Stranger Election Control Board
Feb 1, 2019 at 11:59 am
The Stranger’s Endorsements for the February 12, 2019, Special Election
Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
Editors' Picks
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
@1 The best way to discredit an opposing argument is to acknowledge it and address it, not ignore it.
Remember McCleary? What did you do with the last pile of money we handed you?
The state's solution to McCleary was not a "pile of money", it was a levy swap. What that means is that in order to begin to fulfill the State's duty to fund basic education, the legislature decided to cap the amount of money that school districts can raise through local property tax levies and instead increase state property tax levies. The legislature also provided slightly more money for teacher salaries and special education. BUT, to make things more "fair" statewide, the money the state is collecting through state property taxes is being distributed more evenly. SO, what does this mean for Seattle? It means that we are sending a significant amount of our state education property taxes to other school districts. AND, since we are now restricted by the state in how much money we can raise locally, the Seattle school district is headed for big deficits. It's strange to say, but if the McCleary "fix" hadn't happened, Seattle Public Schools would actually be in a slightly better financial position.
@6- I thought one of the major hallmarks of the progressive movement was to make everything "fair". A level playing field and such.
One big reason those private schools do well is they do not take every child regardless of ability or background. Studies confirm this — https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0013189X18785632
@9 -- Isn't it amazing that you can spout total bullshit as some sort of revelation, thus making a ridiculously circular argument. Maybe you slept through your public education, or maybe your parents stuck you in a private school. Either way you failed to grasp the basic principles of making an argument. I know that if you went to any Seattle public school and presented that to a Language Arts teacher -- let alone the debate teacher -- it would have a big red circle around it. Maybe you can figure it out by now. Or maybe you should see the teacher after class.
In my experience, the main purpose of a Catholic school is to ensure that the children who attend it will have absolutely no interest in the Catholic church once they are released from its grasp.
And the educational results vary wildly. My sister and Mr. Vel-DuRay can't spell cat, but both have beautiful handwriting. My parents took a look at sister-woman's academic achievements and thankfully decided I would be a public school kid.
6
You Leftists are always wanting to tax the rich.
Seattle is the richest district in the state,
it is only fair that it should help fund poorer districts.
Progress!
Commonsense is to tax the rich as well as the super rich since they have used everyone else and the community to maintain and increase their wealth. Good on you jackday bring the useless bureaucrats down and cut back severely on their salaries and over bloated privileges. Give it to the teachers and support staff. Homeowners especially those hanging in there should not have to bear the burden.
@8:
Fair =/= Equitable. SPSD is the largest district in the state. If their ability to generate revenue is capped and some of what they do raise is siphoned off to other districts, it might make for a "level playing field" in the sense that kids in rural districts where there's a small population with less ability to raise taxes (or conversely, where the citizens have refused to raise taxes to pay for education costs) are getting more money per-student, but it's still at the expense of Seattle students, who are now receiving less money per-capita, which is a problem, given that the costs of educating a student in Seattle are higher than they would be elsewhere. The "equitable" solution would be to allow each district to raise as much money as is needed to cover educational expenses in their own district.
@9:
That's not a solution, in fact, it adds to the problem, since charter schools can still draw from State funding, which results in taking even MORE money away from public school districts. Primary education is not, and never should be "market-based", because once you insert that into the formula, it becomes less about providing a basic education - a demonstrable public benefit - and more about generating revenue for the company running the school, and that inevitably leads to cutting operating expenses, that is, money going to actually educate students, in order to maximize profit. And we won't even get into the fact that every study comparing charter and public education outcomes shows no appreciable difference between the two (with, in many instances public schools actually outperforming charters), and it becomes clear that charters are not the superior option many would make them out to be. And I would think it's obvious, but apparently in your case needs to be pointed out, religious schools are not-for-profit institutions, they're not businesses, so lumping them in with for-profit charter schools is just making so much fruit salad.
Good on you Compte. Now back to the trenches and keep up the good fight.