Supreme Court appears likely to allow public funding for religious schools

[Anathema-]

There are several magnets in the county I live in including one that's arts focused that has a pretty hefty audition requirements, specialized to each of the different disciplines (visual arts, band/orchestra, writing, etc). 

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

 

In my case you had to live in the district (or at least have an address there) but you had to take a test to get into the school and maintain a certain GPA in order to stay there. The idea was that it would take the best and the brightest from the city and prep them for college. Magnet schools have proven to be more successful than charter schools but fell out of favor for some reason. My City had four magnet high schools I believe.

This is exactly what our district has. The really elite level students can even replace some of their AP classes for actual college courses taught by the community college that is in the same district, so those kids can end up skipping freshmen and sophomore level courses all together when they go to a four year university.

[CitizenVectron]

I believe it is in society's best interest to just force kids to go to the nearest schools, and make sure they are properly funded and staffed (with good pay and unions).

[skillzdadirecta]

19 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

This is exactly what our district has. The really elite level students can even replace some of their AP classes for actual college courses taught by the community college that is in the same district, so those kids can end up skipping freshmen and sophomore level courses all together when they go to a four year university.

Yeah that's what we had in our school as well. I wasn't one of those kids though.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

I believe it is in society's best interest to just force kids to go to the nearest schools

Based on what?

[Anathema-]

9 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

I believe it is in society's best interest to just force kids to go to the nearest schools...

 

Have you ever heard of white flight?

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

11 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

 

In my case you had to live in the district (or at least have an address there) but you had to take a test to get into the school and maintain a certain GPA in order to stay there. The idea was that it would take the best and the brightest from the city and prep them for college. Magnet schools have proven to be more successful than charter schools but fell out of favor for some reason. My City had four magnet high schools I believe.

Magnet schools become disproportionately wealthy and white compared to the district at large, and also make other schools in the district look disproportionately bad (take the top ~10% of performers out of the district, concentrate them in one or two magnets, the test scores (which I hate to use but are a primary method of school evaluation) in the rest of the schools drop relative to the magnets) and so take away resources from schools and students who need it most.

So ultimately these schools just become another avenue for racial and economic inequality.

 

 

[CitizenVectron]

8 hours ago, sblfilms said:

Based on what?

 

1 hour ago, Anathema- said:

 

Have you ever heard of white flight?

 

It is presupposed on school divisions receiving adequate funding and forcing the rotation of teachers to different schools every X years. School catch basins should be large enough to bring in kids from households of different incomes. The more you separate the affluent in society from everyone else, the worse off society is.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

35 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

 

It is presupposed on school divisions receiving adequate funding and forcing the rotation of teachers to different schools every X years. School catch basins should be large enough to bring in kids from households of different incomes. The more you separate the affluent in society from everyone else, the worse off society is.

We "voluntarily" segregate by wealth here (read: race and class), and the smallest of changes to school zoning is met with significant pushback by the community, enough to unseat school boards and city councils

[CitizenVectron]

11 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

We "voluntarily" segregate by wealth here (read: race and class), and the smallest of changes to school zoning is met with significant pushback by the community, enough to unseat school boards and city councils

 

Like many things you can't really change the way that public schools work after allowing them to degrade over generations. I mean, the fact that in some states teachers are non-unionized and are paid like crap (and don't even require degrees, from what I understand) is a travesty.

 

I'm not saying that teachers need to make what engineers make. Well, actually, I kind of am. Becoming a teacher should be difficult, but also should be rewarded. They should also be protected from parents and given greater freedom. 

 

My province is not the perfect model, but I think teachers here (which belong to a province-wide union) start around $48K, and after 10 years are making $70-80K+. The job requires a 5-year degree, however. If you get your masters and PHD while on the job you also get raises (in addition to the scale).

[Guest]

1 hour ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Magnet schools become disproportionately wealthy and white compared to the district at large, and also make other schools in the district look disproportionately bad (take the top ~10% of performers out of the district, concentrate them in one or two magnets, the test scores (which I hate to use but are a primary method of school evaluation) in the rest of the schools drop relative to the magnets) and so take away resources from schools and students who need it most.

So ultimately these schools just become another avenue for racial and economic inequality.

 

 

Texas doesn’t base school funding on test scores. There is a baseline amount per student, additional amounts per student for low income and SPED, and some really out of date bumps for cost of living differences. Wealthy districts that collect in excess of what they need to meet those funding metrics then pay into the state fund which gets redistributed to poorer districts.

 

So magnet schools/programs don’t have any meaningful effect on funding here.

 

53 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

I mean, the fact that in some states teachers are non-unionized and are paid like crap (and don't even require degrees, from what I understand) is a travesty.

I don’t think there are any states that don’t require degrees for teachers, there are many states that don’t require an education specific degree to teach. You can have any four year degrees and then take certification courses later to get licensed to teach. 
 

1 hour ago, CitizenVectron said:

It is presupposed on school divisions receiving adequate funding and forcing the rotation of teachers to different schools every X years. School catch basins should be large enough to bring in kids from households of different incomes. The more you separate the affluent in society from everyone else, the worse off society is.

You said kids should be forced to go to the nearest schools, but are wanting to avoid separating out the affluent from everybody else...the affluent don’t live next to everybody else. People tend to live clustered around others in their same/similar income bracket.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

58 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

 

So magnet schools/programs don’t have any meaningful effect on funding here.

The per student decrease in funding to a single school due to students who would otherwise attend isn't that much, but you also have to pay for the capital for the magnet schools, additional teachers, administration, bussing, etc. 

 

It's basically the opposite of school consolidation (instead of going from small schools to a county consolidated school, you go from county consolidated to a consolidated school plus a high performing magnet) but primarily helps wealthy/white students.

[Chris-]

17 hours ago, osxmatt said:

I read the article a few times, and I'm still trying to understand exactly how the program works, and how money changes hands. From the article:

 

 

 

So I (as an individual or business) decide to donate $150 dollars to a private school. That private school then accumulates the various amounts of donation money, and uses it to provide financial aid to parents whose children attend that school. The original individual or business then claims up to a $150 tax credit at the end of the year, for their donation.

 

Am I understanding it correctly?

Yes, that is correct (allowing for some small differences between states). At my old job I was responsible for recruiting donors into the program, so I know a lot about Pennsylvania’s version. 

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

The per student decrease in funding to a single school due to students who would otherwise attend isn't that much, but you also have to pay for the capital for the magnet schools, additional teachers, administration, bussing, etc. 

 

It's basically the opposite of school consolidation (instead of going from small schools to a county consolidated school, you go from county consolidated to a consolidated school plus a high performing magnet) but primarily helps wealthy/white students.

The programs here are typically housed on the high school campus the students would already attend, so there aren’t any meaningfully larger expenses to run the programs. I think the two high schools in the district offer different programs though, so if the school you are zoned to doesn’t have the particular program you want you do have to provide your own transportation to school. As for teachers, my friend who teaches Econ at the high school has I think 4 periods of regular student Econ, 2 AP, and 1 for the magnet group. 
 

Doesn’t seem that difficult to pull off.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

27 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

The programs here are typically housed on the high school campus the students would already attend, so there aren’t any meaningfully larger expenses to run the programs. I think the two high schools in the district offer different programs though, so if the school you are zoned to doesn’t have the particular program you want you do have to provide your own transportation to school. As for teachers, my friend who teaches Econ at the high school has I think 4 periods of regular student Econ, 2 AP, and 1 for the magnet group. 
 

Doesn’t seem that difficult to pull off.

Here, and from what I saw when I lived in North Carolina, we have separate buildings in different parts of town for the different magnet schools.

 

There is an IB program within one of the high schools here which would be similar to what you're describing, and I don't have much of a problem with that, as they remain part of the school community and their test scores (again not ideal, but school quality is often based on these) contribute to the schools average.

[skillzdadirecta]

3 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Magnet schools become disproportionately wealthy and white compared to the district at large, and also make other schools in the district look disproportionately bad (take the top ~10% of performers out of the district, concentrate them in one or two magnets, the test scores (which I hate to use but are a primary method of school evaluation) in the rest of the schools drop relative to the magnets) and so take away resources from schools and students who need it most.

So ultimately these schools just become another avenue for racial and economic inequality.

Yeah this wasn't the case in my city. All three magnet schools were predominately black and hispanic, something like 80 to 90%, reflecting the community at large because you had to actually live in the district in order to go to those schools. I worked on a project a couple of years back dealing with education and while there may be some drawbacks to magnet schools, they were found to be more successful than charter schools in closing the educations gap. Also my school didn't have a good sports team so we got nowhere NEAR the amount of funding the other high schools got. I can't speak to what goes on in other parts of the country, but I know that the magnet schools and also the vocational schools, were a net positive when I was there. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

All of that said, if we want to help students succeed academically, we need to help their families and also need to fund the schools at an adequate level to gain and retain good teachers, have nice facilities, etc

[Firewithin]

23 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

All of that said, if we want to help students succeed academically, we need to help their families and also need to fund the schools at an adequate level to gain and retain good teachers, have nice facilities, etc

well thats not happening in the good ole US of A clearly

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

If a private school takes public funding the it isn’t a private school. It is a public school that also charges tuition and takes donations. 
 

if a “private” school needs public money to run, the it shouldn’t be a private school. 

[Anathema-]

4 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Here, and from what I saw when I lived in North Carolina, we have separate buildings in different parts of town for the different magnet schools.

 

There is an IB program within one of the high schools here which would be similar to what you're describing, and I don't have much of a problem with that, as they remain part of the school community and their test scores (again not ideal, but school quality is often based on these) contribute to the schools average.

 

In my county it's a mix, kind of. Many existing high schools have developed magnet programs (IB, IT, etc .. Yes there's an Information Tech magnet in my county) and I think the big art magnet wasn't a special new additional high school but a regular new school they stood up as a magnet. You just go there normally if it's in your district but if you make it into the magnet program they'll bus you from all over.

[osxmatt]

5 hours ago, Chris- said:

Yes, that is correct (allowing for some small differences between states). At my old job I was responsible for recruiting donors into the program, so I know a lot about Pennsylvania’s version. 

 

I appreciate the response.

 

If the program works just like I explained i.e. tax credit reimbursement for a personal donation to a private school, I think I'm ok with it. Unless I'm missing something?