in 1973, in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the SCOTUS in holding that using property taxes to fund school districts wasn't unconstitutional also said that education is not a fundamental interest to be protected within the scope of the equal protection clause in order to justify this holding. So, what if the SCOTUS had found differently and stated that education was a fundamental interest protected by the scope of the equal protection clause (thereby also making it such that education couldn't be funded by local property taxes)?
WI: Education were a fundamental interest
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Several POD's that 1973 POTUS, SCOTUS, and Congress already had massive heartburn IOTL over busing and other issues.
My thoughts:
Not being a professional educator, I'd say it causes a massive haircut in the administrative staffs of school districts vs OTL and much more $$$ spent on keeping infrastructure up to snuff and teachers.
Right now, they exist to beg money and show how "innovative" they can be reshuffling the deck chairs.
Some try to empower teacher and principals to make constructive changes, better community involvement and support, etc.
They're all good things, but tend to be fitful experiments instead of
constructive lasting change benefiting students, faculty, and parents getting value for their $$$.
IMO current school districts become analogous to commercial CEO culture where the executive teams shuffle every few years, front-line morale plummets, "outcomes" are a stats-manipulation game to keep the $$$ coming regardless of reality.
Politicos will rant about the loss of local control and evil DC bureaucrats being out of touch with local sensibilities but eventually see the cost savings and fact that STEM and other education can be supported better with a wider funding base.
It might cause state legislatures to get into a bidding war about how much support they give schools at every level over and above federal funding.
My thoughts:
- Busing becomes a non-issue as funding can be equalized across schools. Historically disadvantaged communities can get the funding they need to be par or better w/o exiling the ambitious students to the "good" schools and leaving everyone else to shift with ever-decreasing resources to share among ever-needier students to dismal results.
- This has massive butterflies in how much white flight occurs to the burbs. I believe there'd be some but less strictly about busing.
- It moves the school debate from a local whizzing match where a few hundred votes can result in curriculum "reform" to s/t requiring majorities in Congress to change.
- It sorta forces a federally-standardized curriculum and funding structure butterflying NCLB and a variety of other attempts to put Humpty-Dumpty together from the 1990's on.
Not being a professional educator, I'd say it causes a massive haircut in the administrative staffs of school districts vs OTL and much more $$$ spent on keeping infrastructure up to snuff and teachers.
Right now, they exist to beg money and show how "innovative" they can be reshuffling the deck chairs.
Some try to empower teacher and principals to make constructive changes, better community involvement and support, etc.
They're all good things, but tend to be fitful experiments instead of
constructive lasting change benefiting students, faculty, and parents getting value for their $$$.
IMO current school districts become analogous to commercial CEO culture where the executive teams shuffle every few years, front-line morale plummets, "outcomes" are a stats-manipulation game to keep the $$$ coming regardless of reality.
Politicos will rant about the loss of local control and evil DC bureaucrats being out of touch with local sensibilities but eventually see the cost savings and fact that STEM and other education can be supported better with a wider funding base.
It might cause state legislatures to get into a bidding war about how much support they give schools at every level over and above federal funding.
TxCoatl1970's got it. This decision going the other way is probably one of the most underused PODs to significantly transform the United States. Equal funding instead of busing would reduce white flight, averting the worst of the de facto segregation. The nadir of the American city won't be nearly as bad ITTL. And the federalization of education comes early enough to avert battles over sex education, evolution, and so on. Conservatives can't just take over the school board and abolish sex education despite 97% of parents approving of it like they did in Anaheim in the '60s. Of course, question is how much rollback comes around nationally if we're presuming Reagan still gets in. Which we shouldn't, because this POD is big enough that it's going to affect the 1974 elections. 1976 and 1980 could look quite different.
Thanks Plumber!
As we've discussed a bit, finding a way for US cities not to have serious issues from 1970's to now is a Gordian knot.
You can blame corporate fecklessness, bonehead federal policies, unions, city governments, and so many other people for not seeing the ground shifting under their feet as the 1970's dawned but that's 20/20 hindsight.
I must admit butterflying busing would do a lot to avoid OTL social abandonment of cities, but the economic issues remain.
I like what TheMann and others on AH have proposed to avoid the Rust Belt from imploding economically and its social and political effects might be - namely a US middle class that's in far better financial and social shape with a much more robust economy and hopeful political scene vs OTL.
As we've discussed a bit, finding a way for US cities not to have serious issues from 1970's to now is a Gordian knot.
You can blame corporate fecklessness, bonehead federal policies, unions, city governments, and so many other people for not seeing the ground shifting under their feet as the 1970's dawned but that's 20/20 hindsight.
I must admit butterflying busing would do a lot to avoid OTL social abandonment of cities, but the economic issues remain.
I like what TheMann and others on AH have proposed to avoid the Rust Belt from imploding economically and its social and political effects might be - namely a US middle class that's in far better financial and social shape with a much more robust economy and hopeful political scene vs OTL.
cubefreak123
Banned
So would this POD mean that states like Texas would be spared the wonderous George W Bush/Rick Perry version of education that involves keeping teaching staff on skeleton crews and not opening new schools until you run out of space to put in outside units? 
((I wish I was kidding with the latter half of that statement too.))
((I wish I was kidding with the latter half of that statement too.))cubefreak-
It's good to see a kindred spirit as aghast to see what public education has endured in Texas from 1995 to present.
One can only hope. However, this POD doesn't guarantee utopia in one fell swoop.
Keep in mind Congress, esp the House of Reps is still the arbiter of what gets funded. It could still go back and forth, depending on how elections go.
A party can get distracted/complacent/lose a good strategist and not campaign hard enough, or say, the senior party leadership gets gutted in a round of scandals/retirements like the Dems endured in the 1990's.
On the executive side, a national Dept of Education would be nice as far as setting and maintaining standards, but it needs funding and staffing that the court ruling wouldn't immediately specify.
Chances are, the new system doesn't really get rolling until the latter 70's early 80's. Who's in charge and implementing it to what extent?
It's good to see a kindred spirit as aghast to see what public education has endured in Texas from 1995 to present.
One can only hope. However, this POD doesn't guarantee utopia in one fell swoop.
Keep in mind Congress, esp the House of Reps is still the arbiter of what gets funded. It could still go back and forth, depending on how elections go.
A party can get distracted/complacent/lose a good strategist and not campaign hard enough, or say, the senior party leadership gets gutted in a round of scandals/retirements like the Dems endured in the 1990's.
On the executive side, a national Dept of Education would be nice as far as setting and maintaining standards, but it needs funding and staffing that the court ruling wouldn't immediately specify.
Chances are, the new system doesn't really get rolling until the latter 70's early 80's. Who's in charge and implementing it to what extent?
The flight to the suburbs began long before busing arose as an issue. Iirc William Whyte discusses it in The Organisation Man.
Also one of the worst sufferers from it was Philadelphia which never had a busing order.
tenthring
Banned
Funding isn't the most important aspect of education. The students are. Many poor school districts are actually funded pretty well, but you still got a lot of ghetto banger kids going there. Not a whole lot of learning gets done in that environment.
I went to a charter high school that had a budget 25% smaller then my local high school per student. However, it was worlds above better. This was because they had a selected class (tested for IQ) and all of the students were really interested in learning. This has all sorts of positive impacts of culture and curricula options. It also allows you to recruit top teaching talent at teacher wages (most of our teachers had PHDs in real subjects) because people don't mind making 60k a year they just don't like teaching because the kids are too dumb or don't care. Give them smart motivated kids and they will get a lot of satisfaction from their jobs.
At the end of the day only about 20% of the population has the genetics for a classic liberal education. Maybe 30% if you stretch it. The rest need to be pathed into trade type education. Something they do in Germany and Japan to great positive effect.
I went to a charter high school that had a budget 25% smaller then my local high school per student. However, it was worlds above better. This was because they had a selected class (tested for IQ) and all of the students were really interested in learning. This has all sorts of positive impacts of culture and curricula options. It also allows you to recruit top teaching talent at teacher wages (most of our teachers had PHDs in real subjects) because people don't mind making 60k a year they just don't like teaching because the kids are too dumb or don't care. Give them smart motivated kids and they will get a lot of satisfaction from their jobs.
At the end of the day only about 20% of the population has the genetics for a classic liberal education. Maybe 30% if you stretch it. The rest need to be pathed into trade type education. Something they do in Germany and Japan to great positive effect.
BlairWitch749
Banned
This, so much this
My experience in the education system of NY has proven to me conclusively that money is only the smallest part of the problem; NYC has shown that you can spend 10's of billions on education and accomplish absolutely nothing. NYS as a whole has proven you can spend hundreds of billions on education and still not graduate the damn kids, let alone have them be economically viable workers
no amount of first class facilities, computers, white boards, highly trained staff, moderate class sizes etc will on a generalized basis overcome coming home to a single parent household, in a rough/crime ridden neighborhood where there is no education environment
chart of unwed mothers by race
growing up in a single parent household is a major statistical life handicap to children; far too many of those children will be sucked in to the same cycle of poverty, crime, drug use and of course out of wedlock children that created their own lives
of course one of the solutions is greater access to birth control; especially permanent birth control; but the other would have to be messaging; don't have children with men who are not fit to be fathers and from the other direction; be a father to your children
@ NHBL I was alluding to that in my 3rd post.
You as a citizen would still have to pay attention to House races, how the committee assignment shuffle goes, riders snuck onto appropriations bills and how the pres staffs his/her cabinet to stay on top of developments in this scenario.
However, it takes a bit more to sway national policy vs local and state board school board elections.
Plus, Time, Newsweek, various news networks, and others would be watching and keeping tabs on federal policy developments in DC.
Not so much in local school boards or the state board of education races decided by a handful of votes until they start coming up with bizarro rulings (Kansas and Texas have come up some whoppers) that make them a national laughingstock.
@mikestone8- You're absolutely right that many went to the burbs before desegregation and busing were front and center issues!
Buried in my 2nd post, I mentioned how the ruling didn't directly address economic factors as well other trends affecting white flight.
Still, I'd argue that whether busing orders were directly affecting people, fear of it prompted a lot of people to go to the 'burbs if they hadn't already.
Thanks for reminding me of William H Whyte! I've read The Organization Man roughly thirty years ago but haven't read his other works:
Securing Open Spaces for Urban America (1959), Cluster Development (1964), The Last Landscape (1968; "about the way metropolitan areas look and the way they might look"), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980; plus a companion film of the same name), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988).
More for the ever-growing reading list!
My wife told me something that shifted my perspective a bit:
She said, "Local control of schools sounds great if you're going to live and die in that community forever. Like it or not, now, schools have to prepare their students to compete with the entire nation and the world at large.
Would you rather do that with federal resources or local property taxes?"
@ tenthring and BW:
You bring up interesting points.
Education does depend on the students and their desire/incentives to learn, social support networks, etc. that aren't within the scope of educational funding/policy.
I find your assertion that only 20-30% have the intelligence to get anything out of a liberal education disturbing. That's bullshit. Flip the percentages to 70-80%. Students have the capacity but have little internal or external incentive to do so. I heartily agree that changing the students' social environment and internal expectations are what's needed for kids to do better. Whether schools can do that all by themselves is outside the scope of this.
Public schools have the burden of educating everyone, not just the future Rhodes scholars.
However, what it takes to compete in the current economy and what school systems are set up to do are two different things. They shouldn't be. Every school system from NYS down to Marfa ISD fumbles with this b/c frankly, to be competitive, kids need at least an associates degree education to be able to live independently.
If we were funding and spending things wisely- we'd give kids tests roughly at twelve and counsel them and their parents what it'd take to be on academic or practical tracks.
Combining high schools and community colleges would realize tremendous savings.
When they graduate, they have the training and education that adequately equips them to live independently.
A federal push that upgrades secondary schools to make this work would be revolutionary.
You as a citizen would still have to pay attention to House races, how the committee assignment shuffle goes, riders snuck onto appropriations bills and how the pres staffs his/her cabinet to stay on top of developments in this scenario.
However, it takes a bit more to sway national policy vs local and state board school board elections.
Plus, Time, Newsweek, various news networks, and others would be watching and keeping tabs on federal policy developments in DC.
Not so much in local school boards or the state board of education races decided by a handful of votes until they start coming up with bizarro rulings (Kansas and Texas have come up some whoppers) that make them a national laughingstock.
@mikestone8- You're absolutely right that many went to the burbs before desegregation and busing were front and center issues!
Buried in my 2nd post, I mentioned how the ruling didn't directly address economic factors as well other trends affecting white flight.
Still, I'd argue that whether busing orders were directly affecting people, fear of it prompted a lot of people to go to the 'burbs if they hadn't already.
Thanks for reminding me of William H Whyte! I've read The Organization Man roughly thirty years ago but haven't read his other works:
Securing Open Spaces for Urban America (1959), Cluster Development (1964), The Last Landscape (1968; "about the way metropolitan areas look and the way they might look"), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980; plus a companion film of the same name), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988).
More for the ever-growing reading list!
My wife told me something that shifted my perspective a bit:
She said, "Local control of schools sounds great if you're going to live and die in that community forever. Like it or not, now, schools have to prepare their students to compete with the entire nation and the world at large.
Would you rather do that with federal resources or local property taxes?"
@ tenthring and BW:
You bring up interesting points.
Education does depend on the students and their desire/incentives to learn, social support networks, etc. that aren't within the scope of educational funding/policy.
I find your assertion that only 20-30% have the intelligence to get anything out of a liberal education disturbing. That's bullshit. Flip the percentages to 70-80%. Students have the capacity but have little internal or external incentive to do so. I heartily agree that changing the students' social environment and internal expectations are what's needed for kids to do better. Whether schools can do that all by themselves is outside the scope of this.
Public schools have the burden of educating everyone, not just the future Rhodes scholars.
However, what it takes to compete in the current economy and what school systems are set up to do are two different things. They shouldn't be. Every school system from NYS down to Marfa ISD fumbles with this b/c frankly, to be competitive, kids need at least an associates degree education to be able to live independently.
If we were funding and spending things wisely- we'd give kids tests roughly at twelve and counsel them and their parents what it'd take to be on academic or practical tracks.
Combining high schools and community colleges would realize tremendous savings.
When they graduate, they have the training and education that adequately equips them to live independently.
A federal push that upgrades secondary schools to make this work would be revolutionary.
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tenthring
Banned
When I say liberal education I mean the level of academic subject matter and understanding typical of an accredited collegiate institution. I would even go a little farther (there are some fairly young for profit diploma mills that are accredited but with piss poor education).
That has an IQ requirement. Always has. You need to be a certain amount above the bell curve average to handle that stuff. Anyone talking about the matter seriously acknowledges this.
If by liberals education you mean that people might get a civics class in high school that's fine. But the idea that kids with a 100 IQ are going to be advancing down the calculus track is absurd.
That has an IQ requirement. Always has. You need to be a certain amount above the bell curve average to handle that stuff. Anyone talking about the matter seriously acknowledges this.
If by liberals education you mean that people might get a civics class in high school that's fine. But the idea that kids with a 100 IQ are going to be advancing down the calculus track is absurd.
cubefreak123
Banned
Experience man. All of the schools from where I grew up (in one of the "rich" districts mind you) have had to tetris in portable units. Elementary schools are taking out fields that kids play in, my middle school lost an entire parking lot to those units, and my high school had to start putting them onto the band's practice field.cubefreak-
It's good to see a kindred spirit as aghast to see what public education has endured in Texas from 1995 to present.
There's something very wrong when the school board is so desparate for cash that it decides to stop classes and show all the students a video about why an upcoming bond measure would be important for giving the district new funds to build schools to relieve said over-crowding.
BlairWitch749
Banned
I don't know a realistic percentage, but there are indeed plenty of kids who shouldn't go to college but instead should go to trade school. One can make plenty of money as an electrician or plumber without going through years of ultimately wasted education in a variety of subjects they will never apply to their daily lives at all
A lot of this is honestly stigma as opposed to having the funds necessary to accomplish this; plumbers and electricians have a connotation as blue collar labor; yet these professions in a major metro area can easily demand $100 an hour if not more which in par with a mobile software developer or micro biologist or any other "high brow profession"
@BW- I'm with you on electricians, plumbers, and other trades being under-pimped options for many kids who'd richly benefit themselves and society as a whole doing so.
Let me share my experiences.
I went to Berkner High School in Richardson, TX, where 90% of the kids at Berkner got pushed to go to university, whether they belonged there or not.
Our parents were engineers, managers, and techies working at TI, E-Systems, Honeywell, Rockwell. etc or doctors, lawyers, and accountants for them. They wanted the same or better for their kids., so that's what RISD pushed as far as curriculum and supported academic and ESA programs.
Even blue-collar parents wanted their kids to do "better" going to college, b/c they saw nothing but declining incomes and security for blue-collar folks in the 1980's. Little did they know that'd be everyone's fate, blue or white-collar, but again hindsight's a lot better than foresight.
IMO community college is what did me the most practical good. I regret not going earlier and getting more practical experience in my late teens rather than my latter twenties after my navy stint.
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It took a while to reconcile that reality with this programming of "ZOMG! I'm supposed to be a college-degreed engineer or I'm a total failure if I'm technically-inclined!".
I don't regret the liberal education I got at BHS- it gave me great perspective and the tools to keep honing it. However, l work in water treatment where the mixture of mechanical training I got in the navy and the community college courses in biology and chemistry allowed me to get on with metropolitan water utilities for good pay.
My own experience proves that even a guy with a 150+ IQ and decent SAT scores- benefits from practical training.
To get back to what this means from a policy perspective is that SAISD v Rodriguez would get you out of the lottery of being in a decent, great, or bad district with education being less of a local thing with more consistent federal guidelines and support.
Let me share my experiences.
I went to Berkner High School in Richardson, TX, where 90% of the kids at Berkner got pushed to go to university, whether they belonged there or not.
Our parents were engineers, managers, and techies working at TI, E-Systems, Honeywell, Rockwell. etc or doctors, lawyers, and accountants for them. They wanted the same or better for their kids., so that's what RISD pushed as far as curriculum and supported academic and ESA programs.
Even blue-collar parents wanted their kids to do "better" going to college, b/c they saw nothing but declining incomes and security for blue-collar folks in the 1980's. Little did they know that'd be everyone's fate, blue or white-collar, but again hindsight's a lot better than foresight.
IMO community college is what did me the most practical good. I regret not going earlier and getting more practical experience in my late teens rather than my latter twenties after my navy stint.
.
It took a while to reconcile that reality with this programming of "ZOMG! I'm supposed to be a college-degreed engineer or I'm a total failure if I'm technically-inclined!".
I don't regret the liberal education I got at BHS- it gave me great perspective and the tools to keep honing it. However, l work in water treatment where the mixture of mechanical training I got in the navy and the community college courses in biology and chemistry allowed me to get on with metropolitan water utilities for good pay.
My own experience proves that even a guy with a 150+ IQ and decent SAT scores- benefits from practical training.
To get back to what this means from a policy perspective is that SAISD v Rodriguez would get you out of the lottery of being in a decent, great, or bad district with education being less of a local thing with more consistent federal guidelines and support.
Funding could help with some of that, the ideas comes up every now and then to pay kids to go to school.
Brings in money for their family, gives a real concrete incentive to do well, prepares them for how the work force will treat them.
BlairWitch749
Banned
I went to a high powered suburban school district as well
I did my undergrad in applied math and masters in healthcare administration years later. By postponing graduate school I went into the labor market in 04 when the economy was still awesome and got my foot through the door in a great company
I have a friend from high school, undergrad in math as well, got a masters in human resources from a way better program than mine; she is a shift manager at CVS and can't even get an interview anywhere (because she went strait to grade school because she was "supposed to" she entered the market in 2008 when the economy went to shit. I hadn't seen her in years until her resume popped up on my desk for an interview for an administrative asst position that pays 40k per year (whilst I make 200+)
education should be geared towards practical application after age 13
But then I'm a Maths teacher who is the son of a School Deputy Head (Vice Principal analogue for Americans). However he was the son of a Master Colour Printer (in the days when colour printing was a very skilled profession) who in turn was the son of a railway labourer. Children should be taught to THINK. 13 is far too early to push into either academia or vocational education.
BlairWitch749
Banned
But then I'm a Maths teacher who is the son of a School Deputy Head (Vice Principal analogue for Americans). However he was the son of a Master Colour Printer (in the days when colour printing was a very skilled profession) who in turn was the son of a railway labourer. Children should be taught to THINK. 13 is far too early to push into either academia or vocational education.
by 13 you can tell if the child has aptitude for math or reading or science.
They should be a broad program to identify strongest subjects with supervision to press them to do even better; meaning if they do awesome in shop class and suck at biology, they should be allowed to take additional shop classes the following semester
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