in 2009. The middle class is still paying for that bailout in the form of price inflation (the US Fed just created the money out of thin air). Why did the government agree to bail out GM? Because GM is legally able to bribe government officials.# These officials are not public servants in a capitalist economy: they are employees of the giant corporations (currently USA is a corporatocracy: a society controlled by corporations). And, our current monetary system, championed by the likes of Bernie Sanders, is Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). This says that the government can just print as much money without repercussions. Tesla: the company is not profitable on its own. However, since saving the planet is now political, Tesla is given carbon credits from the government, which Tesla then sells to Ford, who is basically buying the privilege to pollute (making Tesla profitable).## But Ford need not worry about spending this money or, doing anything right, because, just like all the big lenders who failed (Fannie Mae, Leeman Brothers, etc) and were bailed out by the middle class in 2009, Ford has an implied government bailout guarantee.

Conclusion: the above is the government's fault for letting the corporations takeover. We cannot 100% blame the corporations for trying to make a profit. If the product they are making is dangerous and kills people, but if it's legal to sell, then we need to blame regulators. But the regulators are essentially employees of these same corporations. Individuals of the middle class are the ones struggling, yet I feel we need to take some responsibility for ourselves here:

• Ignorance - the corporations/government want us to work 40 hours a week and drive 1 hour back and forth to work to a house that costs only $300k where we can afford to live on our $80k salary. Why? Because we stay ignorant. But, how can we study economics and politics when we're gone 12 hours a day?
• Inflation (i.e. tax)- Most people think prices are going up because of shipping shortages, COVID, etc. Wrong: the currency supply has been inflated. That's the ONLY reason, by definition. 90% of this "free" money goes to the giant corporations. Yet, due to ignorance, we were all so happy with our stimulus checks, which, since everyone got the same amount, means that everyone got exactly $0.00. (US govt reports 7% inflation but they don't include the extra appx 7% increase on food and energy.)
• Status - From my own studies, I believe that status-seeking is driving approximately 50% of our economy. Don't believe me? Add up the sales of Cadillac, Lincoln, Audi, Lexus, Infinity, Acura and compare to those of Chevy, Ford, VW, Toyota, Nissan, Honda. Add up the cost of money spent on median priced houses (varies by city) vs the average price of houses minus median. Around here, you can live in a nice house for $150k only 45 min from the outskirts of the city and drive a $23k Honda Civic to get there. But no, we want to live 20 min away in a $400k house and drive a $50k car to get there. And we want the $1800 Apple computer, not the $500 one at Best Buy.
• Influence - the big corporations run the media. Why do you think you see the Kardashians and other flashy things all over TV? It's advertising! You think celebrities went out and bought that iWatch? No, companies send them that stuff for free. And here we are thinking we need to have that $1200 phone too; and a new one each year! And they totally have us convinced on housing too. Interest rates used to be around 13% in the 80s, so people could only afford 1200 sq ft. Now rates are 3-4%, so we can all buy 5000 sq ft homes. And we did! With a camper and jetski to match. Bought on credit, of course, convincing yourself that somehow it costs nothing because you get credit card points.  Now we must really slave away as to not get fired so we can afford those payments.

I see this daily. I hear how broke people are. How much of their own fault is it? It's hard to believe that I've had several highly intelligent individuals try to convince me that a $45k Tesla is cheaper and better for the earth than a $23k car. And let's not forget how much the average person spends on Amazon. This is a classic case of people being so brainwashed, in so many ways, that we are actually handing our hard-earned money over to, and sticking up for, the same exact companies that oppress us! And beyond all this we're only bringing home less than 70% of what we make. Then there's property taxes, gas tax for the roads, cigarette taxes, then all the charges on your phone bill or AirBNB, etc. It's safe to say that we're already paying 50% of our money in taxes. But that's still not enough for our corporate masters, because the Fed inflating our currency supply is the biggest tax of all: the US Dollar has already lost 90% of its value since inception. It's lost 50-75% in just 40 years. And. No. One. Is. Talking. About. It.

So, buy silver. Buy Bitcoin. Start a business. Move to Thailand. Don't be depressed. Don't start a revolt (though I think someone in our lifetimes will). But definitely, get the word out that corporations control the middle class like this: middle class spends money > corporation gets rich > corporation buys politician > politician lies to get votes > middle class votes for politician > politician prints money and gives to corporation > middle class pays for it through inflation and pollution > middle class continues spending money at the same corporations that stole from us (yes, you driving that Grand Cherokee by bankrupt Chryster are part of the problem!!). And for God's sake, remind people of the dangers of the phrase: "Buying that will save me money." Buying anything will almost never save you money. Especially status items. Don't be a part of the system!


* Contrary to common belief, most people driving $50k+ vehicles are not wealthy
** Most pickup trucks, even if they're new and V6, don't average more than 18-19 MPG.  Most aren't even tested and when they are it's not in real-world conditions.
# Thanks, Reagan
## Electric cars cost double, use more rare earth elements, require mining in countries that abuse child labor and pollute the area, run >80% on fossil fuels anyway, don't pay road tax like gas cars do, have horrible resale value, have no one who can fix (Tesla won't release the data to mechanics), weigh 25-100% more, burn through tires faster, require $5000-20,000 battery replacements eventually, only get 75% of the stated range because of lying, only get 75% of that range because you're not supposed to charge past 90% and not let go below 20%....

Buy Bitcoin and start a "Fight Club" 

This has to be fake and nobody is this stupid. 

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

The US public education system sucks. If money will make it better we need to spend more, not less, money on it. For anyone who doubts my assertion that US public education sucks I would direct you to the most recent OECD PISA results. This is for secondary school education, not post secondary where the USA still scores very well. But not everyone goes to post secondary education. China, Singapore, South Korea, Estonia, Poland, Canada, Finland, and New Zealand scored better than the USA in ever single metric (Mathematics, Science, and Reading). Surely that has an impact in economic productivity and competitiveness in the long term. Surely an investment in education is an investment in long term economic prosperity for the whole country.

This is a harsh and in my opinion unfair statement. US education results are certainly not where anyone would like them to be. That does not directly equate to the "system sucking." The situation is much more nuanced than that, although there are certainly improvements that can be made to the system - no arguments there.

[snowball]

Claims that all homeschoolers are better educated and better socialized fall amazingly flat after you've had your first tutoring session with  !!NumberOneEngineer!!BestMathStudentEver!! only to find that he isn't competent beyond middle school algebra and yet completely believes he's on par with all of the other students in his engineering program despite the referral for special tutoring.

Hah, I can just see it.

Claims that homeschool is TheBestThingEver!!!1! fall amazingly flat for a heckuva lot of ex-homeschooled-kids like me, too.  Most kids who are currently in homeschooling have drunk the koolaid and will tell you it's great (because that's what their parents have told them, and as kids they don't have the perspective yet to be able to critically evaluate it).  You talk to us as adults and you'll often hear a very different story.

And the kids for whom it genuinely works out well...those are the kids with involved, smart, competent parents.  Those kids were always going to get a great education whether they went to public school or not, because their parents make sure of it.  The rest of the homeschooling crowd?  Those are the ones who need the intervention of public school.  And I suspect they outnumber the first category.

Edited to add:  And...the way we just leave it up to parents to self-assess whether they'll be good at homeschooling, then let them do whatever they want with little oversight, is just ridiculous if you think about it.  Almost every single homeschooling parent will tell you that they're in that first category and doing a better job than public schools could.  People have an amazing ability to believe in their own competence, sometimes in the face of immense evidence to the contrary.  My mother believes to this day that she did a fantastic job of both parenting and homeschooling her kids.  The fact two of her adult children have been no-contact with her for years is utterly inexplicable.  I guess that could happen to any fantastic parent;  must just be bad luck.

In fact, the more I think about it - I bet the homeschooling phenomenon tends to actively select for people with a high level of unjustified confidence in their own abilities, a la Dunning-Kruger.  Which would account for a lot of the unsubstantiated glowing claims that float around about it (like that old chestnut about social skills).  These are not people who are able to critically evaluate their own success.

Again, I'm not painting all homeschoolers with the same brush or saying all are doing their kids a disservice...But most?  Maybe.

[poxpower]

If education to you means 'remember state capitals when they're 35' I think you've got a rather simplified notion of an educated population. 

Yet that's what most of K-12 is.
They don't test your opinion of where New York City would be in an alternate universe where Mantis People rule.

I want an population with at least a decent educational basis

Why do you think K-12 is the only way to get that and why do you think it's worth 13 000$ per year?
What's your list of things people ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO LEARN that takes 13 years, and no less, to teach them?

I can come up with a list of things that are NOT taught ( or taught wrong ) that are very critical life skills: Negociation, nutrition, fitness, mental health, dating, child rearing, accounting, finances, cooking, home improvement, investing.

And I already know what you'll say: "But that's the parent's job".

Weird because you just said home schooling is trash. Why do you leave all these crucial subjects up to home schooling? My parents taught me none of these things btw, why do I know them?

I learned them on my own. For free.

How is that possible? Without the guidance of education professionals and without paying any money, how did I learn all these crucial skills, including some that let me retire decades before my peers, many who have many more diplomas than me?

How did that happen? Am I just some kind of amazing genius?

[kenner]

If education to you means 'remember state capitals when they're 35' I think you've got a rather simplified notion of an educated population. 

Yet that's what most of K-12 is.
They don't test your opinion of where New York City would be in an alternate universe where Mantis People rule.

This is actually terrifying.  I'm hoping you're just trying to move the goalposts (as you do on several occasions, as noted upthread) or setting up a clumsy strawman rather than missing the point about critical thinking and reasoning. 

I want an population with at least a decent educational basis

Why do you think K-12 is the only way to get that and why do you think it's worth 13 000$ per year?
What's your list of things people ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO LEARN that takes 13 years, and no less, to teach them?

Where, precisely, did I state that that was the case?  I note you've removed several pertinent lines from my reply so I'll assume this is another attempt at a strawman.

I can come up with a list of things that are NOT taught ( or taught wrong ) that are very critical life skills: Negociation, nutrition, fitness, mental health, dating, child rearing, accounting, finances, cooking, home improvement, investing.

Odd assumption that your experience is universal, especially since negotiation--resolving differences through discussion--is literally one of the first things small children learn, especially if they've never been around a large group of their peers before. And I'm very curious how anyone 'teaches' dating (I assume you mean more than sex ed, which is a whole different issue with at least the US school system).  Which brings us to:

And I already know what you'll say: "But that's the parent's job".

Really?  Where did I say that?  Please quote directly because this isn't even a strawman, you're just making things up.

Weird because you just said home schooling is trash.

And again, where did I say that? When you have to misquote 'there's good and bad homeschooling just the same as there are good and bad school teachers' as 'all homeschooling is trash' you're not doing a very good job of supporting your argument.

Why do you leave all these crucial subjects up to home schooling? My parents taught me none of these things btw, why do I know them?

I learned them on my own. For free.

How is that possible? Without the guidance of education professionals and without paying any money, how did I learn all these crucial skills, including some that let me retire decades before my peers, many who have many more diplomas than me?

Not sure what validation you're looking for here.  You found your education (from both your parents and your specific school so this doesn't clarify your great solution) lacking and made up for it.  That's great, and I'm happy for you, but are you trying to say that no one could possibly have gotten where you are with a standard education?  That's an interesting perspective on a forum full of early retirees.

How did that happen? Am I just some kind of amazing genius?

How did what happen?  Again, you found something lacking and went looking for resources to make up for it.  Also again, that's great and something you should be proud of, but you're one person in several billion on this planet.  The idea that your way is the only way is lacking both self-reflection and critical thinking skills (which now makes me worry again for my first point, actually).

I don't expect to reply again...when someone is misquoting, inventing quotes, and creating obvious strawmen it's pretty obvious that they aren't interested in actual discussion and just want to be HAILED AS RIGHT.  I get enough of that volunteering with teenagers.

[onecoolcat]

More educated children in our communities directly improves our retirement regardless of whether we have children.  In fact, its absolutely essential to our retirements that enough babies are produced now and obtain a good education.  Nations with low birthrates are keenly aware of this and are purposely incentivizing young folks to have more kids (Japan, China, Russia, Australia, etc.).  Folks are sounding real ignorant when they say they should not have to contribute to funding public education. 

[poxpower]

I really didn't want to get into some debate about the logistics of revamping education.

None of you guys have so far addressed the core question that I raised: Is K-12 education worth 13 000$ per year and 20 000 hours in opportunity cost?

If it's not: What is it actually worth?

[SYNACK]

A lot of great arguments presented here. I fully support public education and happy that my tax dollars go to support it. And I hope we improve on it. I do a couple of points to add to the discussion:

If we shifted to homeschooling I think moms and single parents would be greatly affected.  Economically and in opportunities. Hope it is obvious here. And having parents at home with the right skills and patience is not always possible. There is no way my parents could have done it. My dad was a police officer and my mom was a home maker. Funny, way back when my mom tried to help me with my math homework in elementary school and I got a D (I think) on it. That was the last time I asked for her help with math :-)

When I was in middle school (I think in 8th grade) my buddy and I really liked math for some reason. We had this teacher at school that just knew how to explain it and made it interesting. At one point that buddy and I learned about something called calculus and we mentioned it to the teacher that we were wondering what is it all about. He was like oh I have the perfect book for both of you to read and few days later brought it to school and hand it to us to read. Then couple of weeks later asked us to explain to the class what we learned. That buddy ended up with a PhD in math many years later. A year later I got into programming (anyone remember the Commodore64?). I got one and got hooked badly. I couldn't stop programming and playing with it. A year or so later another teacher at school was telling me how computers worked and some interesting info about them. Then every once in a while asked me if I made some interesting program and to tell the class about it. I still remember him (I forgot his name though). Anyway, I ended up with an engineering degree. That teacher really sparked that interest in engineering and computers. And I'm about to retire early this year from a great engineering career at the age of 52. I'm trying to illustrate that schools also increase exposure to teachers, knowledge and possibilities.

Both of my kids graduated from public schools and both are in state universities. I think they got a pretty decent education. Yeah it could have been better. I could have home schooled them. Few months, a year or two, sure, but for 12 years? I don't think I could have provided the quality, variation and exposure they got at school.

So yeah I'm glad public education is socialized and like another poster up thread, provides a good educational baseline for society in general. That is a good thing imo.

Side note: I also think that it depends on the kid. Not everyone will benefit in the same way. So hard to know until you get through it. So would someone decide for a 5 or 6 year old if they will benefit or not? you really can't. So maybe if you are not happy with public schooling then augment it with home schooling. There is nothing wrong with that. But don't think replacing it makes sense.

[American GenX]

Folks are sounding real ignorant when they say they should not have to contribute to funding public education.

I don't mind paying some for public education, but as a single person with no kids, I shouldn't be having to pay MORE than the people who are directly taking advantage of it by popping out a bunch of kids and getting big tax credits and deductions while actually using more public resources as a family than I will ever begin to, while I subsidize costs for families.

[familyandfarming]

Retired teacher here. When I started teaching in 1980, my high school had the typical core teaching staff and had two special education teachers and zero special education para educators.

Fast forward to 2020, and though our enrollment never changed, we now have five special education teachers and sixteen special education associates. No additional core teaching positions have been added.

Did our student body get dumber?? No. But all across the US, state and federal governments have closed facilities that previously served and housed those needing deeper special education services.

That increased public school per pupil cost is for those special education needs. Schools are serving all students more than ever before. Before my retirement I had students with very severe and profound disabilities that I never encountered 40 years previously. I had one student with 3 associates. What was her per pupil cost? I loved working with her. She was better served in her home town school than in an institution 8 hours from home.


 

[PDXTabs]

The US public education system sucks. If money will make it better we need to spend more, not less, money on it. For anyone who doubts my assertion that US public education sucks I would direct you to the most recent OECD PISA results. This is for secondary school education, not post secondary where the USA still scores very well. But not everyone goes to post secondary education. China, Singapore, South Korea, Estonia, Poland, Canada, Finland, and New Zealand scored better than the USA in ever single metric (Mathematics, Science, and Reading). Surely that has an impact in economic productivity and competitiveness in the long term. Surely an investment in education is an investment in long term economic prosperity for the whole country.

This is a harsh and in my opinion unfair statement. US education results are certainly not where anyone would like them to be. That does not directly equate to the "system sucking." The situation is much more nuanced than that, although there are certainly improvements that can be made to the system - no arguments there.

You can have that opinion. I think that a 53 state system with varied funding per student within those states that results in worse math scores than China, Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Estonia, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Canada, Denmark, Slovenia, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway, Germany, Ireland, Czech Republic, Austria, Latvia, Vietnam, France, Iceland, New Zealand, Portugal, Australia, Russia, Italy, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Spain, and Hungary in the PISA sucks.

The people on this forum frequently remark that people in this country are willing to spend too much money on the wrong things. Is that perhaps because they never learned about exponential functions in high school?

[Chris Pascale]

"In the 60s, a man with a normal job was able to provide for a family of 4, in a normal neighborhood, owning a normal car, with a color TV. Today, the same is not possible, due to several factors".

Yes economic inequality is worse now by some measures, but I was able to do all of those things just recently, and I'm not even a man :P. I had the normal-est job you can imagine and was still able to save enough to retire by 40. Three cars, two kids, non-working spouse, big color TV, like you mentioned, even some mistakes like a too-big house. Tons of people on this board have retired early or have a non-working spouse.

Why do you think it's not possible, and why are you saying it to a bunch of people who have done it?

I'd also like to point out that those rosy '60s really sucked if you weren't white.  Or male.  Or straight.  Any of which could prevent you from providing for a family.

Or being molested, because "families just didn't talk about those kinds of things."

[Abe]

I really didn't want to get into some debate about the logistics of revamping education.

None of you guys have so far addressed the core question that I raised: Is K-12 education worth 13 000$ per year and 20 000 hours in opportunity cost?

If it's not: What is it actually worth?

According to my calculations in purely monetary terms: using compound interest at several rates:

at 4% compound interest, assuming the child was given the $13k saved per year plus interest and starts working at age 16 - versus the kid starts working at age 18 after graduating high school with $0 saved, and both retire at 65: it is worth it if the high-school graduate earns $7,700 per year more (or a job that pays $3.85 more per hour).

at 8% that difference needed is $16,700 ($8.35 per hour - interestingly!)
at 12% that difference needed is $31,000 ($15.50 per hour)

Since many high-paying jobs require K-12 education (or equivalent), I'd say yes it is worth the opportunity cost. Since someone will mention plumbers, they get paid a median of $56k in the US, with an inter-quartile range of $42-$75k. This is roughly similar to other trades, apparently (https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/plumber/salary). The majority of people who do not attain a high school education are something other than skilled tradesfolk in the US, since the median salary income is only $20k for them (versus about $30k for high-school but no college, and $56k for college-educated).

So I guess there are outliers in each group (plumbers being an outlier for the non-high school educated group). There are ~18m high-school dropouts (extrapolating from recent rates of dropout of 5-8%), and about 1m plumber & electrician positions in the country, and another 1m oil/gas positions (people tend to think of these as the high-paying jobs that don't require high school degrees).

Of course one could say that actually getting a high school degree isn't at all the same thing as having the educational level of a high-schooler, but in our degree-oriented economic system it is to a large extent (for better or worse).

[poxpower]

Since many high-paying jobs require K-12 education (or equivalent), I'd say yes it is worth the opportunity cost. degrees).

You are not accounting for the quarter million dollars and 20 000 hours that is spent on the child to get them to the point of earning that GED/high school diploma so they can get into higher education.

If you just invest the money, compound interest beats higher education:
https://www.thepoxbox.com/posts/the-true-cost-of-education

The point of this is to ask people: What if YOU had the money to spend, is that how you'd spend it? What else could you achieve with that?

[nereo]

I really didn't want to get into some debate about the logistics of revamping education.

None of you guys have so far addressed the core question that I raised: Is K-12 education worth 13 000$ per year and 20 000 hours in opportunity cost?

If it's not: What is it actually worth?

According to my calculations in purely monetary terms: using compound interest at several rates:

at 4% compound interest, assuming the child was given the $13k saved per year plus interest and starts working at age 16 - versus the kid starts working at age 18 after graduating high school with $0 saved, and both retire at 65: it is worth it if the high-school graduate earns $7,700 per year more (or a job that pays $3.85 more per hour).

at 8% that difference needed is $16,700 ($8.35 per hour - interestingly!)
at 12% that difference needed is $31,000 ($15.50 per hour)

Since many high-paying jobs require K-12 education (or equivalent), I'd say yes it is worth the opportunity cost. Since someone will mention plumbers, they get paid a median of $56k in the US, with an inter-quartile range of $42-$75k. This is roughly similar to other trades, apparently (https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/plumber/salary). The majority of people who do not attain a high school education are something other than skilled tradesfolk in the US, since the median salary income is only $20k for them (versus about $30k for high-school but no college, and $56k for college-educated).

So I guess there are outliers in each group (plumbers being an outlier for the non-high school educated group). There are ~18m high-school dropouts (extrapolating from recent rates of dropout of 5-8%), and about 1m plumber & electrician positions in the country, and another 1m oil/gas positions (people tend to think of these as the high-paying jobs that don't require high school degrees).

Of course one could say that actually getting a high school degree isn't at all the same thing as having the educational level of a high-schooler, but in our degree-oriented economic system it is to a large extent (for better or worse).

I’m trying to figure out where on earth poxpower came up with $13k per year (per household?) spent on education, and 20k hours. 

There are 122MM households in the US.  Obviously tax burdens are not the same but 122MM x $13k = $1.59T.  That eclipses what’s spent on the entire educational system per year.

20k hours?  Most parents I know will tell you that school saves them an enormous amount of time they’d otherwise have to spent on educating their kids.  Most use that time at least partially to work.

Like most of the arguments th numbers are so gobsmackingly wrong that the underlying premise is meaningless.  Or did I completely miss something here

[wageslave23]

I don't really agree with paying parents to homeschool though - it seems like there's a lot of potential for it to lead to parents homeschooling for the wrong reason and kids falling through the cracks.

You're not paying them you're giving them their money back.
That money belongs to the kids. It is set aside for their education.

You homeschooled your kid but the school kept your money. How is that fair? If K-12 was any good how could it POSSIBLY be that home schooling even remotely competes with that system, which is supposedly staffed with experimented and educated professionals all directed by experts?

...

I've never understood this "give them their money back" attitude either.

I enjoy living in a first world country which educates all students from the general tax fund.  It's a clear benefit to all of us to have an educated populace.

But if we taxpayers are suddenly allowed to cherry pick what we will and will not pay for, where does it end?  How about I decide I no longer want to use public parks but instead demand a refund of my tax money that supports the parks so I can use it for a vacation at a resort?   
Or I demand a refund of my tax money that supports libraries because I buy all of my own books and never use the library? 
Or I decide that because I never use the roadways in the rural parts of the state that my taxes supporting those roads should be refunded to me?

I wish all of these libertarian types would all move to one area and enjoy their dog-eat-dogistan life.

Its all on a spectrum.  Should we all start pooling our money together and let the government buy us our groceries?  Should the government handle upkeep of our yards and houses like one giant HOA?  Its a matter of opinion.  Generally most fiscally responsible people like to be charged only for what they use and decide exactly how and on what they spend their money. They already try to make it more fair by having tolls and gas taxes for road use.  With technology now, they could track exactly which roads you use and charge accordingly.  People who are "green" should be all for that.  If they refunded me the $5k/yr in property taxes that go towards schools, I could probably afford to pay for my kids' k-12 education (5 x 40 yrs = 200k).  I'm not saying I support that, but I could definitely see that perspective if the local school wasn't up to my standards.  Just like if I didn't like the food that the government was buying me with the pooled money. 

[former player]

I don't really agree with paying parents to homeschool though - it seems like there's a lot of potential for it to lead to parents homeschooling for the wrong reason and kids falling through the cracks.

You're not paying them you're giving them their money back.
That money belongs to the kids. It is set aside for their education.

You homeschooled your kid but the school kept your money. How is that fair? If K-12 was any good how could it POSSIBLY be that home schooling even remotely competes with that system, which is supposedly staffed with experimented and educated professionals all directed by experts?

...

I've never understood this "give them their money back" attitude either.

I enjoy living in a first world country which educates all students from the general tax fund.  It's a clear benefit to all of us to have an educated populace.

But if we taxpayers are suddenly allowed to cherry pick what we will and will not pay for, where does it end?  How about I decide I no longer want to use public parks but instead demand a refund of my tax money that supports the parks so I can use it for a vacation at a resort?   
Or I demand a refund of my tax money that supports libraries because I buy all of my own books and never use the library? 
Or I decide that because I never use the roadways in the rural parts of the state that my taxes supporting those roads should be refunded to me?

I wish all of these libertarian types would all move to one area and enjoy their dog-eat-dogistan life.

Its all on a spectrum.  Should we all start pooling our money together and let the government buy us our groceries?  Should the government handle upkeep of our yards and houses like one giant HOA?  Its a matter of opinion.  Generally most fiscally responsible people like to be charged only for what they use and decide exactly how and on what they spend their money. They already try to make it more fair by having tolls and gas taxes for road use.  With technology now, they could track exactly which roads you use and charge accordingly.  People who are "green" should be all for that.  If they refunded me the $5k/yr in property taxes that go towards schools, I could probably afford to pay for my kids' k-12 education (5 x 40 yrs = 200k).  I'm not saying I support that, but I could definitely see that perspective if the local school wasn't up to my standards.  Just like if I didn't like the food that the government was buying me with the pooled money.

Modern societies (any sustainable human society, as far as I know) cannot survive the sort of atomisation that you suggest, and "fiscally responsible" does not have to mean destructively selfish and self-isolating.

There is a spectrum between "all government" and "no government", but the human experience at either end of the spectrum has been, and continues to be, an unhappy one.  The societies where the greatest good is being done for the greatest number have publicly funded roads, education, health care and policing.  Anyone who doesn't like it is probably free to go live in Somalia.  Or Venezuela.  Or any other of the dozens of failed States currently inhabiting the planet.

[JoePublic3.14]

Are you going to argue next that those without children, or those who’s children have grown into adults shouldn’t pay for schools either?

That wasn't asked of me, but that's the position I take for people that NEVER had kids.  As it is now, those people are paying higher taxes - they don't those child tax credits and deductions, yet they never had kids in school while paying more.  More, or rather all, of the cost burden should be on those actually using the schools.   More kids in school, pay higher taxes or fees.  Child tax credits should be completely eliminated.  You shouldn't be rewarded with more of my money simply because you chose to have a bunch of kids while I'm paying for your kids' education at the same time.

I don't and won't have kids. I am hugely in favor of my tax dollars supporting public education because I'm looking beyond myself and toward the future. Again, for libertarians, where does it end? Most of us DO value living in a society with public goods and services.

I don’t mind the taxes, but I do agree with the viewpoint that more kids should equal more taxes, not the opposite. And I’d like it to be quite progressive. That may even help a couple other issues…

Why?
Who do you think will pay into social security to fund your benefits,  and keep the economy growing, and wipe your ass for you when you get too old? We already disincentivize having kids enough in this country with high hospital bills and childcare costs, and shitty parental leave policies, to that point that economists are worried about birth rates falling below replacement levels for the first time ever.

American GenX gave a good response.

Have kids, but pay for kids. Incentivizing people to have kids through tax breaks, judicious parental leave, free hospital and the such surely leads to some people having kids for the wrong reason. Though I freely admit I can’t think of a right reason to have kids….

I am confident we would figure out how to be successful as a society with half the population. I am not going to lay out a plan, since there is no way it would ever be needed, sadly.

[BeanCounter]

This somehow turned into the most ridiculous thread ever.

The notion that people are having kids for the tax deduction is ridiculous. I have two kids and the that tax deduction doesn't even begin to cover their cost. And someday I hope that they will be productive human beings that will be paying into the SS & Medicare system that the rest of us will hopefully be receiving checks from.

[nereo]

This somehow turned into the most ridiculous thread ever.

...but it had such potential from the get-go!

[chemistk]

Since many high-paying jobs require K-12 education (or equivalent), I'd say yes it is worth the opportunity cost. degrees).

You are not accounting for the quarter million dollars and 20 000 hours that is spent on the child to get them to the point of earning that GED/high school diploma so they can get into higher education.

If you just invest the money, compound interest beats higher education:
https://www.thepoxbox.com/posts/the-true-cost-of-education

The point of this is to ask people: What if YOU had the money to spend, is that how you'd spend it? What else could you achieve with that?

Why....do you care so much? You don't have kids and are old enough that meaningful changes to the education system won't be realized in your working years.

@familyandfarming hit the nail on the head, and I personally don't think $13,000 is enough.

My wife's three youngest siblings have autism. The youngest (twins) are now 16 and will need lifelong care. They will never be able to live on their own. Your ethical views on educating kids who will never economically contribute to society aside, having been around them for so long has highlighted just how many people we have in modern society who need special education services.

In a free-for-all "best allocation of resources" system, these kids lose. Every time. Why spend time educating kids who will never be top-performers. People (like my wife's other sibling) who will be janitors and health aides because their disabilities prevent them from working as engineers or doctors.

These kids need orders of magnitude more attention than the rest. They often have a 1:1 or 1:2 student:teacher ratio, they often have their own classrooms, lunches, transportation, etc. The requires dedicated support from people who had to go to school for at least 4, and often 6 years to be able to successfully qualify to be educators for kids with special needs.

If these services were not publicly available, the options for my MIL, or the parents of no fewer than three of our oldest son's friends, or the hundreds of thousands of other kids with physical and intellectual disabilities would be severely limited. Nobody wants to create private schools for kids with special needs. It's a losing venture, almost every time. These kids are the ones that fall through the cracks when mandatory implementation of those programs is removed.

You know what else that $13,000 gets spent on? Free or reduced cost lunches for kids who are in food-insecure homes. Yes, right now many districts have this open to all kids, but you know what else that does? It removes the stigma from kids who must accept the subsidized food as social outcasts - when half their friends are taking the free option, they don't feel like the outliers.

Or how about transportation? How many dollars have to go to sprawling/rural districts where busses run dozens or hundreds of miles a day to bring kids to and from school?

Or what about infrastructure - how many schools right now are crumbling because districts don't have the funding to keep the lights, power, or HVAC functioning?

And you know what else I'm glad my money goes towards - paying the people who currently educate my kids. The people who are working on a daily basis to form a personal connection with each student in the classroom, putting in more time ten they're paid for, putting in their own cash to stock classrooms with supplies. The person who exists because she is far better equipped with patience and creativity than myself or my wife. I want her, her colleagues, and teachers across the board to be paid more. To have more access to leaves and time off. To not have to stock her classroom with basic supplies out of her own pocket.

Yours is a myopic, blindered view on a topic where you also don't have a firsthand perspective on how the current education system is actually treating kids.

ETA: Yes, I have engaged in whataboutism - but I feel it's warranted in the situation for the reason I cite directly above this sentence.

[BeanCounter]

Yours is a myopic, blindered view on a topic where you also don't have a firsthand perspective on how the current education system is actually treating kids.

BINGO

[mathlete]

Daily I notice brand-new $60k pickup trucks

I also dislike America's taste for pickup trucks. And yes, they are the most popular type of new vehicle sold right now. But it's worth noting that the average vehicle on the road is 12 years old. Most people are driving something much more sensible.

[ChpBstrd]

The US public education system sucks. If money will make it better we need to spend more, not less, money on it. For anyone who doubts my assertion that US public education sucks I would direct you to the most recent OECD PISA results. This is for secondary school education, not post secondary where the USA still scores very well. But not everyone goes to post secondary education. China, Singapore, South Korea, Estonia, Poland, Canada, Finland, and New Zealand scored better than the USA in ever single metric (Mathematics, Science, and Reading). Surely that has an impact in economic productivity and competitiveness in the long term. Surely an investment in education is an investment in long term economic prosperity for the whole country.

This is a harsh and in my opinion unfair statement. US education results are certainly not where anyone would like them to be. That does not directly equate to the "system sucking." The situation is much more nuanced than that, although there are certainly improvements that can be made to the system - no arguments there.

Here's a thought you'll NEVER hear from politicians:

Our schools are awesome but American parents suck. They don't read to their kids. They don't enforce bedtimes or screen-free times. They don't help their kids with homework, or any tutoring on the side. They're more interested in whatever show is popular at the moment or what's on social media than what's going on in their kids lives. They feed their kids trash food like fast food and sugar-laced everything. And most of all they don't read books or exhibit any intellectual curiosity themselves, setting a bad example.

Then when their kids' teacher mentions that the kid is not doing well, they get defensive and blame the teacher. They've got an excuse or someone to blame for everything, and their kids learn that attitude too.

[mathlete]

Public education kicks ass. I spent 14 years as a working adult paying taxes before having kids and for my money, public education was the best thing it went to. And when my kids are out of school, I look forward to paying school taxes for many years to come. I want my neighbors to be educated. I want my neighbors' kids to be educated. I want the country I live in to have the highest educated and most competitive workforce possible.

Something I've noticed, is that successful people tend to undervalue K-12. When you're successful, you tend to be around a lot of other successful and educated people. High school drop outs are virtually invisible to you. And you end up taking a bunch of stuff for granted.

[mathlete]

Here's a thought you'll NEVER hear from politicians:

Our schools are awesome but American parents suck. They don't read to their kids. They don't enforce bedtimes or screen-free times. They don't help their kids with homework, or any tutoring on the side. They're more interested in whatever show is popular at the moment or what's on social media than what's going on in their kids lives. They feed their kids trash food like fast food and sugar-laced everything. And most of all they don't read books or exhibit any intellectual curiosity themselves, setting a bad example.

Then when their kids' teacher mentions that the kid is not doing well, they get defensive and blame the teacher. They've got an excuse or someone to blame for everything, and their kids learn that attitude too.

In defense of parents, I've tried to find data on screen time and it's largely not available yet, or inconclusive. I have a strong feeling that it's bad for developing kids, but I'm uncertain of the specifics on how much and of what kind. I'm just using my best judgement. I think it will turn out well for my kids, but I imagine most parents don't read the literature. They may not have the luxury of time to.

It seems obvious that screen time is bad. And I think most people know that on an intuitive level. But by the same token, it should have seemed obvious that cigarettes were bad simply from the fact that they make you cough as if you were sick when you're (ostensibly) not sick. Still though, it took decades of research and outreach to curb teen smoking.

The world is big and complicated now, and while I think, "Parents should do better" is an acceptable place to land here, they probably need very specific directives on what "better" means.

[PDXTabs]

They feed their kids trash food like fast food and sugar-laced everything.

I strongly agree, but have you seen school lunches? Have you seen what's in the vending machines in high schools? Have you seen the government food recommendations? One of the things that we should be teaching kids in schools is how to eat.

[poxpower]

I’m trying to figure out where on earth poxpower came up with $13k per year (per household?) spent on education, and 20k hours. 

[/quote]

The sources are in the article.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/2021/cmd_508c.pdf

In 2017 it was $14 100 per full-time student.

The hours are also in the sources, it's the hours spent in school  plus doing homework by the average student.

The societies where the greatest good is being done for the greatest number have publicly funded roads, education, health care and policing.

That was true when those countries spent only a fraction of what they spend now and had nearly none of the services they provide today.

They feed their kids trash food like fast food and sugar-laced everything.

I strongly agree

Therefore we need public nutrition programs, right?
Can you imagine people being in charge of their own nutrition? That's whack!

Without the Public Nutrition and Fitness Program, people wouldn't be fed. I need a nation to eat. Everyone knows that eating is necessary, only a fool would ever oppose the Public Nutrition and Fitness Program.

[onecoolcat]

Folks are sounding real ignorant when they say they should not have to contribute to funding public education.

I don't mind paying some for public education, but as a single person with no kids, I shouldn't be having to pay MORE than the people who are directly taking advantage of it by popping out a bunch of kids and getting big tax credits and deductions while actually using more public resources as a family than I will ever begin to, while I subsidize costs for families.

You do directly benefit from people "popping out a bunch of kids" and also contributing to their education because a declining population and illiterate generation will destroy your retirement prospects.  We need enough young people to work in our grocery stores and are pharmacies among all other services we overlook.

[nereo]

I’m trying to figure out where on earth poxpower came up with $13k per year (per household?) spent on education, and 20k hours. 

The sources are in the article.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/2021/cmd_508c.pdf

In 2017 it was $14 100 per full-time student.

The hours are also in the sources, it's the hours spent in school  plus doing homework by the average student.
[/quote]

Ok.  That's why your numbers are seem so completely off-base. Schools are funded by all tax-payers, not just those who currently have school-aged children.
What you are proposing is taking that same pot of money, giving it only to people who have children and then hoping they have better outcomes.  As I've said this sounds like a dystopian hell to me.

Also, the 20,000 hours is far more than the total number of hours per year (8,760).  "Full-time" averages to about 2,000 hours per year.