Is this the end for public schools?

[Shane]

As was clearly stated in the news clip above, Governor Abbott wasn't arguing about the need to teach ESL in TX's schools, only about who should pay for it. Seemed pretty reasonable to me.

[JGS1980]

As was clearly stated in the news clip above, Governor Abbott wasn't arguing about the need to teach ESL in TX's schools, only about who should pay for it. Seemed pretty reasonable to me.

Let's say Abbott wins this new lawsuit and Texas no longer has to pay for it, do you honestly believe that the funding shortfall will miraculously appear out of thin air?

The whole point of the lawsuit is to be allowed to withdrawal funding.

[zolotiyeruki]

I was discussing this with my teenage daughter yesterday.  It's an exceedingly complicated issue that extends its tendrils into all sorts of other public policy.

Certainly the kids aren't to blame for their situation, and it seems unfair for them to bear the burden.  But then, who should pay for their education?  On the one hand, Abbott has a point--it is an unfunded mandate, and Texas bears a disproportionate share of a cost which is incurred due to a national policy.  Politicians in northern states have little incentive to provide national funding for a problem that doesn't affect their constituents (as much).

[chemistk]

It would seem that Plyer is on much sturdier footing than Roe, according to legal scholars and so there's not a big change that it would get overturned should it actually be brought before the court.

But despite that, the intent is pretty bad (unless you're Greg Abbott) - where else would those kids go, if not school? I'd bet that there would be a sharp rise in crime in communities with large numbers of immigrants.

And yet, i also do sort of see the point - it is indeed expensive to provide education to those children and while it's clear that the cost is on the state and not just the local communities, it's something that border states do have to shell out more funds for.

But just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's something that needs to be tossed out. We discussed earlier in the thread the need for special education and the disproportionate burden those services place on school budgets. Despite being citizens, why wouldn't we just eliminate those services and simply provide exemptions for children with learning disorders for attending school? It's not as salient of a dog-whistle as further beating the shit out of undocumented immigrants but the intended effects would be the same.

[Psychstache]

I was discussing this with my teenage daughter yesterday.  It's an exceedingly complicated issue that extends its tendrils into all sorts of other public policy.

Certainly the kids aren't to blame for their situation, and it seems unfair for them to bear the burden.  But then, who should pay for their education?  On the one hand, Abbott has a point--it is an unfunded mandate, and Texas bears a disproportionate share of a cost which is incurred due to a national policy.  Politicians in northern states have little incentive to provide national funding for a problem that doesn't affect their constituents (as much).

That would be a worthwhile argument if the state did not continually do the same thing. Every two years, the Texas Congress passes a flurry of new mandates that the public schools have to put in place, while at the same time doing nothing to adjust funding for schools (or things like their current fuckery of trying to pass constitutional amendments to permanently lower property taxes AKA  reduce schools funding).

[zolotiyeruki]

I was discussing this with my teenage daughter yesterday.  It's an exceedingly complicated issue that extends its tendrils into all sorts of other public policy.

Certainly the kids aren't to blame for their situation, and it seems unfair for them to bear the burden.  But then, who should pay for their education?  On the one hand, Abbott has a point--it is an unfunded mandate, and Texas bears a disproportionate share of a cost which is incurred due to a national policy.  Politicians in northern states have little incentive to provide national funding for a problem that doesn't affect their constituents (as much).

That would be a worthwhile argument if the state did not continually do the same thing. Every two years, the Texas Congress passes a flurry of new mandates that the public schools have to put in place, while at the same time doing nothing to adjust funding for schools (or things like their current fuckery of trying to pass constitutional amendments to permanently lower property taxes AKA  reduce schools funding).

Unfunded state mandates are definitely an issue, but in this case the politicians passing the laws are the same ones whose constituents bear the tax burden. I think that's a key distinction.

[Shane]

It's not fair to demand TX taxpayers foot the entire bill to provide ESL classes for migrants. Since the entire country benefits from immigration, it makes sense that the federal government should pay. Either that, or TX could do like Trump, bus migrants up to San Francisco or NYC, and let blue state taxpayers educate them.

[JGS1980]

It's not fair to demand TX taxpayers foot the entire bill to provide ESL classes for migrants. Since the entire country benefits from immigration, it makes sense that the federal government should pay. Either that, or TX could do like Trump, bus migrants up to San Francisco or NYC, and let blue state taxpayers educate them.

And yet when the federal government funds things like, say, universal health insurance, Texas rejects it on principle as it is a form of government overreach!!! Stop fooling yourself...there are no principles here, its not even about money, its about power and manipulating the voting base.

[lifeisshort123]

It seems to me it is very easy to help public schools and teachers in general:

1. Base Salary for teachers should begin somewhere around the median worker income in this country.  Right now that is around $67k, so $67-70k seems like a reasonable starting salary.
2. Guarantee teachers COLA adjustments that mimic Social Security adjustments.  One of the biggest challenges teachers have is the limited ability to meaningfully grow their income over a career, compared to many other professions.
3. Give them administrators and boards that support and empower teachers.
4. Give them time during their work day to attend to their duties as professionals - don’t make them teach non-stop (private schools overall do this much better than public schools).
5. When they are obliged to return to school after hours, pay them a stipend that is at least equal to half of their normal salaried rate (Parent teacher conferences, late night sports games, etc.)

[maizefolk]

As of this summer, the median full time worker in the USA makes about $1,045/week or ~$54,000 a year. (source). Perhaps you are looking at the median household income, which includes a lot of households with two income earners?

I couldn't find a good source specifically for starting pay for teachers but the median teacher ("Preschool, Elementary, Middle, Secondary, and Special Education Teachers") in the USA makes ~$61,000 which is more than the median worker.

[lifeisshort123]

Perhaps this isn’t the best way to do this, but here is the most recent jobs data:

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

In August, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by
10 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $32.36.

If you take that number $32.36 x 40 x 52 = $67,308.80 I believe.

[maizefolk]

So I think there are two big drivers that are differentiating the actual median annual income reported by BLS of $54k/year (see link in my previous post) and your approach to calculate a median annual income from BLS's average hourly income are:

1) You're looking at the average hourly wage which is going to be substantially higher than the median hourly wage because the average is skewed by a few extremely high earners (in your first post you referred to setting teacher pay relative to the median salary).

2) You're approach assumes everyone works exactly 40 hours a week, while the average employee actually works about 35 paid hours a year (again according to the BLS). This is quite comparable to the average of 34.5 hours per year a typical teacher reports working (38.0 hours per week during the school year and 21.5 hours per week during the summer months) (source).

[Morning Glory]

As of this summer, the median full time worker in the USA makes about $1,045/week or ~$54,000 a year. (source). Perhaps you are looking at the median household income, which includes a lot of households with two income earners?

I couldn't find a good source specifically for starting pay for teachers but the median teacher ("Preschool, Elementary, Middle, Secondary, and Special Education Teachers") in the USA makes ~$61,000 which is more than the median worker.

Wouldn't it be more fair to compare teachers to only other workers with bachelor's degrees,  instead of all other workers?

[maizefolk]

Wouldn't it be more fair to compare teachers to only other workers with bachelor's degrees,  instead of all other workers?

I was trying to come up with stats to test how far we currently are from lifeisshort123’s proposal that teachers should start out earning more than the median American. For that purpose I don’t think it makes sense to add additional conditions not in lifeisshort’s original proposal.

It is indeed an interesting question though. The link in my last post about the number of hours teachers work per year also does some comparisons of hourly income against demographically similar no-teachers (similar age/education/etc) and HS teachers come out a bit below their peer group in terms of pay, while elementary school teachers come out a bit ahead.

[charis]

Wouldn't it be more fair to compare teachers to only other workers with bachelor's degrees,  instead of all other workers?

I was trying to come up with stats to test how far we currently are from lifeisshort123’s proposal that teachers should start out earning more than the median American. For that purpose I don’t think it makes sense to add additional conditions not in lifeisshort’s original proposal.

It is indeed an interesting question though. The link in my last post about the number of hours teachers work per year also does some comparisons of hourly income against demographically similar no-teachers (similar age/education/etc) and HS teachers come out a bit below their peer group in terms of pay, while elementary school teachers come out a bit ahead.

Does that account for extra program salary, coaching, and summer hours? It seems, anecdotally, that elementary school teachers are more likely to teach summer school.

[mm1970]

It's not fair to demand TX taxpayers foot the entire bill to provide ESL classes for migrants. Since the entire country benefits from immigration, it makes sense that the federal government should pay. Either that, or TX could do like Trump, bus migrants up to San Francisco or NYC, and let blue state taxpayers educate them.

Um, do you think we don't?  I'm in California.  A fairly hefty percentage of the students in my kids' schools are undocumented.  We pay to educate them.  I do it gladly.

[Shane]

It's not fair to demand TX taxpayers foot the entire bill to provide ESL classes for migrants. Since the entire country benefits from immigration, it makes sense that the federal government should pay. Either that, or TX could do like Trump, bus migrants up to San Francisco or NYC, and let blue state taxpayers educate them.

Um, do you think we don't?  I'm in California.  A fairly hefty percentage of the students in my kids' schools are undocumented.  We pay to educate them.  I do it gladly.

For a long time, border states, CA being one of them, have disproportionately borne the burdens of our country's broken immigration system. It's easy for politicians representing districts hundreds/thousands of miles from the US southern border to mouth support for releasing asylum seekers into the US to await hearings, knowing full-well that most of them will never make it all the way up to DC, NYC, Boston, Minneapolis or wherever. I think Governor Abbott's strategy of bussing illegal immigrants north to Democrat controlled cities is pretty smart. It's easy for those of us who only benefit from illegal immigration to support it. Since people hurt by illegal immigration generally don't vote, politicians can safely assume that doing nothing on immigration reform won't hurt them at the polls.

[LonerMatt]

That's a brazen way to label dehumanising people (literally treating them like movable objects to further an argument) as 'smart'.

[Shane]

Something needs to happen to force Congress into action on immigration reform. If it takes dropping hundreds of asylum seekers off in Times Square or at Pike Place Market to push our elected officials to do their jobs, so be it.

[JGS1980]

Something needs to happen to force Congress into action on immigration reform. If it takes dropping hundreds of asylum seekers off in Times Square or at Pike Place Market to push our elected officials to do their jobs, so be it.

"Something needs to happen"? The GOP faithful have no interest in "reforming" immigration. Immigrants are the bogeyman that they have built, and they want to keep it that way. Last time they tried to reform immigration in the mid2000's with George W, there was an uprising in the rank and file (see: Tea Party). We couldn't possibly allow the 12-15 million undocumented folks in the USA a path to legal employment because that would be unfair to those folks already here /s.

This eventually led to platforms like "build the wall", which actually doesn't keep anyone out at all and costs billions upon billions of dollars because of "good optics".

Any solutions, Shane, to this quandary?

JGS

[zolotiyeruki]

Something needs to happen to force Congress into action on immigration reform. If it takes dropping hundreds of asylum seekers off in Times Square or at Pike Place Market to push our elected officials to do their jobs, so be it.

"Something needs to happen"? The GOP faithful have no interest in "reforming" immigration. Immigrants are the bogeyman that they have built, and they want to keep it that way. Last time they tried to reform immigration in the mid2000's with George W, there was an uprising in the rank and file (see: Tea Party). We couldn't possibly allow the 12-15 million undocumented folks in the USA a path to legal employment because that would be unfair to those folks already here /s.

This eventually led to platforms like "build the wall", which actually doesn't keep anyone out at all and costs billions upon billions of dollars because of "good optics".

Uh, my recollection is that the rise of the Tea Party ("Taxed Enough Already"?) happened more during the beginning of the Obama presidency, not as a reaction to proposed immigration reform.

Let's not forget that from 2008 to 2010, the democrats had control of the presidency and both houses of congress, including a filibuster-proof majority in the senate, and yet they didn't pass immigration reform, so let's not pretend that they're any better on the issue.

I'm pretty conservative, but I agree that our immigration system *does* need an overhaul.  The time and expense required for someone to immigrate is stupid.  That said, as someone far smarter than me said (and I paraphrase): "You can have open borders, or you can have a welfare state, but you can't have both and survive."

[GuitarStv]

Uh, my recollection is that the rise of the Tea Party ("Taxed Enough Already"?) happened more during the beginning of the Obama presidency, not as a reaction to proposed immigration reform.

The tea party in the US happened when the Koch brothers decided it would be a good idea . . . and started putting their vast wealth into astroturfing the movement through pretty massive media investment and buying key politicians in a variety of smaller political races around the country.  Initially it seemed to have more to do with encouraging climate change than immigration, although by 2013 the anti-immigration stance of the tea party was quite solidly established.

[Shane]

Something needs to happen to force Congress into action on immigration reform. If it takes dropping hundreds of asylum seekers off in Times Square or at Pike Place Market to push our elected officials to do their jobs, so be it.

"Something needs to happen"? The GOP faithful have no interest in "reforming" immigration. Immigrants are the bogeyman that they have built, and they want to keep it that way. Last time they tried to reform immigration in the mid2000's with George W, there was an uprising in the rank and file (see: Tea Party). We couldn't possibly allow the 12-15 million undocumented folks in the USA a path to legal employment because that would be unfair to those folks already here /s.

This eventually led to platforms like "build the wall", which actually doesn't keep anyone out at all and costs billions upon billions of dollars because of "good optics".

Any solutions, Shane, to this quandary?

JGS

Immigrants literally built our country and continue to provide much needed labor today. The US is in a much better position than countries like Japan that have traditionally been more resistant to immigration. Every time I hear someone say, "Thank you for your service," to a person who was in the military, I think to myself, we should be saying that to immigrants, too. The US government has done a really poor job at supporting immigrants and making the case to the US public that immigrants are GOOD for our country. It's tough to argue to mainstream Americans that immigrants are good, though, when there are 10s of MMs of them living and working here illegally.

My suggestion would be that we make it practically impossible for anyone to live and work in the US without going through legal immigration channels. It's not rocket science. All we need to do is follow through and actually require that everyone get Real ID. Right now, the feds are saying Real ID is going to be required to board a plane, as of May 3, 2023. That's fine, but I think we should expand that to include getting a job, apartment, bank account, etc.

It will never work to demonize, arrest, prosecute, and deport illegal workers. As long as there is demand in the US, desparate people will continue to come. We can build all the walls we want, but it'll barely even put a dent in levels of illegal immigration. What we need to do is target the employers. If we wanted to, we could easily make it painful enough for employers to hire illegal workers that they would stop. Fine a homeowner $10K for hiring undocumented workers to paint his house, word'll get around real fast that that's a bad idea. Hit a small contractor with a $50K fine for employing illegals, he'll think twice next time. Fine Tyson Foods $1BB for employing hundreds/thousands of illegal workers, and they'll quit hiring them. When it becomes impossible for people without legal authorization to find work in the US, they'll stop coming.

Long before that happens, though, rich business owners, chambers of commerce, homeowners, restaurant owners, etc., will be screaming at their US reps in Congress to do something, because we NEED ALL THOSE WORKERS! Knowingly allowing tens of millions of undocumented workers to remain in our country totally benefits all of us posting here on this board. It hurts poor Americans, though, and, most of all, it hurts the immigrants themselves.

[JGS1980]

Shane, we are in complete agreement!

Society needs to make it cost prohibitive to break the law in regards to hiring undocumented employees. 10K per homeowner hiring a painter, 100K per employee per corporation would be fine for me as well. You not only need to fine the corp, but also any subcontractor (i.e. folks who do the cleaning at Walmarts or Wendy's overnight) who hires undocumented folks to do the job.

But I also believe that, before this new law comes into effect, there should be a 6 month "come to God" period where employers and employees pay a nominal fine and obtain legal status. This should be followed by a more generous legal immigration process that allows supply of workers to meet the demand at any given time for our economy.

P.S. In regards to democrats having a filibuster proof majority in 2008-2010. They actually only had 14 weeks because of the combination of Minnesota Senate Al Franken election recount and Ted Kennedy's brain cancer and death. They chose to prioritize Healthcare reform instead of Immigration (and a number of other causes).

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/about-filibuster-proof-majority/

Also, so 50 current Republican Senators are against immigration reform, so you blame the 47-48 Democrats who support reform? Explain that one to me...

[PathtoFIRE]

"You can have open borders, or you can have a welfare state, but you can't have both and survive."

I don't have deep knowledge on this subject, but I have read that studies show that immigration has been a net positive in the US, and that undocumented workers specifically pay more into the system than they receive in benefits. If true, wouldn't this mean that you could have both?

It also occurred to me that maybe I misunderstood this statement, and that instead it is suggesting that our welfare state benefits from taking in tax dollars from undocumented workers who lack the ability to turn around and claim all of the benefits that citizens are entitled to. That if we provided a path to residency or citizenship, they would be in a legal position to claim all and not just some of the benefits, depriving the system of their excess $$. I'm not aware of data or studies to this effect, but it should be quantifiable to a large extent.

[zolotiyeruki]

"You can have open borders, or you can have a welfare state, but you can't have both and survive."

I don't have deep knowledge on this subject, but I have read that studies show that immigration has been a net positive in the US, and that undocumented workers specifically pay more into the system than they receive in benefits. If true, wouldn't this mean that you could have both?

It also occurred to me that maybe I misunderstood this statement, and that instead it is suggesting that our welfare state benefits from taking in tax dollars from undocumented workers who lack the ability to turn around and claim all of the benefits that citizens are entitled to. That if we provided a path to residency or citizenship, they would be in a legal position to claim all and not just some of the benefits, depriving the system of their excess $$. I'm not aware of data or studies to this effect, but it should be quantifiable to a large extent.

I have knowledge or inclination to state that immigration has been a detriment to the country--far from it!  Like most proverbs, the quip isn't an absolute truth, and reality doesn't match its absolute premises.  The meaning is that you can either have open borders, but make no promises of universal benefits, or you can have closed borders and provide benefits, but you cannot sustainably allow everybody in with no documentation and provide free schools, healthcare, public services, etc.  If you try to do both, you end up with the current situation, where Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico have to pay for the increased educational, medical, law enforcement, etc costs associated with the increased population, without the tax revenue that those residents would presumably provide if they were legal residents.

I.e. it's highly unlikely that an immigrant family of 4 with two school aged kids and parents working under the table is going to contribute enough tax revenue to offset the cost of educating those two kids.

As for providing a legal path for citizenship for those already in the country ("amnesty"), there are a couple of concerns: 1) the appearance of preferential treatment of those who knowingly broke the law (by immigrating illegally) over those who are going through the onerous process of legally immigrating, 2) nothing being put into place to prevent this exact situation from happening again, and 3) the practicalities of implementing it ("how do we know who was here before such-and-such a date, so we can give them a path to citizenship?")

It's a huge, and exceedingly gnarly, issue that needs solving.  And politicians HATE solving gnarly problems, whether it's an HOA board or the President of the US, because it takes work (and there will always be someone who gets hurt and who can be paraded about on the news as the victim).  It's much easier to run about handing out legislative lollipops to special interest babies.

[GuitarStv]

I have knowledge or inclination to state that immigration has been a detriment to the country--far from it!  Like most proverbs, the quip isn't an absolute truth, and reality doesn't match its absolute premises.  The meaning is that you can either have open borders, but make no promises of universal benefits, or you can have closed borders and provide benefits, but you cannot sustainably allow everybody in with no documentation and provide free schools, healthcare, public services, etc.  If you try to do both, you end up with the current situation, where Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico have to pay for the increased educational, medical, law enforcement, etc costs associated with the increased population, without the tax revenue that those residents would presumably provide if they were legal residents.

I dunno . . . illegal immigrants pay an awful lot of taxes.

They pay sales tax on anything they buy.  They pay property tax if they own land.  About half of them are working with fake SSNs, which means they're even paying payroll taxes and contributing to social security that they can never benefit from.  Illegal immigrants pay billions of dollars in tax every year . . . estimated at just under 12 billion dolllars in 2017 - https://itep.org/immigration/

The situation you're describing above where freeloading immigrants are taking and taking doesn't mesh well with known facts.

[zolotiyeruki]

I have knowledge or inclination to state that immigration has been a detriment to the country--far from it!  Like most proverbs, the quip isn't an absolute truth, and reality doesn't match its absolute premises.  The meaning is that you can either have open borders, but make no promises of universal benefits, or you can have closed borders and provide benefits, but you cannot sustainably allow everybody in with no documentation and provide free schools, healthcare, public services, etc.  If you try to do both, you end up with the current situation, where Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico have to pay for the increased educational, medical, law enforcement, etc costs associated with the increased population, without the tax revenue that those residents would presumably provide if they were legal residents.

I dunno . . . illegal immigrants pay an awful lot of taxes.

They pay sales tax on anything they buy.  They pay property tax if they own land.  About half of them are working with fake SSNs, which means they're even paying payroll taxes and contributing to social security that they can never benefit from.  Illegal immigrants pay billions of dollars in tax every year . . . estimated at just under 12 billion dolllars in 2017 - https://itep.org/immigration/

The situation you're describing above where freeloading immigrants are taking and taking doesn't mesh well with known facts.

I don't know the actual numbers, but if yours are accurate, $12B is a drop in the bucket.  That's $12B in taxes for roughly 12 million people, or roughly $1k/person, compared to $2.1T for the roughly 350 million other people, or $6k/person.  What form does that $12B take?  Without an SSN, it couldn't be federal income taxes, so it'd have to be only state and local taxes, which makes that number look even smaller.

How are they contributing to Social Security, if they don't have an SSN?  And if they *are* using an SSN, whose SSN are they using?

[GuitarStv]

I have knowledge or inclination to state that immigration has been a detriment to the country--far from it!  Like most proverbs, the quip isn't an absolute truth, and reality doesn't match its absolute premises.  The meaning is that you can either have open borders, but make no promises of universal benefits, or you can have closed borders and provide benefits, but you cannot sustainably allow everybody in with no documentation and provide free schools, healthcare, public services, etc.  If you try to do both, you end up with the current situation, where Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico have to pay for the increased educational, medical, law enforcement, etc costs associated with the increased population, without the tax revenue that those residents would presumably provide if they were legal residents.

I dunno . . . illegal immigrants pay an awful lot of taxes.

They pay sales tax on anything they buy.  They pay property tax if they own land.  About half of them are working with fake SSNs, which means they're even paying payroll taxes and contributing to social security that they can never benefit from.  Illegal immigrants pay billions of dollars in tax every year . . . estimated at just under 12 billion dolllars in 2017 - https://itep.org/immigration/

The situation you're describing above where freeloading immigrants are taking and taking doesn't mesh well with known facts.

I don't know the actual numbers, but if yours are accurate, $12B is a drop in the bucket.  That's $12B in taxes for roughly 12 million people, or roughly $1k/person, compared to $2.1T for the roughly 350 million other people, or $6k/person.  What form does that $12B take?  Without an SSN, it couldn't be federal income taxes, so it'd have to be only state and local taxes, which makes that number look even smaller.

How are they contributing to Social Security, if they don't have an SSN?  And if they *are* using an SSN, whose SSN are they using?

If you read the data from the link that I posted it does have the actual numbers:

Granting legal status to all undocumented immigrants in the United States as part of a comprehensive immigration reform and allowing them to work legally would increase their state and local tax contributions by an estimated $2.18 billion a year

Seems weird to be concerned about 1/6th of 'a drop in the bucket'.  Especially given the massive economic benefit that having those illegal immigrants provides to Americans.  It's almost like this concern is an emotional talking point that has nothing to do with the tax that they pay or the resources consumed by having them.


If the US really cared about illegal immigrants, they would make it unprofitable for businesses to hire them.  Instead, there are no real and serious fines to a business for hiring an illegal immigrant and the minor penalties have become a commonplace cost of doing business in many industries.  No employers, no employees - problem is solved.

[zolotiyeruki]

Ok, it seems we've been talking apples and oranges here--I was looking at US federal income taxes, while the $12B you referenced was state and local taxes.  But that actually plays more to the "illegal immigrants aren't paying their fair share" argument.*  Total state and local taxes in the US are about $3.9T, or about $10k per person, compared to the $1k/person from illegal immigrants.  Add in the $6k the federal government gets from individual income taxes and the $3,500/person payroll taxes, and you're at nearly $20k/person (not per worker!).  We can quibble about the precise definition of "drop in the bucket," but paying about 1/20th the average taxes per person is a dramatic difference.

Are illegal immigrants a net positive for the country?  That's difficult to determine, because the data is elusive by nature.  And you'd have to calculate the benefits (mainly low labor costs) against the costs (previously mentioned).  And that's just evaluating the cost/benefit of illegal immigration, without considering the impact of legalization.  There's a host of downstream effects that need to be considered.  For example, would now-legal immigrants have the same minimum wage as everyone else, presumably higher than what they currently earn?  A sudden increase in workers available for legal, low-skill jobs would either force other labor costs higher, or drive (official) unemployment higher.

* - Note, I'm not taking a position here, I'm playing devil's advocate.  It's important when having a discussion like this, to understand what's actually being debated, and to have reliable numbers, in context, on which to form an opinion.

[GuitarStv]

Ok, it seems we've been talking apples and oranges here--I was looking at US federal income taxes, while the $12B you referenced was state and local taxes.  But that actually plays more to the "illegal immigrants aren't paying their fair share" argument.*  Total state and local taxes in the US are about $3.9T, or about $10k per person, compared to the $1k/person from illegal immigrants.  Add in the $6k the federal government gets from individual income taxes and the $3,500/person payroll taxes, and you're at nearly $20k/person (not per worker!).  We can quibble about the precise definition of "drop in the bucket," but paying about 1/20th the average taxes per person is a dramatic difference.

The median hourly wage for undocumented immigrants in California is 13$ (https://immigrantdataca.org/indicators/median-hourly-wage#/ - which works out to around 25,000$ a year).  It is strange to me that you're using an average tax burden that includes the highest earning brackets.  Is 80% of yearly salary in tax what most Americans pay, or are the assumptions you're making a bit off?

Are illegal immigrants a net positive for the country?  That's difficult to determine, because the data is elusive by nature.  And you'd have to calculate the benefits (mainly low labor costs) against the costs (previously mentioned).  And that's just evaluating the cost/benefit of illegal immigration, without considering the impact of legalization.  There's a host of downstream effects that need to be considered.  For example, would now-legal immigrants have the same minimum wage as everyone else, presumably higher than what they currently earn?  A sudden increase in workers available for legal, low-skill jobs would either force other labor costs higher, or drive (official) unemployment higher.

I have no idea if undocumented immigrants are a net positive.

But . . . no serious attempt has been made to prevent them.  This can only effectively work by penalizing the people who hire them enough to make it unprofitable.  Instead of realistic ways to limit immigration, a great deal has been made of building useless walls and demonizing (as freeloaders, criminals, and drains on society) the people who come to perform jobs that are offered to them by red blooded Americans every day.  This is ineffective at preventing undocumented immigration.

So I have to assume that since no real action to prevent the immigration from happening is going on, it is desired.

[Michael in ABQ]

I have knowledge or inclination to state that immigration has been a detriment to the country--far from it!  Like most proverbs, the quip isn't an absolute truth, and reality doesn't match its absolute premises.  The meaning is that you can either have open borders, but make no promises of universal benefits, or you can have closed borders and provide benefits, but you cannot sustainably allow everybody in with no documentation and provide free schools, healthcare, public services, etc.  If you try to do both, you end up with the current situation, where Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico have to pay for the increased educational, medical, law enforcement, etc costs associated with the increased population, without the tax revenue that those residents would presumably provide if they were legal residents.

I dunno . . . illegal immigrants pay an awful lot of taxes.

They pay sales tax on anything they buy.  They pay property tax if they own land.  About half of them are working with fake SSNs, which means they're even paying payroll taxes and contributing to social security that they can never benefit from.  Illegal immigrants pay billions of dollars in tax every year . . . estimated at just under 12 billion dolllars in 2017 - https://itep.org/immigration/

The situation you're describing above where freeloading immigrants are taking and taking doesn't mesh well with known facts.

That $12 billion is more than offset by the cost of providing education and healthcare alone - let alone any other services. Our local school district (Albuquerque Public Schools) spends close to $20,000 per student in K-12. (FY 2022 budget of $1,658,589,579 to educate 72,500 students). By their own stats 17% of students are ESL (English as a second language). Some percentage of those are illegal immigrants, and those students require additional resources beyond a student that already speaks English.

Then there's healthcare. Show up at an ER and they have to treat you. If you are here illegally, that bill is almost certainly going to be written off by the hospital and passed along in the costs to everyone else. It would be pretty hard to collect money from someone with no bank account or paycheck to garnish and no social security number to use to link that debt to them to try and collect in the future.

[Shane]

Shane, we are in complete agreement!

Society needs to make it cost prohibitive to break the law in regards to hiring undocumented employees. 10K per homeowner hiring a painter, 100K per employee per corporation would be fine for me as well. You not only need to fine the corp, but also any subcontractor (i.e. folks who do the cleaning at Walmarts or Wendy's overnight) who hires undocumented folks to do the job.

But I also believe that, before this new law comes into effect, there should be a 6 month "come to God" period where employers and employees pay a nominal fine and obtain legal status. This should be followed by a more generous legal immigration process that allows supply of workers to meet the demand at any given time for our economy.

P.S. In regards to democrats having a filibuster proof majority in 2008-2010. They actually only had 14 weeks because of the combination of Minnesota Senate Al Franken election recount and Ted Kennedy's brain cancer and death. They chose to prioritize Healthcare reform instead of Immigration (and a number of other causes).

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/about-filibuster-proof-majority/

Also, so 50 current Republican Senators are against immigration reform, so you blame the 47-48 Democrats who support reform? Explain that one to me...

If Congress passed laws to hold employers accountable and thereby make it impossible for people to live and work illegally in the US, I would support another amnesty for workers already here. We have to make it impossible for people to find illegal work, FIRST, though. Pretty sure your P.S. was directed at someone else, not me, since I never mentioned anything about Democrats' filibuster proof majority.

[GuitarStv]

I have knowledge or inclination to state that immigration has been a detriment to the country--far from it!  Like most proverbs, the quip isn't an absolute truth, and reality doesn't match its absolute premises.  The meaning is that you can either have open borders, but make no promises of universal benefits, or you can have closed borders and provide benefits, but you cannot sustainably allow everybody in with no documentation and provide free schools, healthcare, public services, etc.  If you try to do both, you end up with the current situation, where Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico have to pay for the increased educational, medical, law enforcement, etc costs associated with the increased population, without the tax revenue that those residents would presumably provide if they were legal residents.

I dunno . . . illegal immigrants pay an awful lot of taxes.

They pay sales tax on anything they buy.  They pay property tax if they own land.  About half of them are working with fake SSNs, which means they're even paying payroll taxes and contributing to social security that they can never benefit from.  Illegal immigrants pay billions of dollars in tax every year . . . estimated at just under 12 billion dolllars in 2017 - https://itep.org/immigration/

The situation you're describing above where freeloading immigrants are taking and taking doesn't mesh well with known facts.

That $12 billion is more than offset by the cost of providing education and healthcare alone - let alone any other services. Our local school district (Albuquerque Public Schools) spends close to $20,000 per student in K-12. (FY 2022 budget of $1,658,589,579 to educate 72,500 students). By their own stats 17% of students are ESL (English as a second language). Some percentage of those are illegal immigrants, and those students require additional resources beyond a student that already speaks English.

Then there's healthcare. Show up at an ER and they have to treat you. If you are here illegally, that bill is almost certainly going to be written off by the hospital and passed along in the costs to everyone else. It would be pretty hard to collect money from someone with no bank account or paycheck to garnish and no social security number to use to link that debt to them to try and collect in the future.

These undocumented workers tend to fill low paying jobs.  I mentioned earlier that a median salary is 25,000$ a year.  If you would like to compare poor undocumented workers with poor Americans I suspect that you won't find huge differences in tax burden paid to the country.

But again, if this was a real problem and concern then the US would try to solve it in the way most likely to actually provide results - heavily penalizing those who hire undocumented immigrants.  No jobs, no immigration.  It's really that simple.

As it stands now, it seems that the US is trying to have it's cake and eat it too.  Get all the economic benefits of underpaid undocumented workers to fill a wide variety of jobs that Americans either can't do well or are unwilling to do while simultaneously bitching and complaining about the cost of having to patch these workers up in a hospital when they get hurt or educate their children.

[Michael in ABQ]

But again, if this was a real problem and concern then the US would try to solve it in the way most likely to actually provide results - heavily penalizing those who hire undocumented immigrants.  No jobs, no immigration.  It's really that simple.

As it stands now, it seems that the US is trying to have it's cake and eat it too.  Get all the economic benefits of underpaid undocumented workers to fill a wide variety of jobs that Americans either can't do well or are unwilling to do while simultaneously bitching and complaining about the cost of having to patch these workers up in a hospital when they get hurt or educate their children.

Can't really argue with that. It's clear politicians on both sides prefer the status quo to any real change. The IRS receives those billions of dollars of payroll taxes from people using stolen or made-up social security numbers - they even have a special account for all that money (including some payroll taxes from legitimate mistakes in entering a SS#). If they wanted to track down the employers submitting that information they could certainly do so. Maybe not every single small business but certainly when you have tens or hundreds of such employees it would be easier to track down.


I remember when I was growing up my best friend's dad has a small outdoor irrigation company. His employees were literally digging ditches. It was hard work and he employed Mexican workers, most of whom were here illegally. In the 90s these workers would cross over from Mexico at relatively low cost and work for part of the year then go back to Mexico to live on those earnings over the winter. As it got harder and more expensive to cross the border (thousands of dollars instead of hundreds) they began to stay in the US and bring their families with them. I suppose if he had been willing to pay $30/hour he probably could have found American workers but at $15/hour (a decent wage 25-30 years ago) he couldn't get anyone to work more than a few days.

[LaineyAZ]

Back to the original topic:
Here's an article in the news about the Arizona state legislature and governor approving a huge expansion in "school vouchers." 
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/08/31/arizona-school-voucher-expansion-helps-rich-again/7952285001/


Funded by tax money despite the voters rejecting it.  So now there's a rush from families to apply.  Are these families who want to remove their children from public school to send them to private schools?  No.  Turns out most of them never had their child in the public school and are now using these funds to subsidize their children's fees/tuition for homeschooling or the private school they are already attending.

[JGS1980]

Back to the original topic:
Here's an article in the news about the Arizona state legislature and governor approving a huge expansion in "school vouchers." 
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/08/31/arizona-school-voucher-expansion-helps-rich-again/7952285001/


Funded by tax money despite the voters rejecting it.  So now there's a rush from families to apply.  Are these families who want to remove their children from public school to send them to private schools?  No.  Turns out most of them never had their child in the public school and are now using these funds to subsidize their children's fees/tuition for homeschooling or the private school they are already attending.

Got it. So taking from the public school system and giving it to private schools. Next step -> raging that the public school system is bankrupt due to [union] teacher salaries and then funding them even less.

[ChpBstrd]

Back to the original topic:
Here's an article in the news about the Arizona state legislature and governor approving a huge expansion in "school vouchers." 
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/08/31/arizona-school-voucher-expansion-helps-rich-again/7952285001/


Funded by tax money despite the voters rejecting it.  So now there's a rush from families to apply.  Are these families who want to remove their children from public school to send them to private schools?  No.  Turns out most of them never had their child in the public school and are now using these funds to subsidize their children's fees/tuition for homeschooling or the private school they are already attending.

Got it. So taking from the public school system and giving it to private schools. Next step -> raging that the public school system is bankrupt due to [union] teacher salaries and then funding them even less.

Next step -> charter school lobbyists donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of their politician-employees.

[startingsmall]

Back to the original topic:
Here's an article in the news about the Arizona state legislature and governor approving a huge expansion in "school vouchers." 
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/08/31/arizona-school-voucher-expansion-helps-rich-again/7952285001/


Funded by tax money despite the voters rejecting it.  So now there's a rush from families to apply.  Are these families who want to remove their children from public school to send them to private schools?  No.  Turns out most of them never had their child in the public school and are now using these funds to subsidize their children's fees/tuition for homeschooling or the private school they are already attending.

Got it. So taking from the public school system and giving it to private schools. Next step -> raging that the public school system is bankrupt due to [union] teacher salaries and then funding them even less.

Yep. That's absolutely what we're seeing here in Florida.

[Shane]

In our rapidly gentrifying neighborhood a K-8 public charter school recently opened right around the corner from our house. We walk or ride bikes past the entrance multiple times each day. Can't help but notice that every. single. adult. dropping off or picking up kids is black. Walking along the fenceline, multiple times, I've seen groups of little kids outside in the school's playground. Never yet seen a single white kid. Demonizing these aspiring middle-class black parents for "stealing" money from the public school by sending their kids to a charter, just seems wrong to me. DW & I can easily afford to pay DD's private parochial school tuition. Many families in the city CAN'T, though. John Fetterman's definitely my favorite in the upcoming race for US Senate, but it's sickening listening to him, and others, toe the teachers' union/Democratic Party line that charter schools are, "bad, because they take away funding from regular public schools," while Fetterman sends his own kids to $30K+/year private schools. Forcing BIPOC families who want something better for their kids to either come up with the money for private school tuition, move to the suburbs to a "better," i.e., whiter, school district, or else just send their kids to the failing, dangerous, drug, knife and gun infested public schools, seems wrong to me. I totally support charter schools as a way of breaking the cycle of poverty, violence, unemployment, and prison for city dwellers. Families willing to jump through the hoops to get their kids into public charters should be congratulated and supported, not demonized for "taking money from the public schools." Maybe the kids who can't get into or get kicked out of charters, usually for behavior problems like fighting or bringing weapons to school, should be the ones who get educated by the state, while the majority(?), who can find a place in an appropriate charter school, get a better education, without violence and daily visits by local police officers.

[zolotiyeruki]

Back to the original topic:
Here's an article in the news about the Arizona state legislature and governor approving a huge expansion in "school vouchers." 
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/08/31/arizona-school-voucher-expansion-helps-rich-again/7952285001/


Funded by tax money despite the voters rejecting it.  So now there's a rush from families to apply.  Are these families who want to remove their children from public school to send them to private schools?  No.  Turns out most of them never had their child in the public school and are now using these funds to subsidize their children's fees/tuition for homeschooling or the private school they are already attending.

Got it. So taking from the public school system and giving it to private schools. Next step -> raging that the public school system is bankrupt due to [union] teacher salaries and then funding them even less.

Next step -> charter school lobbyists donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of their politician-employees.

You mean like teachers unions have been doing for decades?

[ChpBstrd]

Back to the original topic:
Here's an article in the news about the Arizona state legislature and governor approving a huge expansion in "school vouchers." 
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/08/31/arizona-school-voucher-expansion-helps-rich-again/7952285001/


Funded by tax money despite the voters rejecting it.  So now there's a rush from families to apply.  Are these families who want to remove their children from public school to send them to private schools?  No.  Turns out most of them never had their child in the public school and are now using these funds to subsidize their children's fees/tuition for homeschooling or the private school they are already attending.

Got it. So taking from the public school system and giving it to private schools. Next step -> raging that the public school system is bankrupt due to [union] teacher salaries and then funding them even less.

Next step -> charter school lobbyists donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of their politician-employees.

You mean like teachers unions have been doing for decades?

Maybe... but unlike the teachers the charter school owners have been very successful at increasing their salaries.

[JGS1980]

I think that the Republicans are trying to destroy public schools so that the public school money can be funneled into Evangelical Christian Nationalism private schools.

I recognize your comment as mostly sarcasm, but adjusting my tinfoil hat for a second -

What better way to ensure that the next two generations are going to maintain the unspoken caste system that has been painstakingly constructed over the past 150 years (beginning in the post-Civil War Reconstruction era)? Make sure that the education system, wherever possible, does not set poor/minority/disabled/disenfranchised up for any measure of adult success. Make sure that YOUR views of the world are the only ones that are made to matter. Make sure that YOUR kids don't have any part of the public or publicly accessible private education system.

Honestly, it's even moderately agnostic of political orientation.

Well, at least the liberals want to help the poor/minority/disabled/disenfranchised get a better deal, so there's that.

And I wasn't being sarcastic, I was being completely straightforward.   Conservatives tried doing the same thing via school vouchers but kept getting blocked, so this is round six.   

Round One was forbidding minorities to learn at all.  You can read about that in Frederick Douglas' excellent autobiography or various other historical sources.

Round two was setting up segregated and definitely unequal schools. 

Round Three was completely shutting down public schools after integration and just handing the school budget funds to white people to go to newly formed private, whites-only schools.  Yep, that happened in parts of Virginia back in the 60s!

Round Four was to leave public schools in droves to go to newly formed white Christian nationalism schools.   Lived thru that when busing was implemented in my school system in the 70s.   The kids who left the public schools for a whites only private education are part of the alt-right problem today.

Round Five was to implement school vouchers so the public was funding those white Christian nationalism schools.  That kept getting blocked.

Round Six is to destroy public education so that public funding for private schools becomes the new norm.  Think that sounds like tinfoil conspiracy?   Rounds 1 thru 5 are historical, verifiable fact.   What makes siphoning public money into private hands hard to believe?   That's a lot of money to get their hands on with the added benefit of indoctrinating the students into believing that being fleeced in the name of bigotry is good for them.

There are even threads on this forum where people are concerned about their kids going to a public college because they might be corrupted by real world knowledge, so they want their kids to go to a private "Christian" college instead.

I just wanted to quote Swordguy again...

[LaineyAZ]

In our rapidly gentrifying neighborhood a K-8 public charter school recently opened right around the corner from our house. We walk or ride bikes past the entrance multiple times each day. Can't help but notice that every. single. adult. dropping off or picking up kids is black. Walking along the fenceline, multiple times, I've seen groups of little kids outside in the school's playground. Never yet seen a single white kid. Demonizing these aspiring middle-class black parents for "stealing" money from the public school by sending their kids to a charter, just seems wrong to me. DW & I can easily afford to pay DD's private parochial school tuition. Many families in the city CAN'T, though. John Fetterman's definitely my favorite in the upcoming race for US Senate, but it's sickening listening to him, and others, toe the teachers' union/Democratic Party line that charter schools are, "bad, because they take away funding from regular public schools," while Fetterman sends his own kids to $30K+/year private schools. Forcing BIPOC families who want something better for their kids to either come up with the money for private school tuition, move to the suburbs to a "better," i.e., whiter, school district, or else just send their kids to the failing, dangerous, drug, knife and gun infested public schools, seems wrong to me. I totally support charter schools as a way of breaking the cycle of poverty, violence, unemployment, and prison for city dwellers. Families willing to jump through the hoops to get their kids into public charters should be congratulated and supported, not demonized for "taking money from the public schools." Maybe the kids who can't get into or get kicked out of charters, usually for behavior problems like fighting or bringing weapons to school, should be the ones who get educated by the state, while the majority(?), who can find a place in an appropriate charter school, get a better education, without violence and daily visits by local police officers.

Be careful what you wish for.  Charter schools have almost no financial oversight and almost no educational accountability.  In this latest round of school vouchers, there's $45 Million of AZ taxpayer money going mostly to middle-income and upper-income households to subsidize their children going to private schools; there is no income test for eligibility.

And not surprisingly, charter school student test scores are only sometimes better than public schools and in fact many are worse.  Are you really okay with that?

[LaineyAZ]

A double reply but I have to go back to the original issue of school funding.

It's the norm in the U.S. that public schools are funded by local homeowners' property taxes.  Thus the desire to live in a nicer high-income neighborhood so your child can attend a local school in a better school district.  I've mentioned this before, but I think everyone should be appalled that parents first concerns when choosing a new home is, "is it in a good school district?"  My question is, Why isn't every school in a good school district?

The answer is that as a society we've been okay with under-funded public schools as long as it's not our kid who is attending them.  So because it's politically untenable to put all of the tax money in one pot to fund schools equally, the government response has been to create something called "school vouchers" which siphons money earmarked for education into the pockets of charter school owners who promise parents a better outcome.  Which in turn means public schools are even more under-funded. 

An increasing number of people have decided that they are entitled to a refund of their portion of their taxes that are budgeted for public education if they decide to send their own child to a private school.  I've always contended that that is false.  It's the equivalent of saying that you no longer want protection from the local fire department because you've hired your own on-call firefighters, so now your tax money going to the fire dept. should be refunded to you.
Similar to if you want to hire personal security vs. using the local police department.  Etc. 

Yes, I'm stretching the point but again, we cannot allow this slicing and dicing of our individual tax monies for our own family desires.  As an educated civil society we need a baseline of funding for these basic services.  If you want services over and above that you are always free to add your own money but you should not be considering your tax money as personally refundable.

[Michael in ABQ]

A double reply but I have to go back to the original issue of school funding.

It's the norm in the U.S. that public schools are funded by local homeowners' property taxes.  Thus the desire to live in a nicer high-income neighborhood so your child can attend a local school in a better school district.  I've mentioned this before, but I think everyone should be appalled that parents first concerns when choosing a new home is, "is it in a good school district?"  My question is, Why isn't every school in a good school district?

The answer is that as a society we've been okay with under-funded public schools as long as it's not our kid who is attending them.  So because it's politically untenable to put all of the tax money in one pot to fund schools equally, the government response has been to create something called "school vouchers" which siphons money earmarked for education into the pockets of charter school owners who promise parents a better outcome.  Which in turn means public schools are even more under-funded. 

Every school across Albuquerque gets the same funding. Over $20,000 per student for about 72,000 students across 20 high schools and over 100 elementary and middle schools (plus 31 charter schools). The budget for this year is $1.65 BILLION. This is a city of about 560,000 so there are good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods and everything in between. Not surprisingly the quality of the schools as measured by test scores, graduation rates, etc. correlates strongly with the household income in the surrounding neighborhood (which is correlated with home prices). So, the neighborhood with a median household income of $35,000 has worse schools than the neighborhood with a median household income of $80,000 (median for the city is about $55,000).


We pay about $5,000 per student for a private school with far better outcomes than the local public school. I don't know the total budget and what the actual cost is per student, but it's certainly nowhere close to $20k considering the new school building cost about $1.2 million for 11,000 SF to hold about 100 students vs. some recent public school elementary buildings that cost $11.5 and $13.8 million. The latter did include facilities like a gym and cafeteria and was a bit more than twice the size. But that's $425-475 per square foot vs. our kid's school at just over $100 per square foot. About a third of the public-school budget is for capital improvements and debt service on previous capital improvements. All of this while the student population has dropped from about 80k a few years ago to 72k this year.

[joe189man]

A double reply but I have to go back to the original issue of school funding.

It's the norm in the U.S. that public schools are funded by local homeowners' property taxes.  Thus the desire to live in a nicer high-income neighborhood so your child can attend a local school in a better school district.  I've mentioned this before, but I think everyone should be appalled that parents first concerns when choosing a new home is, "is it in a good school district?"  My question is, Why isn't every school in a good school district?

The answer is that as a society we've been okay with under-funded public schools as long as it's not our kid who is attending them.  So because it's politically untenable to put all of the tax money in one pot to fund schools equally, the government response has been to create something called "school vouchers" which siphons money earmarked for education into the pockets of charter school owners who promise parents a better outcome.  Which in turn means public schools are even more under-funded. 

Every school across Albuquerque gets the same funding. Over $20,000 per student for about 72,000 students across 20 high schools and over 100 elementary and middle schools (plus 31 charter schools). The budget for this year is $1.65 BILLION. This is a city of about 560,000 so there are good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods and everything in between. Not surprisingly the quality of the schools as measured by test scores, graduation rates, etc. correlates strongly with the household income in the surrounding neighborhood (which is correlated with home prices). So, the neighborhood with a median household income of $35,000 has worse schools than the neighborhood with a median household income of $80,000 (median for the city is about $55,000).


We pay about $5,000 per student for a private school with far better outcomes than the local public school. I don't know the total budget and what the actual cost is per student, but it's certainly nowhere close to $20k considering the new school building cost about $1.2 million for 11,000 SF to hold about 100 students vs. some recent public school elementary buildings that cost $11.5 and $13.8 million. The latter did include facilities like a gym and cafeteria and was a bit more than twice the size. But that's $425-475 per square foot vs. our kid's school at just over $100 per square foot. About a third of the public-school budget is for capital improvements and debt service on previous capital improvements. All of this while the student population has dropped from about 80k a few years ago to 72k this year.

where are you seeing $20k per student in same funding?

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/NM/schools/0006000752/school.aspx

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/NM/schools/0006000090/school.aspx

[joe189man]

After doing some location research across the country - inspired by the if you could live anywhere thread, is that even some of the better schools in a given state don't perform well in regards to reading and math proficiency. Dollars spent per pupil vary wildly and dont see to correlate with school outcome

Here is an example from a midwest state, Iowa.

https://www.niche.com/k12/west-senior-high-school-iowa-city-ia/

Niche ranks this high school at the second best public high school in the state yet only 71% are proficient in reading and 73% are proficient in math

also the ranking websites are wildly different

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/IA/schools/1470000902/school.aspx

school digger ranks this high school at 90th out of 327 with very different test scores and rankings

maybe niche has out of date testing information

Decorah, IA seems to have similar rankings and test scores at least

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/IA/schools/1470000902/school.aspxc

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/IA/schools/1470000902/school.aspx

[Shane]

In our rapidly gentrifying neighborhood a K-8 public charter school recently opened right around the corner from our house. We walk or ride bikes past the entrance multiple times each day. Can't help but notice that every. single. adult. dropping off or picking up kids is black. Walking along the fenceline, multiple times, I've seen groups of little kids outside in the school's playground. Never yet seen a single white kid. Demonizing these aspiring middle-class black parents for "stealing" money from the public school by sending their kids to a charter, just seems wrong to me. DW & I can easily afford to pay DD's private parochial school tuition. Many families in the city CAN'T, though. John Fetterman's definitely my favorite in the upcoming race for US Senate, but it's sickening listening to him, and others, toe the teachers' union/Democratic Party line that charter schools are, "bad, because they take away funding from regular public schools," while Fetterman sends his own kids to $30K+/year private schools. Forcing BIPOC families who want something better for their kids to either come up with the money for private school tuition, move to the suburbs to a "better," i.e., whiter, school district, or else just send their kids to the failing, dangerous, drug, knife and gun infested public schools, seems wrong to me. I totally support charter schools as a way of breaking the cycle of poverty, violence, unemployment, and prison for city dwellers. Families willing to jump through the hoops to get their kids into public charters should be congratulated and supported, not demonized for "taking money from the public schools." Maybe the kids who can't get into or get kicked out of charters, usually for behavior problems like fighting or bringing weapons to school, should be the ones who get educated by the state, while the majority(?), who can find a place in an appropriate charter school, get a better education, without violence and daily visits by local police officers.

Be careful what you wish for.  Charter schools have almost no financial oversight and almost no educational accountability.  In this latest round of school vouchers, there's $45 Million of AZ taxpayer money going mostly to middle-income and upper-income households to subsidize their children going to private schools; there is no income test for eligibility.

And not surprisingly, charter school student test scores are only sometimes better than public schools and in fact many are worse.  Are you really okay with that?

Standardized test scores are the least of our concerns when choosing a school for our daughter. A neighbor who briefly sent her two kids to the local public middle school told us the main reason she pulled them out, after just a couple of months, was because of the high levels of violence in the school. Our neighbor's 6th grade son told me that every. single. day. his classes were disrupted by fights. The 8th grade girl was getting bullied, because she was the only white kid in her class. By all accounts, our local HS is even worse than the middle school. There's a charter HS in the city, though, that we're thinking of sending our daughter to next year. The only criteria to get into the charter HS are that students have at least a 2.5 g.p.a and that they not have any serious discipline problems. The advantage of the charter school over the regular public one is that kids know being in the charter school is a privilege. If they start fights or disrupt classes, the school can kick them out. Our local charter HS gets less per/pupil funding than the regular public school, but everyone we've talked to who has graduated from or worked at the charter high school says it is WONDERFUL, at least compared to the public HS, which everyone we know who is familiar with it has told us they would NEVER allow their kids/grandkids to go there if they had any other options. Why should poor people, who can't afford private school tuition, be forced to send their kids to failing, violence-infested public schools, when there are perfectly good publicly-funded charter schools in the neighborhood that don't have the same issues? If there are kids who somehow can't not get kicked out of the charter schools, let the state educate them. This year, our city school district is spending ~$24K/pupil, which is about the same as the best, elite private high school in our area. My daughter's tuition for 8th grade at a local parochial school is only ~$7K, and it's a GREAT school. We're really happy with the education she's getting there. Why should taxpayers spend $24K/pupil for schools that only the worst off, most desperate people, with no other choices, send the kids to? It makes no sense to me. If I wouldn't send my daughter to the local public HS, why would I expect that poor people should have to?

[Michael in ABQ]

A double reply but I have to go back to the original issue of school funding.

It's the norm in the U.S. that public schools are funded by local homeowners' property taxes.  Thus the desire to live in a nicer high-income neighborhood so your child can attend a local school in a better school district.  I've mentioned this before, but I think everyone should be appalled that parents first concerns when choosing a new home is, "is it in a good school district?"  My question is, Why isn't every school in a good school district?

The answer is that as a society we've been okay with under-funded public schools as long as it's not our kid who is attending them.  So because it's politically untenable to put all of the tax money in one pot to fund schools equally, the government response has been to create something called "school vouchers" which siphons money earmarked for education into the pockets of charter school owners who promise parents a better outcome.  Which in turn means public schools are even more under-funded. 

Every school across Albuquerque gets the same funding. Over $20,000 per student for about 72,000 students across 20 high schools and over 100 elementary and middle schools (plus 31 charter schools). The budget for this year is $1.65 BILLION. This is a city of about 560,000 so there are good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods and everything in between. Not surprisingly the quality of the schools as measured by test scores, graduation rates, etc. correlates strongly with the household income in the surrounding neighborhood (which is correlated with home prices). So, the neighborhood with a median household income of $35,000 has worse schools than the neighborhood with a median household income of $80,000 (median for the city is about $55,000).


We pay about $5,000 per student for a private school with far better outcomes than the local public school. I don't know the total budget and what the actual cost is per student, but it's certainly nowhere close to $20k considering the new school building cost about $1.2 million for 11,000 SF to hold about 100 students vs. some recent public school elementary buildings that cost $11.5 and $13.8 million. The latter did include facilities like a gym and cafeteria and was a bit more than twice the size. But that's $425-475 per square foot vs. our kid's school at just over $100 per square foot. About a third of the public-school budget is for capital improvements and debt service on previous capital improvements. All of this while the student population has dropped from about 80k a few years ago to 72k this year.

where are you seeing $20k per student in same funding?

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/NM/schools/0006000752/school.aspx

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/NM/schools/0006000090/school.aspx

$1.65 Billion FY 2022 budget / 72,500 students = $22,758 per student

https://www.aps.edu/finance/budget-strategic-planning

They like to obfuscate by only reporting the $811 million operating budget, but that's still over $11,000 per student - and ignores the massive real costs that the district spends on capital improvements and the debt service to finance those ($519 million). Also, any data pre-COVID is going to reflect a student population of 80k+ A lot of those students left the public school system to homeschool or private schools once parents realized what kind of education their kids were getting (or not getting) when they were involved during lockdowns.