Guess where's all da good schools?
 

The Texas legislature is almost guaranteed to go into special session this summer to resolve the School Financing Fiasco. It's a nationwide problem, I believe.

The solution that's on the table right now was drawn up by a Stanford think tank. No one, with the exception of Guv. Goodhair, is particuarly impressed.

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

It's easy to figure out how to ruin good schools. Just squeeze their funding.

It's much harder to figure out how to make schools better. Spending more money can help, but certainly isn't sufficient. If it was clear what to do, I think you would see individual towns -- except in California, where the conservatives prevent it -- making the various investments and changes to get better schools, because having a reputation for good schools is worth a huge amount to property values, etc.

Caption, Please.
 

Caption, Please.
 

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

I went to a fundraiser for (70% possible) gubenatorial Chris Bell a few weeks ago and someone asked him about school financing. It's a huge deal here, as a court has ordered the legislature to Do. Something. About. School. Financing. One of the common responses by the GOP to cries of increasing funding for education is that the money will get wasted.

Chris Bell said that makes some sense, but at the same time, he has a lot of acquaintances who send their kids to the private schools here in Houston. Parents gladly pay $13-17,000 in tutition to send their kids to those schools, and the schools have additional funding through grants, gifts and endowments, and there's a marked difference in performance on all measurements. The point was, to some extent, money is a factor. My application driven private school had 100% graduation and college rate in my class.

This is not to say that I have any interest at all in my property taxes going up.

Caption, Please.
 

Shit. this thing is about as much use as the French were in achieving VE day. Who the fuck told Chirac he should stand next to us at the ceremony? and is that other guy a Jap? WTF?

http://www.foxnews.com/images/162902...05_russia6.jpg

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

You would make a good Virginian.

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

Sayeth the man from Chicago.

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

Public Schools too! Lincoln Park cheated to get on that list.

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

Arggggggggggggggggg!

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

Note that this also was the theme of the campaign that got Prop 13 passed.

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

And six of the top 100 public high schools (according to this list) are located in the Maryland county in which I reside. Just goes to show you what high taxes and lots of government regulation can do for you.

S_A_M

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

Yup, just discussed this with a partner at my firm from Montgomery Co. and caught the MD concentration too. There are a lot of surprises on that list overall though. Not much in Chicago's north shore. Not much in Silicon Valley. But everything in the DC burbs 'cept PG county seems to be on there somewhere or other.

I'd love to see a national regression analysis to see what factors correlate most to placement on the list. Concentration of professionals? Pure unadulterated wealth? Spending per student (hello Chicago)? I'm not in a position to argue for any one thing over another. All I know is that there are only a few concentrations on that list, and the DC burbs are one of the more noticeable ones.

Hello

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

GUNN high school which is just down the street from me, and a public california high school, is on the list. If Gunn can make it why not other schools. If you think funding is the problem, you don't understand the problem. Washington DC spends more money per student that any other school system, and you can probably guess what their schools are like.

Guess where's all da good schools?
 

Now that I know that what it takes to get on the list is to have students take AP exams, I'm even less impressed by the list. But if they stick to this methodology, and people care, you can rest assured that many more high school students will be taking AP tests next year than this. So, lo, kids will be smarter!

California used to have public schools that were the envy of the nation. Since Prop 13, they've suffered. Everyone knows this. Money is not the sole key to improving schools, but when you cut school funding, and when you make it difficult for cities and towns to choose to spend more money on their own schools, the schools will suffer. It's that simple.

If Berkeley wants to, it should be able to choose to adopt new school funding measures by a 50% vote. They're spending their own money. The people in your party wouldn't let them do this, and the only reason that I can think of is that they're worried that it will work, that spending more money will improve Berkeley's schools, and people in other cities will want to do the same.