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The University Reform War


Matrim Fox Cauthon

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I think it's something of a miracle that in the US, that our K-12 system is as strong as it is. In the US, there are 50 states, and every state has many school districts. In Washington State, for instance, we have 297 separate school districts (source wikipedia). Every school district has it's own elected school board and while there are state standards for curriculum, there are obviously huge differences in how well the education mission is executed from district to district and school to school. Funding varies widely from district to district as well.

This is actually the biggest problem of the US school system. Most of school budgets are made up in local taxes, most local taxes are in the form of property taxes; so it is inherently true that the districts with the most money have the highest property taxes, which typically means they are also very nice pieces of property to justify those taxes. In other words, the rich districts have good public school systems that are properly funded, while the poor school districts have poor public school systems and are constantly looking for things to cut as they are not properly funded. The disparity of school districts that are within 30 miles of each other can be absolutely staggering and is a big issue in this country.

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