Tucked into page 443 of the South Carolina 2022-2023 budget is a $1,500,000 taxpayer-funded gift to the Christian Learning Centers of Greenville County. (Itβs misspelled in the budget.) ...
Beats the hell out of $10,000 per person student loan forgiveness
Charter Schools are all the rage, even among liberals, as is home schooling and some are religious based. Catholics often send their kids to Catholic schools who are gaining greater access to public funds through one means or another. Therefore, I propose we take this opportunity to use Public Education funds in a new way. Instead of building and maintaining the schools allow greater co-op ownership of schools by parents/teachers and anyone who wants to support that school's mission. Public Funds would be equally distributed for start-up and mandatory functions of schools, as insurance cost, but only increase with student population. That should make education more community geared and produce diversity of human talent. Eliminate zones so kids can be sent to any school parents are willing to get them to. Driverless vehicles might help with distances.
DoE, as it would then exist for basic funding and providing very basic guidelines for subject materials (books and support of actual history), might then offer real Town Halls for lessons in approved history, science, civics, and others to counter indoctrinational misinformation. This acknowledges the rights of all to parents to educate as they see fit, all children to determine what works for them, and greatly reduces the amount of taxes for education (especially for those of us who have nothing to do with education, anymore). YW
I never liked the idea of "charter schools". I have always seen it as an end run to imp0lement the same goals as the school voucher system, which could never get passed. Basically charter schools is a privatization of schools to take money that would go towards public schools and steer it to "for profit" schools, although not all charter schools are "for profit". It does however allow private schools for the rich to take money out of public schools to subsidize tuitions for rich kids, which is what school voucher programs would have done. So, the goal of the rich got achieved just the same.
@snytiger6 Right. My stance has always been exactly the same as yours but that has failed. Moreover, Betsy allowed it to fail even worse and the money tap will remain open, I think. Therefore, it's time to admit that our entire educational plan has never been great and build a new one to protect funds for better use. Let the parents decide which schools survive, or prosper, and having Open Learning Sessions (Town Hall formats held in parks or large parking lots) will also encourage neighborhood participation. People will likely get to know their neighbors more and that, alone, should help with social conflicts. It's time Americans re-evaluated how we spend and why, try harder to guard against theft/waste, and improved what is falling apart. That requires self-reflection and honesty instead of knee-jerk responses and reliance on traditional thinking.