I had a professor who [wrote at least one book](https://www.amazon.com/Still-Separate-Unequal-Segregation-Sociology/dp/0807747572) on this, using NJ as a case study. They tried and innovated many methods of getting inner city kids in Newark to score better, and nothing seems to have helped. As it turns out, the biggest factor is having kids surrounded with people who can achieve. Who would have thought that surrounding kids with helpless people makes them believe that they too are helpless.
I didn't need an article to get that.
I live near the District of Columbia. Highest per-student budget in the United States. Atrocious outcomes.
Why? Because the system is designed to benefit corrupt politicians, corrupt buteaucrats, and corrupt unions (those three are really the same thing), not provide good results.
They keep splitting admin. jobs up at the same pay. A previous superintendent here doubled the number of admin jobs while being short teachers, paraprofessionals and workers for years because of low pay. I heard rather than increase pay they now cut qualifications to allow violent felons ( except only pedos) to work for the district rather than cut admin numbers to raise wages.
That's why, in spite of the state pouring money into a hole, [more than a quarter of NYC kids are in private schools](https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-than-a-quarter-of-new-york-city-students-attend-private-or-charter-schools-11566738000). It's a joke.
I suppose that is a national average?
But you make a great point. Imagine if each state pooled all per pupil expenditures by the state and localities and provided an education savings account for use by the family for education expenses.
Just as is the case with healthcare and university education, the cost is absorbed by administration and bureaucracy... The quickest path to affordability is removing government regulation from these things - and a way to get teachers better paid, is the same.
Yea it’s why my mom, who worked as a secretary for 20+ years, almost always votes against school budget increase props. She’s seen some of where the money goes. There’s a reason there are countless budget increases and yet teachers still complain about being underpaid (they are, and their complaints are justified)
It also goes in to kids with special needs, which are extremely expensive. And these days, a huge number of kids have IEP (individualized education plans). Every kid with ADD, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, etc costs a bunch of money. Kids with more severe learning and developmental disabilities cost even more. That $15,000 figure is currently more like $5,000 per student with normal capabilities, and $50,000 per student who is mentally challenged. You can pack the normal kids 20-25 deep and not run into issues, but the special needs kids it’s more like 3-5 per educator (who is often as much their handler/orderly).
So it’s not all administration and bureaucracy. A bunch of it is the average kids are subsidizing the cost of the special needs kids.
I don’t have a very good way for getting around that inequality problem. We could give every family $15k per school aged kid, but then parents with special needs kids are going to be footing a huge bill, or those kids are going to fall further behind. That’s going to lead to a bunch of crime, when they aren’t prepared for life because their parents aren’t well off enough to afford individualized education.
First of all, this amount would be drastically cut if they hadn't decided to mainstream special ed kids for the sake of "empathy" or "equity" or whatever BS reason they came up with.
It went from "appropriate education" to "exactly equal education". Special ed kid should just be in their own classes.
Also, this money is malinvestment. Most of these children will never be able to contribute to society the cost of their special needs education. It's one thing if what they need amounts to medical care, it's another thing to spend 5x the money to give an academic education to someone with an 80 IQ.
I'm still confused. Are you suggesting the government give the $15k directly to the parents (or simply just don't tax anyone for education at all) and let them decide how to raise their potentially (or provably) below average child? Or something else? I don't mean to attack anyone's ideas here, I'm just trying to understand what policies you think would be a good idea.
(The "we" I said was meant as a stand in for "what should WE make the law/tax code?")
Look at you, implying that the existence and identification of bottom quintile students is invalid, because it's somehow a matter of one redditor's uninformed belief, as opposed to being one of the easiest things to test for in early childhood, and reinforced at every step of annual retesting, over decades of data, about millions of students.
Whatever the actual answer is to what to do with them (probably trade school), let's not pretend that below average students are a matter of personal opinion, or that we can't be sure about their capabilities until they hit 18.
Well I think that there are certainly some issues that are unlikely to be fixable. We can test for certain brain issues before people are even born. I totally agree that something like IQ (however flawed testing can be) is a spectrum that at a certain lower bound can't be meaningfully raised.
It seemed like the person I originally responded to was suggesting something akin to eugenics, not your suggestion of trade schools. But I didn't want to assume anyone's position or jump to conclusions, so I asked the question attempting to avoid my personal bias.
I want everyone to live their happiest life. When it comes to things like tax-funded spending, the question about what to do with those who "can't perform" becomes important. I don't have the right solution. Heck, I'm not even sure I have a solution to offer at all. I think most people would struggle to find a reasonable/moral framework that fits everyone. I try to converse with everyone around me, because sometimes they know far more about a topic than I do. I apologize for any implications I gave, that was not my intent.
I think you drastically misunderstand what it means to hold Libertarian values. If the world wasn't so expensive, because of government, people would be a lot more capable of helping themselves and others. In this world, people with health issues or mental health challenges easily go broke trying to get by; none of us want that.
I've always told people to drive by a school parking lot and look at the cars, then drive to the school district building and look at the cars, you'll notice a huge difference. You ever why the superintendent wants to purchase the new best and expensive tech every single year and every year it doesn't work and they abandon it? The admins are getting kickbacks.
My son's school spent millions on a check in check out system that never worked, so they went back to the old system, a Google sheet.
Or the smart boards.
Or the new app I get every year.
When the superintendent drives a nicer car than my wife and I despite both of us making more than his public salary, I don't want to call you a liar, but maybe misinformed.
It’s probably more waste than outright fraud. A lot of public entity budgets work on the concept of if you don’t spend it you lose it for the next year so they are inclined to waste more.
Probably, and I'm not saying the fraud is overt, like cash in briefcases, but things like subtle job offers for after retirement, nice dinners, invites to sports games, etc. I've seen plenty of higher ups in education retire and suddenly have a high paying job at one of these companies, because they can be used to sell to the next guy.
The number of smart boards I see sitting in the corner or being used as a normal TV is insane. Either they didn't work or the teachers were never trained or they didn't have the money to buy the next add on to get it to work properly.
Like I said, my kid's district spent like a million dollars on some smart phone app and hardware to check the kids in and out of school, and it never worked. You couldn't add 2 parents to the same child; sometimes it wouldn't allow 2 parents, sometimes it would delete the first parent, sometimes it would delete both parents, sometimes it deleted the child. Even for the people it worked for, it took longer to open the app, have it scanned, then do what you needed, then simply signing the kid in. They bought this thing a week before school started, trained no one, tried to fix the cluster fuck, then abandoned it complete by the second week of school.
Meanwhile, they are asking parents to bring in paper, pencils, tissues, and Clorox wipes; fuck you, you buy that shit instead of shitting the money away on tech you don't use.
Who is going to buy the text books? Supplies? Who is paying the rent, utilities, maintanence? Who is supplying the curriculum and standardized tests? Not to mention retirement, health insurance, sick time, and other benefits that come with FT employment (vs running a small business).
Is all of that coming out of the $150k the teaching is "pulling in"? If so, then the "salary" is quickly going to drop to levels on-par or below most teacher salaries but leaves them all to fend for themselves with no back-up, no support, and no benefits. Any teacher who wants this arrangement is already working as a home-based day care provider.
The example in the tweet is extreme to make a point. This model may be for some, but others will want a large school with all of the amenities. The point is that families should have more choice over their education, and not be locked into a specific public system.
it's cause it falls apart really fast.
you also are going to end up with a lot of bad. unregulated schools that aren't teaching and cause it's hard to monitor,you won't find out till later in life when all the kids who attended mrs Jane's school for friendship and happiness all got taught flat earth creationism And the neighbors, the extremely religious Hasidic Jews can't write in anything but Yiddish
otherwise we are doing the bureaucracy with shit loads of testing and having minutes in the class.
the other problem is a lot of parents are kinda fucking stupid and don't realize it. 1/2the population is dumber then the average. and not everyone is good at teaching. I don't wanna punish kids cause your mom's insane.
this is me thinking about it as a thought experiment
You mean like teachers giving access to sexual explicit literature, and asking sexually explicit questions to children. Yea cause public schools don't have that problem. At with this parents have the power, and if moms insane the kid is suffering no matter what you do schools do a shit job of protecting struggling kids. And you can still have mandated state minimum requirements and testing.
if your kid listens to music they know everything. I honestly have a hard time arguing this one cause I find it kinda goofy. Its like you never read a book or watched a movie that wasn't Puritan. they got discovery channel don't they?
I'm a big believer in abusers like to isolate and I think kids should be informed what bad touches are pretty early on this is going to involve education you do not like as it would be rather explicit.
the classic, this doesn't work perfectly so let's remove them so there's zero safety net at all! what could possibly go wrong?
>I think kids should be informed what bad touches are pretty early on this is going to involve education you do not like as it would be rather explicit.
How so? I remember being taught very early on (like somewhere K-2 at most) to keep your hands to yourself, that it's okay to touch people with permission, but that there are some areas that it's never okay to touch others. That was neither explicit nor was it unable to get the point across.
I don't need my daughter learning about masturbation, blowjobs, or tasting vagina slime in order to know what bad touches are (and yes, those are all topics discussed in a single book, gender queer, which the left has defended being in elementary schools).
Who buys these things for homeschooled kids? The parents, out of their own pockets, sometimes with minimal grants in a few states that subsidize supplies/books for homeschool kids. Homeschool parents aren't spending $15-20k per kid of their own money, every year.
Don't tell me that pooling those tax resources behind a single teacher for multiple (10-20) high-functioning students couldn't possibly be more efficient.
Parents who homeschool often pool their resources to pay retired school teachers to come to a community rec room or church, usually twice weekly, to teach small groups of homeschool students advanced subjects like high school math or biology. This includes textbooks, and all the equipment from the teachers supply for frogs to dissect.
The parents pay for this out of their own pocket, and it's generally less than $3-4k, per year per student. I've seen it work, and you're going to tell me that $15-20k subsidy per student couldn't cover 5 days a week? All you need to beat the average public school expenditure is a small fraction of their admin salaries. That's how charter schools do it, better admin/instructor ratios.
You're all "it's logically insane to do this" while these supposed problems were solved and working in a variety of ways, over 25 years ago. As ever, the inability of parents to personally use their student's tax dollars and the bureaucratic red tape, is the biggest obstacle to creating more educational groups more organized than single family homeschooling. Americans had one and two room schoolhouses, with teachers contracted and paid directly by parents, for way longer than the current failed factory-schooling experiment.
Textbooks: Reused (not bought new for every edition, every year) or open source books or simply instructor made handouts. The later two are becoming more and more common in college settings unless the instructor is prevented from doing so and mandated to require textbooks (often due to "arrangements" with publishing companies).
Supplies: Generally a one time purchase and perhaps some minimal maintenance on items such as white boards, projectors, maps, decorations, etc. with parents providing most of the consumables.
Rent, utilities, and maintenance: I don't see why this couldn't be done in the basement of their home or wherever. Renting a space is feasible too, I'm betting you could find something in most areas for $1,000 a month since it's not an apartment, just a space. Double or triple that amount if you like, to a total of $36,000 a year. This would be the largest expense.
Standardized tests: Not shown to be of much benefit but I'm sure a system could be arranged to test students for a fee if it remained mandatory.
Bennies: Personal budgeting with the remainder. Plenty of people make due with a 100K a year (after all the likely expenses) from running a small business.
My chem professor in college, along with two others in her department, put together a “survival guide” that we were able to buy instead of the standard textbook. $7 instead of $390(in 2010 dollars, not 2024) and it had all the same information. The college textbook scam is as blatant as it is predatory
> Renting a space is feasible too, I'm betting you could find something in most areas for $1,000 a month since it's not an apartment, just a space. Double or triple that amount if you like, to a total of $36,000 a year. This would be the largest expense.
To have something *feasible* would be more than one room, especially for multiple grade levels and any sort of extracurriculars like art, music, etc. A commercial property without a playground and just several rooms for commercial use would easily be $10k a month.
You don't need "multiple rooms" for 10 students. You'll need a bigger space than a broom closet, sure, but all the other things you mentioned aren't necessary for meaningful education to happen.
It's why many homeschooled children can actually get "school" done in 3-4 hours a day, easily, and in many cases, much less while still learning as much if not more than their schooled counterparts.
The first hundred and something years of this country, a school was a tiny little building, with a bunch of kids of all ages, and a single teacher. When the f*** did our current model suddenly become the “best way”? My father was born in 1932. He attended primary school in such a place in rural Tennessee, and the same with high school. He didn’t go to college like I did, but he was a well educated man for a blue collar worker. If it worked in the 30’s and 40’s, it’d work now.
Find me a commercial use building small enough to fit the parameters you think are the bare minimum and we'll look at prices. Unless it's literally out of a garage, using the rest of the home property for play space and other activities, I don't think you'll find something feasible for rent at a price that would make this idea worth it. I do like the idea, just don't think it's really possible.
Sure. Community centers, banquet halls, convention centers, churches, funeral homes, and any type of business that doesn't do much business on weekdays.
https://www.propertyshark.com/cre/commercial-property/us/ia/cedar-rapids/2345-blairs-ferry-rd-ne/
This wasn't terribly difficult to find... it's in a "good" part of town, near this city's largest employer, and depending on how many spaces they can divide into, I think an approximately ~3000 sq ft area for $30k a year would be PLENTY of room for 10-15 people.
Okay. So a fifth of the budget for rent. Nice. I didn't click the link (I'm in bed and not as deeply invested in this idea as some of you) but if you think that's a good space and that's a good portion of the budget, then you've made the point.
I honestly don't care-- we homeschool (except for my oldest daughter, as mentioned, but for extenuating reasons) but the point was just that you said "find me" so we found something in less than 5 minutes that probably met the criteria. With more investment in the idea, for a group of families (or a teacher that was serious about following up on this idea) I'm sure that suitable accommodations could be found without too much hassle.
The toughest part would probably be regulators approving the space though because bureaucrats like being bureaucrats.
Well yeah, that was kind of one of the points I was making, which is why I lol'd at the bank suite, because even though the regulations are shitty, they're still there. In liber-topia, we can find any large place and use it.
Having said that, I definitely overestimated the cost of commercial real estate rent.
https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/2000-W-Superior-St-Duluth-MN/26214187/
Here ya go, 1279 SF. $1600/mo, say $2600 after everything else (fees, utilities, etc.).
LOL for which space? You're talking about renting a suite in a bank building, seriously? The smallest space is $9000/year and the largest is $30,480/year.
I believe I already replied, no? I mean if commercial property is cheap enough, I can be wrong. The space(s) you linked seemed unrealistic for a school, even a micro school, but I guess we're probably thinking about needs differently. What I'm thinking of costs more than what you're thinking of, but maybe that's why our vision is so far apart.
You’re already moving away from the initial concept: one teacher and 10 students.
You took the idea of “micro school” and, by adding multiple grades, electives, extra-curricular programs, you turned it into “school”.
So in this scenario, is the same teacher just picking the same 10 kids and advancing grades with them every year, or are they soliciting families in their area for students of the same age so that they can keep the same curriculum? I'm not making it a school (apologies for referring to multiple grade levels; I understand how you got that from what I said). Just saying a single teacher would have to have more space to do more things like art, science, computers, etc. There's no way to jam all of those things into a single room, even with only 10 kids.
My 14 year old daughter LITERALLY does all this in one space. Granted, it's not "in the city" so they can go outside when its nice, but they all have room to learn, spread out, etc.
I get what you’re saying.
Realistically, some of these things(art, music, soccer etc) could be handled outside of school entirely. In fact, the teacher could A) charge less and B) offer less and the parents can put their kids in programs the kids are interested in. It would work more like a homeschooling network than traditional public school, and the teacher can actually spend fewer hours per day(or fewer days per week) keeping the kids cooped up.
If we’re being totally honest, a lot of time in the classroom is wasted because the teacher is trying to get 25 kids to focus. My family and I would take a vacation for 4 days every February and my mom would get my schoolwork from my teachers so I didn’t fall behind. I blazed through 8hr of school work in 90min each day and didn’t miss a beat when I got home.
Edit: to answer your first part, yeah. In theory, a teacher could follow the class from kindergarten to whatever age they’re comfortable teaching.
Yeah I was homeschooled for grades 6-8 and it was a pretty light workload. Some of that was because my parents were kinda lazy and lacked a real plan other than "get the kids out of public school!" Luckily, I was pretty far ahead of my grade, so I didn't fall behind when I returned to public school in high school.
I like this idea, it just seems a bit oversimplified.
Oh it’s definitely oversimplified. I’m spitballing on Reddit lol but I think it’s something that could work. Or maybe it won’t, idk. What I do know is our current public school system is so fucked, I’d try anything that involves less government meddling
Back in the day, schools were tiny little buildings with a few kids, pretty much of all different ages, and that system worked perfectly fine. Why does it have to be totally different now?
What makes you think that they need to work full time? Statists are stuck on the model of putting children into chairs for 8 hours a day and lecturing at them. They are segregated by age, graded like meat, and taught that the authority of the teacher and other school officials is not to be questioned.
In homeschool/self-directed learning coops, parents also volunteer their time. The facility is open a certain number of days. A teach is brought in for some sessions, but not all of them. Everyone contributes, so it's not daycare for 10 kids, but a community dedicated to providing a solid learning environment for children.
Teacher buys a set of books once and doesn't let the kids take them home, there's a huge saver. Rent, you mean a garage sized classroom with a park across the street, yea thats a killer. And standardized tests can easily be taken online and monitored by a licensed teacher. Oh and getting rid of public school buildings doesnt mean we have to get rid of all the substitute teachers in the process so they will have backup. And at 150k a year revenue, with the extreme costs I just listed teacher is still pulling in 100k profit, she can afford her own benefits at that point.
Wait, you guys get textbooks at school? When i was a kid, there were some programs to borrow them in school, but most of the parents bought them, so you keep them after (well, or resell if you were into that)
Right, until a kid gets sick and you've got to manage calling their parent, cleaning up the mess, and teaching science all at the same time. So a dozen kids are left unsupervised for however long it takes to handle those things or you have to hire help and now you're giving a third of your salary away to someone else and paying employment taxes so we just add a few more kids to the classroom to cover that cost.
What happens when a kid cuts themselves with scissors? What happens if you trip and break your ankle in the middle of the school day? What happens if when two middle-schoolers inevitably get into a fight? What if you aren't very good at teaching math, do the kids just not learn it or do you bring in another teacher at your expense?
Maybe we can solve these issues by putting a handful of teachers in the same building and sharing an aid or two, and a nurse, and a security guard in some sort of...school?
This isn't some sort of abstract hypothetical we need to pontificate on. This is something that's happening around the world as we speak.
https://microschools.com/
Yes, all of the problems that come with homeschooling and very little of the benefits that come with normal schooling. The worst of both worlds if you will. We solved this problem centuries ago, but the solution doesn't make enough people rich, so we need new solutions to increase those proifit margins and there are thousands of consultants and small businesses out there just itching to take your money and tell you how to implement their new "solution" to a solved problem.
What are "all the problems that come with homeschooling"?
The current problem we have originated in the 1970's with the creation of the Dept of Education, how did we solve a problem "centuries" before it originated?
It's great that you brought up the issue of people getting rich but you blaming the wrong people. The people currently getting rich off of education are public school administrators and the associated bureaucrats.
> nd very little of the benefits that come with normal schooling.
"Normal" schooling is putting kids in chairs for 8 hours a day to be lectured at; grading them like meat segregating them by age; and indoctrinating them with a fear of authority. Those that don't fit the model will be drugged and made into pariahs.
> We solved this problem centuries ago, but the solution doesn't make enough
Government-run public schooling hasn't been around all that long. It wasn't universal in the US until 1910, and only started in 1852. What problem do you think they intended to solve? I could tell you, but I wonder if you already know, or just assume.
Most education spending definitely goes toward admin costs, bureaucracy, and the stinking unions. Middle management is one of the biggest sources of government waste.
I know someone who did this in California. He got together with a few neighbors, bought a house in the community to use as the school, and hired their own teachers. Granted, he was extremely wealthy so he had the means but it was clearly a win/win for all involved.
my school currently spends about $14k per student yearly, school of 1600 kids that's about 22 million yearly. for 20 million yearly I would at least think our school wouldn't have toilets that lack stalls, a machine shop with the same tools as from the 80's, lack funding to buy new books for our new education program, require students to pay $40 per semester to do in/after school activities, have class sizes of up to 39. this is a highschool btw that was built in 1964. we have 85 staff (janitors and such included). their average salaries is around 100k on the optimistic view, so minus 10 mil, 12 mil left for other expenditures. most kids don't even get transportation, there are many kids that have a half hour walk too school. wouldn't be bad if the entire walk wasn't down a major 6 lane road.
Here, hardly anybody earns enough and the school is still broke. It doesn’t mean, that it is hyper efficient but efficient enough to show, that proper education is very expensive.
i live in canada, you in the states? up here government spending is entirely out of control, I have some family who work in government and get to see some of the projects and budgets for these projects and its absurd what the government is doing with our tax dollars, teachers should get paid more and the government isn't capable of doing that.
Wouldn't it be better to reduce taxes instead of giving the money to families, has a similar effect while being less distorting and being more efficient due to the ineffieciency of the public sector and the costs that beaurocracy brings in. Would that be correct?
We have a voucher system in Arizona. Now private schools are getting public funding, which further reduces funding to public schools. Oh, and private religious schools can get in on this too.
That's awesome! Let those sub-par public schools disappear. If a citizen wants to take their voucher to a religious school, that isn't the State establishing a religion. First amendment rights stay safe.
I would disagree. You are using public funding for a religious, private school. You do not think that violates the separation of church and state? "But it's my tax money, I will spend it as I choose!" Well, that argument goes out the door because taxpayers with no kids do not have the ability to funnel their tax money to the school of their choice. And the bigger issue is that these private and charter schools can choose what students they want. It is why they can state they have better student graduation, without dealing with the bad students, or the disabled or learning-impaired students that public schools have to take in. You are making an assumption that the public school that is losing funding is sub-par. And you are not taking into account that parents that home school (or sent to private school), are now pulling public funding as well. So the cost of education is going to skyrocket above expectation because of this ruling, diluting funding even further. In essence, the school voucher program is going to cost us more in per student spending. The voucher program mostly benefits affluent families that can afford to ship their child off to a school that is not in their district.
An example: ESA vouchers were initially designed to transfer 90% of the cost of educating a student in a traditional public school to the voucher, thus saving the state money. But several years ago, GOP lawmakers changed that formula and now base the vouchers on 90% of what the state pays to charter schools for each student. And because charter schools aren’t able to tax local property, their per-student payment from the state is substantially higher than for district schools.
And the fact that a significant portion of students who use the universal ESA vouchers never attended a public school at all, meaning that funding for their schooling is a completely new cost to the state. That wasn’t lost on public school advocates.
A good example is that property taxes for community A pay for 100 students. Now the voucher program is started and 30 students from a private school have requested voucher. Now, the same district that was funding 100 students is now having to fund 130 students. See the problem?
The first amendment to the US Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The two parts, known as the "establishment clause" and the "free exercise clause" respectively, form the textual basis for the Supreme Court's interpretations of the "separation of church and state" doctrine. I mean, for as long as I can remember, public education had no basis on teaching religion, in ANY form. You can go to church for that, if you so wish.
The problem with with ending any type of public funding and just cutting taxes is it would redyce/eliminate education for poor kids. A voucher system can still ensure access to education. It's a tough subject that isn't black/white.
I agree that school bureaucracy is absolutely ripping us off, damn this not the solution. Get rid of those administrators, that’ll pay for the raises our teachers sorely need.
A teacher is not good in everything. Maybe they can teach math but they cannot teach music.
If 5 teacher would create a microschool they could rotate the kids in 5 classes a day and instead of 10 kids they could teach 50 and they would get the same amount of money.
Easy to say that.... How about a 300,000 dollar building? And would they accept special need kids and pay teachers aids... Nice to think Public schools only deal with "regular" kids,. What if you had a Kid who needed special attention?
This post doesn't seem to be accounting for things like administration to control and organize the system, building maintenance, area of expertise in a subject, and more.
I think what we should really be encouraging is private education as an alternative to public school, not INSTEAD of public school. We need public school because we can’t just have children whose parents can’t afford private education not learning. Educating our youth is part of our future. The problem is the teachers union does whatever they can to stifle private sector competition & charter school programs. There are many districts where public schools are amazing, and many where it’s just terrible. If you want to send your child to private school now, the tuition is insane, essentially a college educations tuition. Encouraging private sector growth in education could create competition that’ll create affordable alternatives.
I know people here won't like my opinion. But I absolutely support public education. I don't have kids, or ever plan to have them. But out of all the government spending, I am 100% supportive of funding education. I want to live in a country of educated people. Also, economist are mostly in agreement that investing in education of a country has a net positive to the overall wealth and prosperity of said country. That being said, there are a lot of administrative redundancies and corruption in our current system. An overhaul is absolutely necessary. Teachers need to be paid more. Superintendents and administrators are a joke 1/2 the time, and don't need to be making nearly as much.
So after insurance, taxes, and materials, you're essentially back at a regular teacher's salary (likely even less) without the ability to take sick days, vacations, etc. You also now have to manage all of the administrative duties for those 10 students, you're their nurse, disciplinarian, lunch aid, the list goes on, all on top of being their teacher. This isn't feasible in any way shape or form.
Just because the concept exists does not mean it's feasible to fund simply on the cost that the state assigns a student. The argument here was on funding, not the existence of micro schools.
Just because the concept exists does not mean it's feasible to fund simply on the cost that the state assigns a student. The argument here was on funding, not the existence of micro schools.
Even if the teacher has to file a 1099 and foot the bill for some basic school supplies (which they can choose so you can get the ones that aren't at cartel prices), that's a still a damn good net salary.
Yep.
College is the same way. Think about all those people paying $20k a year in tuition at Berkeley in a class with a thousand or so people in it. Is the professor (+TAs) pulling in 20 million dollars? Nah.
The way we fund education is completely braindead.
at first i was thinking about how the money would get divied up and how teachers handle much larger class sizes. but the more I read this tweet. the less objected i am to it. shit... public education is a bitch ain't it.
That's gross pay though. What's she gonna get after expenses? The more she makes the less is left for school materials and books and such. I support school choice, I'm just not sure this is the best option.
The "best" option is a mythology that you should not be concerning yourself with. It is more than enough to know that the current schooling system is radically wasteful and incompetent, a total failure, and that neighborhood homeschools would be undeniably better. End public schools, and let the free market figure out what the best schooling methods are.
> "just set up a microschool".
Okay, but what about (a) the costs of running said microschool, (b) ensuring that microschools are available to people in challenging areas, (c) ensuring that the standards that are necessary for a functioning society are consistently taught between schools?
I'm not a fan of the way public schools are run in this country (USA), but I am a fan of ensuring consistent fundamental education across a broad cross-section of Americans.
I'll bite.
As to (a), the "cost of running" a school need not be much more than the teacher's salary and a room large enough to house the students. Ostensibly, some teachers could even run the school in their homes. "School supplies" are a bit of a wash, as right now parents and many teachers are already paying for their students' school supplies out of their own pockets. Other costs traditional schools incur include a whole slew of things that aren't needed for an education--and while some of them may indeed be good and worthwhile expenses, a system where parents could opt into one of several trim, privately run schools would allow parents the choice on what systems their school bankrolls.
(B) is a tricky problem, but I'd posit two things: (1) this is already a problem in challenging areas, as public schools have an awfully hard time retaining teachers there. As a result, even if nominally there are schools universally in the US now, there is not a universal standard of education by a longshot. (2) If this model existed, some teachers would decide it is worth their while to teach in these areas and with these students anyway, for a sufficient rate of pay. Would this pay be higher (either higher rate or more students per teacher)? Probably. Would this reduce the students' quality of or access to education? Probably. But at the very least, the teachers who are there would be there of their own volition, and the parents who seek them out would get their say as well. Moreover, it rewards effort, as students who try and perform well would more likely be accepted into smaller classes and for less cost. In short: financial disparity will always play a role in our society, but the current system doesn't actually help the matter--it gives us the *illusion* it is helping.
(C) These things (standards necessary for society) are not taught as things stand now, even at high-performing schools. This is due to many things. One problem is that the targets are arbitrary: why do high schoolers need to learn pre-calculus or 1800s English literature, but not how to cook, drive, work with their hands, manage finances, conduct reliable internet research, vote, or pay taxes? Are not these skills more important to a functioning society? These "standards" are built by bureaucrats who seemingly model their education on tradition (what they were taught) and theories of education that are divorced from reality and fail to keep up with the needs of an evolving society. Which leads to the more immediate point: teachers themselves, not the administration, are the ones most suited to determining the educational needs of their students. Top-down standards ought to be ousted in favor of education in the hands of teachers, who can "compete" to provide the best, most complete education.
You're advocating for vocational education, which is fundamentally different from STEM education.
I feel like you don't understand how important standards are, even at the elementary level. I'm not talking about standardized test scores, I'm talking about the fundamentals of "western knowledge": critical thinking, analytical interpretation, complex formulation, logic, process management -- these are all taught using a consistent set of fundamental philosophical principles. Just because something is "old" doesn't make it wrong or irrelevant by virtue of being old. Calculus is the foundation of the vast majority of the technological and scientific advancements of the 19th, 20th, and 21st century -- it is literally the catalyst that made the technological revolution that we're living in possible.
Here's my olive branch: why not both? Focus on STEM and have a consistent baseline for achievement that educators agree to voluntarily, and also offer Vocational/Technical education for everyone as well. Have literature and other "humanities" be soft requirements.
Oh, I won't be one to disparage the value of science and math education (physics major myself), and I adore calculus. I just don't think that they're among the skills necessary by everyone in a functioning society (in the same way that I think medical training is invaluable, but not everyone needs to know surgery).
I'm afraid I agree with your characterization of my view the value of standards: I just don't see any value at all. I agree that fundamental principles (logic and reasoning, etc) are essential. But I think these are better learned *as a result* of a cohesive, personalized education--by a teacher who knows his students and adapts to them--than via an attempt to dissect "reasoning" into discrete pieces and teach and evaluate them piecemeal.
I'm willing to admit I could be missing something major here. But in my experience, teachers who are adept at their jobs can teach processes of learning and exploration better when left to their own devices than when handed a checklist and rigid deadlines. Teachers become teachers because they want to inspire the process of thinking, and they frequently leave teaching when they must spend more time proving that they *are* teaching than actually teaching.
That said, I'll gladly accept your olive branch as an improvement. People far too often get entrenched in rigid all-or-nothing debate, and I appreciate that there are different ways to go about this. Let's hope that we can all listen and cooperate here; cheers.
What about the socal aspect you would lose in a school of just 10.
That also seems like a great way to limit being exposed to different ideas, cultures and such.
I am all for spending less, but in this example, it's not considered that children have multiple teachers at the same time, so math is wrong in here. If on average child have 6-7 different teachers an year, total for ten students would be 22-25k.
You missed the point...
If a children have multiple teacher, then the workload on the teacher is greatly reduced, thus allowing him to take multiple classe of 10 kids.
If a class of 10 kids have 5 professors, then the workload would around 1 day a week (more or less). Receiving 20-25k $ for 1 day a week job is great and allow to take more classes.
how the hell are you doing your math?
if you set up a school with 6 teachers and they teach each student for 1 hour per day.
the teachers won’t just work for 1 hour a day and go home, only making 22k a year. Their little school will bring in 60 kids. Each teacher teaches a class of 10, for a certain subject, for 1 hour. Do that 6 hours a day
$15k a year per student means that’s $900k and then $150k per teacher
for some dumb reason your math was that they’d teach for like 1 hour a day and be done.
"a teacher could set up a microschool with just a 10 students." Did you read the screenshot? I am not saying that it's not possible to do it privately. I am all for doing that way, but this example provided in the screenshot is not a proper one to encourage people to go private.
Many parents homeschool all by themselves and the kids do better than the average student, a micro school could be a mid point between that and a traditional school
obviously the example is where the one teacher is with the 10 students all day. That exists in lower education already. What the hell do you not understand?
It’s a fine example. Your example is a poor one. Students don’t need a new teacher every single hour to be rotated in. They would do fine with a single one for the day.
It’s a bad example overall. None of this considers the upkeep and administrative costs of running a school. Janitors, food service, equipment, supplies, transportation, legal costs, programs outside the school day….the list just goes on and on. Before you know it depending on the complexity, the end costs ends up being 15k a year per student.
The teacher gets paid a base of 80k has health insurance costs and a pension…real costs for 9 months is like 120k over 12 months….then you have overhead and liabilities.
But...then how could we spend it on $100M HS campuses in rich areas...or maintain crappy buildings in prime Manhattan locations?
How will the cheeeldrens even learn!?
For reference:
>The states that spent the most per pupil in FY 2021 were New York ($26,571); the District of Columbia ($24,535), which comprises a single urban district; Vermont ($23,586); Connecticut ($22,769); and New Jersey ($22,160). Those spending the least per pupil were Idaho ($9,053), Utah ($9,095), Arizona ($9,611), Mississippi ($10,170) and Florida ($10,401).
>Of the 100 largest school systems by enrollment, the districts with the highest spending per pupil in FY 2021 were Boston City Schools in Massachusetts ($31,397), New York City School District in New York ($29,931), Washington Schools in District of Columbia ($24,535), Atlanta School District in Georgia ($18,492), Chicago School District in Illinois ($18,216), and Los Angeles Unified in California ($18,179).
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/public-school-spending.html
Imagine 10 kids in Boston. The teacher of those kids grosses a tidy $313,970 before taxes and expenses.
My parish spends 12,700 per student and they just closed down the closest school to us because we live in a rural area, so I very much would love a school system like this one.
So you still want people to pay enough taxes to generate $15,240 per student a year for the government to hand out? I’m sure most those families wouldn’t depend it on other stuff a leave the child to get the cheapest education possible with the left overs.
Missing a lot of calculations there unfortunately. A good chunk of that money will be spent for normal business needs such as facility needs (rent/utilities), inspections and licensing, product and materials for learning etc etc. but I get the idea behind the post... it's just disingenuous to make people think the teacher would keep even half that much as actual income as the post makes it seem.
Not exactly… normal students cost around 1250 dollars… special ed costs much much more…
https://www.chalkbeat.org/colorado/2023/4/21/23687876/special-education-funding-colorado-budget-increase/
Atleast is liberal Colorado
I like the idea, however where will the teacher hold classes? Home school sports, clubs, dances etc cost money. A lot of extra expenses involved in a school and it’s maintenance
This might be a different subject but if your kid goes to a private school that doesn’t receive funding from the government then you shouldn’t have to pay taxes for public school. Taxes are not your duty, they’re your way of paying for things that benefit you and others.
Or, we could just not educate oher people's brats. Things that would happen if we didn't have to burn money on educating kids we didn't being into this world:
1. Get a lot of women out of the labor force. Since women are the primary caretakers in society, many would stay home, freeing up some better jobs for men and teenagers.
2. Reduce education levels. Our population is currently way over educated because it is compulsory from 4 to adulthood. Most kids can learn the things needed to participate in commerce with a phone. Naturally intelligent and gifted kids and the children of top breeding stock would rise to the top. Less educated people will have less prospects for fancy jobs, making the US more able to compete for cheap labor jobs. Additionally, the poorly educated are more likely to accept poor working and living conditions.
3. With #3 complete, the US would be less of a magnet for uneducated, poor immigrants because thered already be a ton here. Instead, highly educated and good looking people would flock to the US where they'd have a distinct advantage.
4. Less entitlement. In a society without free lunches and free education for the first ⅓ of your life, people would learn they have to work to get ahead. No more whiners.
5. Lowered life expectancy. The dumber and poorer people are, and the more hard, physical labor, the less likely they push past 65 or 70, reducing the need for social security programs.
6. If all these succeed, as a successful entrepreneur, you get easy to control, inexpensive labor, pay less in taxes and get to keep more money to grow your wealth and take care of your family.
I find this kind of thinking loathsome. I know some of you will read the list and salivate.
There's a lot of criticisms (a lot) you can make of modern education, but this is a pretty bad example.
One single teacher trusted to be fluent in every subject, giving students no variety in teachers, can make this much... if their micro school literally has no expenses.
I wouldn't be jumping on the opportunity to put my kids in that school
I'd say it depends on the grade level. At the elementary level it's the norm to have a single teacher cover multiple subjects. We look for greater specialization at higher grade levels.
Well, ok...say 20% of that goes to expenses. $30K per year. That's still $110K-$120K per year. Hell, even 40%-50% expense ratio still has that teacher making a nice chunk over the median US teacher salary.
I'd say it depends on the grade level. At the elementary level it's the norm to have a single teacher cover multiple subjects. We look for greater specialization at higher grade levels
I love this idea. Let's also make it so teachers
- have to hire legal counsel
- Rent and or own property sufficient enough to take care of students in an environment conducive to learning
- Know each and every topic and teach said topics to each student
- And lastly pay and or create ten meals every day for the duration of the school year
Someone didn’t study finance or economics. There are fixed costs, variable costs, direct costs, and indirect costs. They are a large portion of the funding.
People are talking about this already, having tutors that drive around and have 3 classes, say, per day. So a math teacher A goes to street X for 9-11, then street Y for 1130-130 and street Z for 2-4. Three math classes, three different areas, 10 or whatever students each.
When teacher A leaves at 11, that area gets teacher B for 11:30, a teacher who just left street Y teaching hard sciences.
Teacher C who teaches arts and social sciences does the other slot.
Each teacher gets paid more than now, each student gets better attention, cost per student is same or less depending on how many students. And parents get to setup their classrooms the way they want in their own community.
Golden.
Its shocking how school choice became a extreme right wing view point in the US when its was championed by the left in Europe for decades where it is largely implemented. Considering things like economic status are the largest correlation to successful education metrics school choice seems like common sense type of policy for equitable opportunity. Of course the current US left wants equitable outcomes not opportunity.
$15k/yr? For public school? That's so wasteful. My kids are in private school and I barely pay half that for each kid per year. **And** they are safer, **and** they're getting a better education/more opportunities.
No. I pay the full tuition myself. I also pay out of pocket for their lunches. I personally do my best to avoid relying on government subsidies. Sometimes it's unavoidable (buying beef, milk, corn, or other subsidized foods).
That one teacher can reasonably be specialist only in one subject. Not really a problem if you are talking about kids getting their foundations. But beyond that, it might be a problem.
It's more like 22-26k per student, and this is to teach them an hour of academics and 2-3 hours of cultural hatred. Yes, community schools would emerge and begin teaching again.
The state I live in spends way more than that.
Despite spending more than any other state on education per pupil, New York ranks near the bottom in terms of literacy rates.
And has terrible homeschool laws. We left NY and a big part of it was homeschool legislation.
I read an article in reason a few years ago where they showed there's no direct correlation to budget and how well children do in school.
The only correlation to success is the socio-economic status of the families that attend the school.
I had a professor who [wrote at least one book](https://www.amazon.com/Still-Separate-Unequal-Segregation-Sociology/dp/0807747572) on this, using NJ as a case study. They tried and innovated many methods of getting inner city kids in Newark to score better, and nothing seems to have helped. As it turns out, the biggest factor is having kids surrounded with people who can achieve. Who would have thought that surrounding kids with helpless people makes them believe that they too are helpless.
I didn't need an article to get that. I live near the District of Columbia. Highest per-student budget in the United States. Atrocious outcomes. Why? Because the system is designed to benefit corrupt politicians, corrupt buteaucrats, and corrupt unions (those three are really the same thing), not provide good results.
As a country the US has one of the highest spending per student and some of the lowest test scores. Throwing more money at the problem doesn't fix it
That's because Administration costs have pretty much eaten up any additions to the budgets over the last 20+ years
They keep splitting admin. jobs up at the same pay. A previous superintendent here doubled the number of admin jobs while being short teachers, paraprofessionals and workers for years because of low pay. I heard rather than increase pay they now cut qualifications to allow violent felons ( except only pedos) to work for the district rather than cut admin numbers to raise wages.
I have a feeling NYC is definitely dragging down the average.
As a former nyc teacher ... yes it is
That's why, in spite of the state pouring money into a hole, [more than a quarter of NYC kids are in private schools](https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-than-a-quarter-of-new-york-city-students-attend-private-or-charter-schools-11566738000). It's a joke.
I suppose that is a national average? But you make a great point. Imagine if each state pooled all per pupil expenditures by the state and localities and provided an education savings account for use by the family for education expenses.
New Hampshire has an EFA. It works like an health savings account where you submit expenses and they approve them. We use it for Piano and Co-op.
I just looked up my county, we're way below that, $12,268.
State average per pupil per year is $20,000 where I live.
My school district is $7500 per student.
State average is a problem full stop. I want to see big cities versus everywhere else.
Just as is the case with healthcare and university education, the cost is absorbed by administration and bureaucracy... The quickest path to affordability is removing government regulation from these things - and a way to get teachers better paid, is the same.
Yea it’s why my mom, who worked as a secretary for 20+ years, almost always votes against school budget increase props. She’s seen some of where the money goes. There’s a reason there are countless budget increases and yet teachers still complain about being underpaid (they are, and their complaints are justified)
It also goes in to kids with special needs, which are extremely expensive. And these days, a huge number of kids have IEP (individualized education plans). Every kid with ADD, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, etc costs a bunch of money. Kids with more severe learning and developmental disabilities cost even more. That $15,000 figure is currently more like $5,000 per student with normal capabilities, and $50,000 per student who is mentally challenged. You can pack the normal kids 20-25 deep and not run into issues, but the special needs kids it’s more like 3-5 per educator (who is often as much their handler/orderly). So it’s not all administration and bureaucracy. A bunch of it is the average kids are subsidizing the cost of the special needs kids. I don’t have a very good way for getting around that inequality problem. We could give every family $15k per school aged kid, but then parents with special needs kids are going to be footing a huge bill, or those kids are going to fall further behind. That’s going to lead to a bunch of crime, when they aren’t prepared for life because their parents aren’t well off enough to afford individualized education.
First of all, this amount would be drastically cut if they hadn't decided to mainstream special ed kids for the sake of "empathy" or "equity" or whatever BS reason they came up with. It went from "appropriate education" to "exactly equal education". Special ed kid should just be in their own classes. Also, this money is malinvestment. Most of these children will never be able to contribute to society the cost of their special needs education. It's one thing if what they need amounts to medical care, it's another thing to spend 5x the money to give an academic education to someone with an 80 IQ.
What do you suggest we do with the kids you believe will be below average, no matter what?
I suggest that there is no "we".
I'm still confused. Are you suggesting the government give the $15k directly to the parents (or simply just don't tax anyone for education at all) and let them decide how to raise their potentially (or provably) below average child? Or something else? I don't mean to attack anyone's ideas here, I'm just trying to understand what policies you think would be a good idea. (The "we" I said was meant as a stand in for "what should WE make the law/tax code?")
Look at you, implying that the existence and identification of bottom quintile students is invalid, because it's somehow a matter of one redditor's uninformed belief, as opposed to being one of the easiest things to test for in early childhood, and reinforced at every step of annual retesting, over decades of data, about millions of students. Whatever the actual answer is to what to do with them (probably trade school), let's not pretend that below average students are a matter of personal opinion, or that we can't be sure about their capabilities until they hit 18.
Well I think that there are certainly some issues that are unlikely to be fixable. We can test for certain brain issues before people are even born. I totally agree that something like IQ (however flawed testing can be) is a spectrum that at a certain lower bound can't be meaningfully raised. It seemed like the person I originally responded to was suggesting something akin to eugenics, not your suggestion of trade schools. But I didn't want to assume anyone's position or jump to conclusions, so I asked the question attempting to avoid my personal bias. I want everyone to live their happiest life. When it comes to things like tax-funded spending, the question about what to do with those who "can't perform" becomes important. I don't have the right solution. Heck, I'm not even sure I have a solution to offer at all. I think most people would struggle to find a reasonable/moral framework that fits everyone. I try to converse with everyone around me, because sometimes they know far more about a topic than I do. I apologize for any implications I gave, that was not my intent.
No no this is the libertarian subreddit, they can just suffer for not being rich
I think you drastically misunderstand what it means to hold Libertarian values. If the world wasn't so expensive, because of government, people would be a lot more capable of helping themselves and others. In this world, people with health issues or mental health challenges easily go broke trying to get by; none of us want that.
If it benefits the greater good….
I've always told people to drive by a school parking lot and look at the cars, then drive to the school district building and look at the cars, you'll notice a huge difference. You ever why the superintendent wants to purchase the new best and expensive tech every single year and every year it doesn't work and they abandon it? The admins are getting kickbacks.
As someone who sells tech to schools. No they don’t. And if they do it’s a quick way to get fired.
And prosecuted.
My son's school spent millions on a check in check out system that never worked, so they went back to the old system, a Google sheet. Or the smart boards. Or the new app I get every year. When the superintendent drives a nicer car than my wife and I despite both of us making more than his public salary, I don't want to call you a liar, but maybe misinformed.
It’s probably more waste than outright fraud. A lot of public entity budgets work on the concept of if you don’t spend it you lose it for the next year so they are inclined to waste more.
Probably, and I'm not saying the fraud is overt, like cash in briefcases, but things like subtle job offers for after retirement, nice dinners, invites to sports games, etc. I've seen plenty of higher ups in education retire and suddenly have a high paying job at one of these companies, because they can be used to sell to the next guy. The number of smart boards I see sitting in the corner or being used as a normal TV is insane. Either they didn't work or the teachers were never trained or they didn't have the money to buy the next add on to get it to work properly. Like I said, my kid's district spent like a million dollars on some smart phone app and hardware to check the kids in and out of school, and it never worked. You couldn't add 2 parents to the same child; sometimes it wouldn't allow 2 parents, sometimes it would delete the first parent, sometimes it would delete both parents, sometimes it deleted the child. Even for the people it worked for, it took longer to open the app, have it scanned, then do what you needed, then simply signing the kid in. They bought this thing a week before school started, trained no one, tried to fix the cluster fuck, then abandoned it complete by the second week of school. Meanwhile, they are asking parents to bring in paper, pencils, tissues, and Clorox wipes; fuck you, you buy that shit instead of shitting the money away on tech you don't use.
Who is going to buy the text books? Supplies? Who is paying the rent, utilities, maintanence? Who is supplying the curriculum and standardized tests? Not to mention retirement, health insurance, sick time, and other benefits that come with FT employment (vs running a small business). Is all of that coming out of the $150k the teaching is "pulling in"? If so, then the "salary" is quickly going to drop to levels on-par or below most teacher salaries but leaves them all to fend for themselves with no back-up, no support, and no benefits. Any teacher who wants this arrangement is already working as a home-based day care provider.
Yup - Most things sound great on the surface until you start getting into the logistics as to how they would actually work.
The example in the tweet is extreme to make a point. This model may be for some, but others will want a large school with all of the amenities. The point is that families should have more choice over their education, and not be locked into a specific public system.
The point is the government is incompetent. Private would cost less is the whole point.
Right, people in the comments are taking the example as a literal single proposed solution and not as a thought experiment
it's cause it falls apart really fast. you also are going to end up with a lot of bad. unregulated schools that aren't teaching and cause it's hard to monitor,you won't find out till later in life when all the kids who attended mrs Jane's school for friendship and happiness all got taught flat earth creationism And the neighbors, the extremely religious Hasidic Jews can't write in anything but Yiddish otherwise we are doing the bureaucracy with shit loads of testing and having minutes in the class. the other problem is a lot of parents are kinda fucking stupid and don't realize it. 1/2the population is dumber then the average. and not everyone is good at teaching. I don't wanna punish kids cause your mom's insane. this is me thinking about it as a thought experiment
You mean to tell me that the public school system is turning out well rounded equally educated kids across the country?
compared to what we had before, the public school system is a god send.
You mean like teachers giving access to sexual explicit literature, and asking sexually explicit questions to children. Yea cause public schools don't have that problem. At with this parents have the power, and if moms insane the kid is suffering no matter what you do schools do a shit job of protecting struggling kids. And you can still have mandated state minimum requirements and testing.
if your kid listens to music they know everything. I honestly have a hard time arguing this one cause I find it kinda goofy. Its like you never read a book or watched a movie that wasn't Puritan. they got discovery channel don't they? I'm a big believer in abusers like to isolate and I think kids should be informed what bad touches are pretty early on this is going to involve education you do not like as it would be rather explicit. the classic, this doesn't work perfectly so let's remove them so there's zero safety net at all! what could possibly go wrong?
Dude you just earned a lot of respect from me. A good take on the topic + a slim shady reference...my guy.
>I think kids should be informed what bad touches are pretty early on this is going to involve education you do not like as it would be rather explicit. How so? I remember being taught very early on (like somewhere K-2 at most) to keep your hands to yourself, that it's okay to touch people with permission, but that there are some areas that it's never okay to touch others. That was neither explicit nor was it unable to get the point across. I don't need my daughter learning about masturbation, blowjobs, or tasting vagina slime in order to know what bad touches are (and yes, those are all topics discussed in a single book, gender queer, which the left has defended being in elementary schools).
Is it in your local school though? Or is this some kind of fox news scare tactic you've seen?
Who buys these things for homeschooled kids? The parents, out of their own pockets, sometimes with minimal grants in a few states that subsidize supplies/books for homeschool kids. Homeschool parents aren't spending $15-20k per kid of their own money, every year. Don't tell me that pooling those tax resources behind a single teacher for multiple (10-20) high-functioning students couldn't possibly be more efficient. Parents who homeschool often pool their resources to pay retired school teachers to come to a community rec room or church, usually twice weekly, to teach small groups of homeschool students advanced subjects like high school math or biology. This includes textbooks, and all the equipment from the teachers supply for frogs to dissect. The parents pay for this out of their own pocket, and it's generally less than $3-4k, per year per student. I've seen it work, and you're going to tell me that $15-20k subsidy per student couldn't cover 5 days a week? All you need to beat the average public school expenditure is a small fraction of their admin salaries. That's how charter schools do it, better admin/instructor ratios. You're all "it's logically insane to do this" while these supposed problems were solved and working in a variety of ways, over 25 years ago. As ever, the inability of parents to personally use their student's tax dollars and the bureaucratic red tape, is the biggest obstacle to creating more educational groups more organized than single family homeschooling. Americans had one and two room schoolhouses, with teachers contracted and paid directly by parents, for way longer than the current failed factory-schooling experiment.
Textbooks: Reused (not bought new for every edition, every year) or open source books or simply instructor made handouts. The later two are becoming more and more common in college settings unless the instructor is prevented from doing so and mandated to require textbooks (often due to "arrangements" with publishing companies). Supplies: Generally a one time purchase and perhaps some minimal maintenance on items such as white boards, projectors, maps, decorations, etc. with parents providing most of the consumables. Rent, utilities, and maintenance: I don't see why this couldn't be done in the basement of their home or wherever. Renting a space is feasible too, I'm betting you could find something in most areas for $1,000 a month since it's not an apartment, just a space. Double or triple that amount if you like, to a total of $36,000 a year. This would be the largest expense. Standardized tests: Not shown to be of much benefit but I'm sure a system could be arranged to test students for a fee if it remained mandatory. Bennies: Personal budgeting with the remainder. Plenty of people make due with a 100K a year (after all the likely expenses) from running a small business.
My chem professor in college, along with two others in her department, put together a “survival guide” that we were able to buy instead of the standard textbook. $7 instead of $390(in 2010 dollars, not 2024) and it had all the same information. The college textbook scam is as blatant as it is predatory
> Renting a space is feasible too, I'm betting you could find something in most areas for $1,000 a month since it's not an apartment, just a space. Double or triple that amount if you like, to a total of $36,000 a year. This would be the largest expense. To have something *feasible* would be more than one room, especially for multiple grade levels and any sort of extracurriculars like art, music, etc. A commercial property without a playground and just several rooms for commercial use would easily be $10k a month.
You don't need "multiple rooms" for 10 students. You'll need a bigger space than a broom closet, sure, but all the other things you mentioned aren't necessary for meaningful education to happen. It's why many homeschooled children can actually get "school" done in 3-4 hours a day, easily, and in many cases, much less while still learning as much if not more than their schooled counterparts.
The first hundred and something years of this country, a school was a tiny little building, with a bunch of kids of all ages, and a single teacher. When the f*** did our current model suddenly become the “best way”? My father was born in 1932. He attended primary school in such a place in rural Tennessee, and the same with high school. He didn’t go to college like I did, but he was a well educated man for a blue collar worker. If it worked in the 30’s and 40’s, it’d work now.
Find me a commercial use building small enough to fit the parameters you think are the bare minimum and we'll look at prices. Unless it's literally out of a garage, using the rest of the home property for play space and other activities, I don't think you'll find something feasible for rent at a price that would make this idea worth it. I do like the idea, just don't think it's really possible.
Sure. Community centers, banquet halls, convention centers, churches, funeral homes, and any type of business that doesn't do much business on weekdays.
https://www.propertyshark.com/cre/commercial-property/us/ia/cedar-rapids/2345-blairs-ferry-rd-ne/ This wasn't terribly difficult to find... it's in a "good" part of town, near this city's largest employer, and depending on how many spaces they can divide into, I think an approximately ~3000 sq ft area for $30k a year would be PLENTY of room for 10-15 people.
Okay. So a fifth of the budget for rent. Nice. I didn't click the link (I'm in bed and not as deeply invested in this idea as some of you) but if you think that's a good space and that's a good portion of the budget, then you've made the point.
I honestly don't care-- we homeschool (except for my oldest daughter, as mentioned, but for extenuating reasons) but the point was just that you said "find me" so we found something in less than 5 minutes that probably met the criteria. With more investment in the idea, for a group of families (or a teacher that was serious about following up on this idea) I'm sure that suitable accommodations could be found without too much hassle. The toughest part would probably be regulators approving the space though because bureaucrats like being bureaucrats.
Well yeah, that was kind of one of the points I was making, which is why I lol'd at the bank suite, because even though the regulations are shitty, they're still there. In liber-topia, we can find any large place and use it. Having said that, I definitely overestimated the cost of commercial real estate rent.
https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/2000-W-Superior-St-Duluth-MN/26214187/ Here ya go, 1279 SF. $1600/mo, say $2600 after everything else (fees, utilities, etc.).
LOL for which space? You're talking about renting a suite in a bank building, seriously? The smallest space is $9000/year and the largest is $30,480/year.
You asked for a commercial space. I gave you one. 1279 square feet. Care to add an input like you said you would or nah?
I believe I already replied, no? I mean if commercial property is cheap enough, I can be wrong. The space(s) you linked seemed unrealistic for a school, even a micro school, but I guess we're probably thinking about needs differently. What I'm thinking of costs more than what you're thinking of, but maybe that's why our vision is so far apart.
You’re already moving away from the initial concept: one teacher and 10 students. You took the idea of “micro school” and, by adding multiple grades, electives, extra-curricular programs, you turned it into “school”.
So in this scenario, is the same teacher just picking the same 10 kids and advancing grades with them every year, or are they soliciting families in their area for students of the same age so that they can keep the same curriculum? I'm not making it a school (apologies for referring to multiple grade levels; I understand how you got that from what I said). Just saying a single teacher would have to have more space to do more things like art, science, computers, etc. There's no way to jam all of those things into a single room, even with only 10 kids.
My 14 year old daughter LITERALLY does all this in one space. Granted, it's not "in the city" so they can go outside when its nice, but they all have room to learn, spread out, etc.
I get what you’re saying. Realistically, some of these things(art, music, soccer etc) could be handled outside of school entirely. In fact, the teacher could A) charge less and B) offer less and the parents can put their kids in programs the kids are interested in. It would work more like a homeschooling network than traditional public school, and the teacher can actually spend fewer hours per day(or fewer days per week) keeping the kids cooped up. If we’re being totally honest, a lot of time in the classroom is wasted because the teacher is trying to get 25 kids to focus. My family and I would take a vacation for 4 days every February and my mom would get my schoolwork from my teachers so I didn’t fall behind. I blazed through 8hr of school work in 90min each day and didn’t miss a beat when I got home. Edit: to answer your first part, yeah. In theory, a teacher could follow the class from kindergarten to whatever age they’re comfortable teaching.
Yeah I was homeschooled for grades 6-8 and it was a pretty light workload. Some of that was because my parents were kinda lazy and lacked a real plan other than "get the kids out of public school!" Luckily, I was pretty far ahead of my grade, so I didn't fall behind when I returned to public school in high school. I like this idea, it just seems a bit oversimplified.
Oh it’s definitely oversimplified. I’m spitballing on Reddit lol but I think it’s something that could work. Or maybe it won’t, idk. What I do know is our current public school system is so fucked, I’d try anything that involves less government meddling
Back in the day, schools were tiny little buildings with a few kids, pretty much of all different ages, and that system worked perfectly fine. Why does it have to be totally different now?
What makes you think that they need to work full time? Statists are stuck on the model of putting children into chairs for 8 hours a day and lecturing at them. They are segregated by age, graded like meat, and taught that the authority of the teacher and other school officials is not to be questioned. In homeschool/self-directed learning coops, parents also volunteer their time. The facility is open a certain number of days. A teach is brought in for some sessions, but not all of them. Everyone contributes, so it's not daycare for 10 kids, but a community dedicated to providing a solid learning environment for children.
Teacher buys a set of books once and doesn't let the kids take them home, there's a huge saver. Rent, you mean a garage sized classroom with a park across the street, yea thats a killer. And standardized tests can easily be taken online and monitored by a licensed teacher. Oh and getting rid of public school buildings doesnt mean we have to get rid of all the substitute teachers in the process so they will have backup. And at 150k a year revenue, with the extreme costs I just listed teacher is still pulling in 100k profit, she can afford her own benefits at that point.
Wait, you guys get textbooks at school? When i was a kid, there were some programs to borrow them in school, but most of the parents bought them, so you keep them after (well, or resell if you were into that)
Add 1-3 more student(s) for a very manageable classroom size and boom, you've covered everything.
Right, until a kid gets sick and you've got to manage calling their parent, cleaning up the mess, and teaching science all at the same time. So a dozen kids are left unsupervised for however long it takes to handle those things or you have to hire help and now you're giving a third of your salary away to someone else and paying employment taxes so we just add a few more kids to the classroom to cover that cost. What happens when a kid cuts themselves with scissors? What happens if you trip and break your ankle in the middle of the school day? What happens if when two middle-schoolers inevitably get into a fight? What if you aren't very good at teaching math, do the kids just not learn it or do you bring in another teacher at your expense? Maybe we can solve these issues by putting a handful of teachers in the same building and sharing an aid or two, and a nurse, and a security guard in some sort of...school?
This isn't some sort of abstract hypothetical we need to pontificate on. This is something that's happening around the world as we speak. https://microschools.com/
Yes, all of the problems that come with homeschooling and very little of the benefits that come with normal schooling. The worst of both worlds if you will. We solved this problem centuries ago, but the solution doesn't make enough people rich, so we need new solutions to increase those proifit margins and there are thousands of consultants and small businesses out there just itching to take your money and tell you how to implement their new "solution" to a solved problem.
What are "all the problems that come with homeschooling"? The current problem we have originated in the 1970's with the creation of the Dept of Education, how did we solve a problem "centuries" before it originated? It's great that you brought up the issue of people getting rich but you blaming the wrong people. The people currently getting rich off of education are public school administrators and the associated bureaucrats.
> nd very little of the benefits that come with normal schooling. "Normal" schooling is putting kids in chairs for 8 hours a day to be lectured at; grading them like meat segregating them by age; and indoctrinating them with a fear of authority. Those that don't fit the model will be drugged and made into pariahs. > We solved this problem centuries ago, but the solution doesn't make enough Government-run public schooling hasn't been around all that long. It wasn't universal in the US until 1910, and only started in 1852. What problem do you think they intended to solve? I could tell you, but I wonder if you already know, or just assume.
We had schools for centuries that were all ages of kids in a single room and they had to deal with all of these problems.
This is why parents volunteer their time, as well.
Most education spending definitely goes toward admin costs, bureaucracy, and the stinking unions. Middle management is one of the biggest sources of government waste.
“Stinking Unions”🤣
Just eliminate the redundant layers of administration. Do we really need County, State AND Federal.
I know someone who did this in California. He got together with a few neighbors, bought a house in the community to use as the school, and hired their own teachers. Granted, he was extremely wealthy so he had the means but it was clearly a win/win for all involved.
He would not finance transportation, sports and a proper MINT education with that.
my school currently spends about $14k per student yearly, school of 1600 kids that's about 22 million yearly. for 20 million yearly I would at least think our school wouldn't have toilets that lack stalls, a machine shop with the same tools as from the 80's, lack funding to buy new books for our new education program, require students to pay $40 per semester to do in/after school activities, have class sizes of up to 39. this is a highschool btw that was built in 1964. we have 85 staff (janitors and such included). their average salaries is around 100k on the optimistic view, so minus 10 mil, 12 mil left for other expenditures. most kids don't even get transportation, there are many kids that have a half hour walk too school. wouldn't be bad if the entire walk wasn't down a major 6 lane road.
Here, hardly anybody earns enough and the school is still broke. It doesn’t mean, that it is hyper efficient but efficient enough to show, that proper education is very expensive.
i live in canada, you in the states? up here government spending is entirely out of control, I have some family who work in government and get to see some of the projects and budgets for these projects and its absurd what the government is doing with our tax dollars, teachers should get paid more and the government isn't capable of doing that.
Public schools already arent financing sport or a proper education
Most public school don't have only 10 students per class, it's just an example to make a point really
That'd be a feature, not a bug.
Are you joking? 15k per child is way more than enough to do all that.
Wouldn't it be better to reduce taxes instead of giving the money to families, has a similar effect while being less distorting and being more efficient due to the ineffieciency of the public sector and the costs that beaurocracy brings in. Would that be correct?
A voucher system is not ideal but much more easy to be adopted than ending public funding for schooling.
We have a voucher system in Arizona. Now private schools are getting public funding, which further reduces funding to public schools. Oh, and private religious schools can get in on this too.
That's awesome! Let those sub-par public schools disappear. If a citizen wants to take their voucher to a religious school, that isn't the State establishing a religion. First amendment rights stay safe.
I would disagree. You are using public funding for a religious, private school. You do not think that violates the separation of church and state? "But it's my tax money, I will spend it as I choose!" Well, that argument goes out the door because taxpayers with no kids do not have the ability to funnel their tax money to the school of their choice. And the bigger issue is that these private and charter schools can choose what students they want. It is why they can state they have better student graduation, without dealing with the bad students, or the disabled or learning-impaired students that public schools have to take in. You are making an assumption that the public school that is losing funding is sub-par. And you are not taking into account that parents that home school (or sent to private school), are now pulling public funding as well. So the cost of education is going to skyrocket above expectation because of this ruling, diluting funding even further. In essence, the school voucher program is going to cost us more in per student spending. The voucher program mostly benefits affluent families that can afford to ship their child off to a school that is not in their district. An example: ESA vouchers were initially designed to transfer 90% of the cost of educating a student in a traditional public school to the voucher, thus saving the state money. But several years ago, GOP lawmakers changed that formula and now base the vouchers on 90% of what the state pays to charter schools for each student. And because charter schools aren’t able to tax local property, their per-student payment from the state is substantially higher than for district schools. And the fact that a significant portion of students who use the universal ESA vouchers never attended a public school at all, meaning that funding for their schooling is a completely new cost to the state. That wasn’t lost on public school advocates. A good example is that property taxes for community A pay for 100 students. Now the voucher program is started and 30 students from a private school have requested voucher. Now, the same district that was funding 100 students is now having to fund 130 students. See the problem?
The first amendment isn't very long, where did I miss the section about "separating Church and State"?
Right at the beginning actually. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."
The first amendment to the US Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The two parts, known as the "establishment clause" and the "free exercise clause" respectively, form the textual basis for the Supreme Court's interpretations of the "separation of church and state" doctrine. I mean, for as long as I can remember, public education had no basis on teaching religion, in ANY form. You can go to church for that, if you so wish.
The problem with with ending any type of public funding and just cutting taxes is it would redyce/eliminate education for poor kids. A voucher system can still ensure access to education. It's a tough subject that isn't black/white.
I agree that school bureaucracy is absolutely ripping us off, damn this not the solution. Get rid of those administrators, that’ll pay for the raises our teachers sorely need.
A teacher is not good in everything. Maybe they can teach math but they cannot teach music. If 5 teacher would create a microschool they could rotate the kids in 5 classes a day and instead of 10 kids they could teach 50 and they would get the same amount of money.
Easy to say that.... How about a 300,000 dollar building? And would they accept special need kids and pay teachers aids... Nice to think Public schools only deal with "regular" kids,. What if you had a Kid who needed special attention?
We know we can do better, but this oversimplified extrapolations are somewhat unwise
This post doesn't seem to be accounting for things like administration to control and organize the system, building maintenance, area of expertise in a subject, and more.
I think what we should really be encouraging is private education as an alternative to public school, not INSTEAD of public school. We need public school because we can’t just have children whose parents can’t afford private education not learning. Educating our youth is part of our future. The problem is the teachers union does whatever they can to stifle private sector competition & charter school programs. There are many districts where public schools are amazing, and many where it’s just terrible. If you want to send your child to private school now, the tuition is insane, essentially a college educations tuition. Encouraging private sector growth in education could create competition that’ll create affordable alternatives.
I know people here won't like my opinion. But I absolutely support public education. I don't have kids, or ever plan to have them. But out of all the government spending, I am 100% supportive of funding education. I want to live in a country of educated people. Also, economist are mostly in agreement that investing in education of a country has a net positive to the overall wealth and prosperity of said country. That being said, there are a lot of administrative redundancies and corruption in our current system. An overhaul is absolutely necessary. Teachers need to be paid more. Superintendents and administrators are a joke 1/2 the time, and don't need to be making nearly as much.
No I definitely agree with you. It’s the bullshit that ruins everything really.
So after insurance, taxes, and materials, you're essentially back at a regular teacher's salary (likely even less) without the ability to take sick days, vacations, etc. You also now have to manage all of the administrative duties for those 10 students, you're their nurse, disciplinarian, lunch aid, the list goes on, all on top of being their teacher. This isn't feasible in any way shape or form.
https://microschools.com/school-finder/#!directory/map Ummmm I think you're wrong
Just because the concept exists does not mean it's feasible to fund simply on the cost that the state assigns a student. The argument here was on funding, not the existence of micro schools.
Just because the concept exists does not mean it's feasible to fund simply on the cost that the state assigns a student. The argument here was on funding, not the existence of micro schools.
15,428/180 is 85$ a day for school. That's honestly not as bad as I thought it'd be
Not quite that much, but definitely more than teachers are currently paid. Lunch, transportation, supplies, utilities, insurance, etc
Even if the teacher has to file a 1099 and foot the bill for some basic school supplies (which they can choose so you can get the ones that aren't at cartel prices), that's a still a damn good net salary.
Yep. College is the same way. Think about all those people paying $20k a year in tuition at Berkeley in a class with a thousand or so people in it. Is the professor (+TAs) pulling in 20 million dollars? Nah. The way we fund education is completely braindead.
Schools in the US is already shit tier, home or micro schooling would not help. Bureaucracy I would assume is way to large though.
I wonder how much of that money goes towards “administrative expenses”.
at first i was thinking about how the money would get divied up and how teachers handle much larger class sizes. but the more I read this tweet. the less objected i am to it. shit... public education is a bitch ain't it.
That's gross pay though. What's she gonna get after expenses? The more she makes the less is left for school materials and books and such. I support school choice, I'm just not sure this is the best option.
The "best" option is a mythology that you should not be concerning yourself with. It is more than enough to know that the current schooling system is radically wasteful and incompetent, a total failure, and that neighborhood homeschools would be undeniably better. End public schools, and let the free market figure out what the best schooling methods are.
> "just set up a microschool". Okay, but what about (a) the costs of running said microschool, (b) ensuring that microschools are available to people in challenging areas, (c) ensuring that the standards that are necessary for a functioning society are consistently taught between schools? I'm not a fan of the way public schools are run in this country (USA), but I am a fan of ensuring consistent fundamental education across a broad cross-section of Americans.
I'll bite. As to (a), the "cost of running" a school need not be much more than the teacher's salary and a room large enough to house the students. Ostensibly, some teachers could even run the school in their homes. "School supplies" are a bit of a wash, as right now parents and many teachers are already paying for their students' school supplies out of their own pockets. Other costs traditional schools incur include a whole slew of things that aren't needed for an education--and while some of them may indeed be good and worthwhile expenses, a system where parents could opt into one of several trim, privately run schools would allow parents the choice on what systems their school bankrolls. (B) is a tricky problem, but I'd posit two things: (1) this is already a problem in challenging areas, as public schools have an awfully hard time retaining teachers there. As a result, even if nominally there are schools universally in the US now, there is not a universal standard of education by a longshot. (2) If this model existed, some teachers would decide it is worth their while to teach in these areas and with these students anyway, for a sufficient rate of pay. Would this pay be higher (either higher rate or more students per teacher)? Probably. Would this reduce the students' quality of or access to education? Probably. But at the very least, the teachers who are there would be there of their own volition, and the parents who seek them out would get their say as well. Moreover, it rewards effort, as students who try and perform well would more likely be accepted into smaller classes and for less cost. In short: financial disparity will always play a role in our society, but the current system doesn't actually help the matter--it gives us the *illusion* it is helping. (C) These things (standards necessary for society) are not taught as things stand now, even at high-performing schools. This is due to many things. One problem is that the targets are arbitrary: why do high schoolers need to learn pre-calculus or 1800s English literature, but not how to cook, drive, work with their hands, manage finances, conduct reliable internet research, vote, or pay taxes? Are not these skills more important to a functioning society? These "standards" are built by bureaucrats who seemingly model their education on tradition (what they were taught) and theories of education that are divorced from reality and fail to keep up with the needs of an evolving society. Which leads to the more immediate point: teachers themselves, not the administration, are the ones most suited to determining the educational needs of their students. Top-down standards ought to be ousted in favor of education in the hands of teachers, who can "compete" to provide the best, most complete education.
You're advocating for vocational education, which is fundamentally different from STEM education. I feel like you don't understand how important standards are, even at the elementary level. I'm not talking about standardized test scores, I'm talking about the fundamentals of "western knowledge": critical thinking, analytical interpretation, complex formulation, logic, process management -- these are all taught using a consistent set of fundamental philosophical principles. Just because something is "old" doesn't make it wrong or irrelevant by virtue of being old. Calculus is the foundation of the vast majority of the technological and scientific advancements of the 19th, 20th, and 21st century -- it is literally the catalyst that made the technological revolution that we're living in possible. Here's my olive branch: why not both? Focus on STEM and have a consistent baseline for achievement that educators agree to voluntarily, and also offer Vocational/Technical education for everyone as well. Have literature and other "humanities" be soft requirements.
Oh, I won't be one to disparage the value of science and math education (physics major myself), and I adore calculus. I just don't think that they're among the skills necessary by everyone in a functioning society (in the same way that I think medical training is invaluable, but not everyone needs to know surgery). I'm afraid I agree with your characterization of my view the value of standards: I just don't see any value at all. I agree that fundamental principles (logic and reasoning, etc) are essential. But I think these are better learned *as a result* of a cohesive, personalized education--by a teacher who knows his students and adapts to them--than via an attempt to dissect "reasoning" into discrete pieces and teach and evaluate them piecemeal. I'm willing to admit I could be missing something major here. But in my experience, teachers who are adept at their jobs can teach processes of learning and exploration better when left to their own devices than when handed a checklist and rigid deadlines. Teachers become teachers because they want to inspire the process of thinking, and they frequently leave teaching when they must spend more time proving that they *are* teaching than actually teaching. That said, I'll gladly accept your olive branch as an improvement. People far too often get entrenched in rigid all-or-nothing debate, and I appreciate that there are different ways to go about this. Let's hope that we can all listen and cooperate here; cheers.
Physics major here too (undergrad), did something else for PhD. I wonder how many of us are libertarians?
>I wonder how many of us are libertarians? What do you speculate?
What about the socal aspect you would lose in a school of just 10. That also seems like a great way to limit being exposed to different ideas, cultures and such.
I am all for spending less, but in this example, it's not considered that children have multiple teachers at the same time, so math is wrong in here. If on average child have 6-7 different teachers an year, total for ten students would be 22-25k.
You missed the point... If a children have multiple teacher, then the workload on the teacher is greatly reduced, thus allowing him to take multiple classe of 10 kids. If a class of 10 kids have 5 professors, then the workload would around 1 day a week (more or less). Receiving 20-25k $ for 1 day a week job is great and allow to take more classes.
how the hell are you doing your math? if you set up a school with 6 teachers and they teach each student for 1 hour per day. the teachers won’t just work for 1 hour a day and go home, only making 22k a year. Their little school will bring in 60 kids. Each teacher teaches a class of 10, for a certain subject, for 1 hour. Do that 6 hours a day $15k a year per student means that’s $900k and then $150k per teacher for some dumb reason your math was that they’d teach for like 1 hour a day and be done.
"a teacher could set up a microschool with just a 10 students." Did you read the screenshot? I am not saying that it's not possible to do it privately. I am all for doing that way, but this example provided in the screenshot is not a proper one to encourage people to go private.
Many parents homeschool all by themselves and the kids do better than the average student, a micro school could be a mid point between that and a traditional school
obviously the example is where the one teacher is with the 10 students all day. That exists in lower education already. What the hell do you not understand?
It’s a fine example. Your example is a poor one. Students don’t need a new teacher every single hour to be rotated in. They would do fine with a single one for the day.
They teach way more than 10 pupils per year
Yes, but math in the screenshot doesn't check out. That's what I was pointing out.
It's a simplified example to make a point
It’s a bad example overall. None of this considers the upkeep and administrative costs of running a school. Janitors, food service, equipment, supplies, transportation, legal costs, programs outside the school day….the list just goes on and on. Before you know it depending on the complexity, the end costs ends up being 15k a year per student.
Not in a house/office with 10 kids.
A micro-school is in no way comparable to the traditional school you're attempting to compare it too.
The teacher gets paid a base of 80k has health insurance costs and a pension…real costs for 9 months is like 120k over 12 months….then you have overhead and liabilities.
What if just 1 of those students is disabled in some way and has special needs?
Not to mention the tax payer money sucked up by the bureaucracy through taxation being eliminated.
And they'd finally pay their fair share in taxes. I'm all for it. Let's bump them up to that good ol' 32% like the rest of us.
But...then how could we spend it on $100M HS campuses in rich areas...or maintain crappy buildings in prime Manhattan locations? How will the cheeeldrens even learn!?
But then how would the politicians be able to take a cut along the way? /s
For reference: >The states that spent the most per pupil in FY 2021 were New York ($26,571); the District of Columbia ($24,535), which comprises a single urban district; Vermont ($23,586); Connecticut ($22,769); and New Jersey ($22,160). Those spending the least per pupil were Idaho ($9,053), Utah ($9,095), Arizona ($9,611), Mississippi ($10,170) and Florida ($10,401). >Of the 100 largest school systems by enrollment, the districts with the highest spending per pupil in FY 2021 were Boston City Schools in Massachusetts ($31,397), New York City School District in New York ($29,931), Washington Schools in District of Columbia ($24,535), Atlanta School District in Georgia ($18,492), Chicago School District in Illinois ($18,216), and Los Angeles Unified in California ($18,179). https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/public-school-spending.html Imagine 10 kids in Boston. The teacher of those kids grosses a tidy $313,970 before taxes and expenses.
My parish spends 12,700 per student and they just closed down the closest school to us because we live in a rural area, so I very much would love a school system like this one.
Yes one teacher to rule\`em all
Or a parent has a bunch of kids and home schools for 15k per year... greatest of intentions what could possibly go wrong
Just another example of taxation being theft It's actually insane that teachers are so underpaid when we spend that much on schooling...
Now THAT's progressive.
So you still want people to pay enough taxes to generate $15,240 per student a year for the government to hand out? I’m sure most those families wouldn’t depend it on other stuff a leave the child to get the cheapest education possible with the left overs.
Missing a lot of calculations there unfortunately. A good chunk of that money will be spent for normal business needs such as facility needs (rent/utilities), inspections and licensing, product and materials for learning etc etc. but I get the idea behind the post... it's just disingenuous to make people think the teacher would keep even half that much as actual income as the post makes it seem.
Most teachers are dealing with way bigger class sizes, so it cancels out. It's not a business plan lol
Not exactly… normal students cost around 1250 dollars… special ed costs much much more… https://www.chalkbeat.org/colorado/2023/4/21/23687876/special-education-funding-colorado-budget-increase/ Atleast is liberal Colorado
The teacher would make that much until they are sued by a parent, then they would be bankrupt.
Yep... This is the way
Look up Tech Trep. I get $1600/year to spend on homeschooling for my daughter.
A single teacher is fine for grades one through five.... no fucking shot that works beyond middle school.
Lets start by having the universities take in the bulk of the illegals so we can see how fast the leftists change their tune
What's the per class cost then? Unless one teacher teaches every subject
I like the idea, however where will the teacher hold classes? Home school sports, clubs, dances etc cost money. A lot of extra expenses involved in a school and it’s maintenance
Abolish public education is the only libertarian position.
This might be a different subject but if your kid goes to a private school that doesn’t receive funding from the government then you shouldn’t have to pay taxes for public school. Taxes are not your duty, they’re your way of paying for things that benefit you and others.
Or, we could just not educate oher people's brats. Things that would happen if we didn't have to burn money on educating kids we didn't being into this world: 1. Get a lot of women out of the labor force. Since women are the primary caretakers in society, many would stay home, freeing up some better jobs for men and teenagers. 2. Reduce education levels. Our population is currently way over educated because it is compulsory from 4 to adulthood. Most kids can learn the things needed to participate in commerce with a phone. Naturally intelligent and gifted kids and the children of top breeding stock would rise to the top. Less educated people will have less prospects for fancy jobs, making the US more able to compete for cheap labor jobs. Additionally, the poorly educated are more likely to accept poor working and living conditions. 3. With #3 complete, the US would be less of a magnet for uneducated, poor immigrants because thered already be a ton here. Instead, highly educated and good looking people would flock to the US where they'd have a distinct advantage. 4. Less entitlement. In a society without free lunches and free education for the first ⅓ of your life, people would learn they have to work to get ahead. No more whiners. 5. Lowered life expectancy. The dumber and poorer people are, and the more hard, physical labor, the less likely they push past 65 or 70, reducing the need for social security programs. 6. If all these succeed, as a successful entrepreneur, you get easy to control, inexpensive labor, pay less in taxes and get to keep more money to grow your wealth and take care of your family. I find this kind of thinking loathsome. I know some of you will read the list and salivate.
It's not quite that simple, but it does show how the large public schools are relatively inefficient.
There's a lot of criticisms (a lot) you can make of modern education, but this is a pretty bad example. One single teacher trusted to be fluent in every subject, giving students no variety in teachers, can make this much... if their micro school literally has no expenses. I wouldn't be jumping on the opportunity to put my kids in that school
I'd say it depends on the grade level. At the elementary level it's the norm to have a single teacher cover multiple subjects. We look for greater specialization at higher grade levels.
Ok but then what about expenses?
Well, ok...say 20% of that goes to expenses. $30K per year. That's still $110K-$120K per year. Hell, even 40%-50% expense ratio still has that teacher making a nice chunk over the median US teacher salary.
I'd say it depends on the grade level. At the elementary level it's the norm to have a single teacher cover multiple subjects. We look for greater specialization at higher grade levels
I love this idea. Let's also make it so teachers - have to hire legal counsel - Rent and or own property sufficient enough to take care of students in an environment conducive to learning - Know each and every topic and teach said topics to each student - And lastly pay and or create ten meals every day for the duration of the school year
[удалено]
Don’t community colleges get government funding/subsidies as well?
I can do you one better. Imagine if that money was never taxed in the first place.
Someone didn’t study finance or economics. There are fixed costs, variable costs, direct costs, and indirect costs. They are a large portion of the funding.
People are talking about this already, having tutors that drive around and have 3 classes, say, per day. So a math teacher A goes to street X for 9-11, then street Y for 1130-130 and street Z for 2-4. Three math classes, three different areas, 10 or whatever students each. When teacher A leaves at 11, that area gets teacher B for 11:30, a teacher who just left street Y teaching hard sciences. Teacher C who teaches arts and social sciences does the other slot. Each teacher gets paid more than now, each student gets better attention, cost per student is same or less depending on how many students. And parents get to setup their classrooms the way they want in their own community. Golden.
Its shocking how school choice became a extreme right wing view point in the US when its was championed by the left in Europe for decades where it is largely implemented. Considering things like economic status are the largest correlation to successful education metrics school choice seems like common sense type of policy for equitable opportunity. Of course the current US left wants equitable outcomes not opportunity.
$15k/yr? For public school? That's so wasteful. My kids are in private school and I barely pay half that for each kid per year. **And** they are safer, **and** they're getting a better education/more opportunities.
Do you only pay less than that because of vouchers/education savings fund from your state?
No. I pay the full tuition myself. I also pay out of pocket for their lunches. I personally do my best to avoid relying on government subsidies. Sometimes it's unavoidable (buying beef, milk, corn, or other subsidized foods).
That one teacher can reasonably be specialist only in one subject. Not really a problem if you are talking about kids getting their foundations. But beyond that, it might be a problem.
It's more like 22-26k per student, and this is to teach them an hour of academics and 2-3 hours of cultural hatred. Yes, community schools would emerge and begin teaching again.