The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Breaking News => Topic started by: SVPete on July 31, 2023, 05:08:19 PM
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Private school enrollment jumps 25 percent in Washington as exodus from public schools continues
https://thepostmillennial.com/private-school-enrollment-jumps-25-percent-in-washington-as-exodus-from-public-schools-continues (https://thepostmillennial.com/private-school-enrollment-jumps-25-percent-in-washington-as-exodus-from-public-schools-continues)
Washington private schools saw a 25 percent jump in enrollment over the last three years and homeschooling saw a 42 percent increase as public school enrollment continued to fall.
According to the State Board of Education, in 2019-20, there were 65,270 students enrolled in K-12 private schools in the state. By 2022-23, that number had spiked to 81,434 students.
Additionally, the number of students that are homeschooled also increased from 20,844 in 2019-20 to 29,798 in 2022-23.
Pre-Covid both sectors - private campus schools and homeschooling were probably experiencing mild growth. Both have significant lifestyle implications. Then came Covid shutdown. At least a couple of things potentially happened. Courtesy of Zoom-schooling, parents saw what was being taught, how. Parents also had a significant involvement in overseeing their children's education and realized that they could do it - demystifying the process. It looks like one, the other, or both factors caused huge jumps in private campus schooling and homeschooling. I think these numbers are past the try-but-return-to-PS time period. I.E. these losses may be long-term.
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It’s time to cut funding for the public schools and put the teachers union back a step or two. And if funding is cut property taxes should be cut as well. Don’t give the money to politicians to piss away.
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It’s time to cut funding for the public schools and put the teachers union back a step or two. And if funding is cut property taxes should be cut as well. Don’t give the money to politicians to piss away.
I'm not sure that cutting funding - in and of itself - is the answer. I would favor a much more targeted approach to funding, especially on the local side.
Just spitballing here, but maybe something like this:
First of all, let's shitcan the Department of Education. I have never been convinced that the feds have ever been able to do anything except screw things up.
Once that's done, Congress needs to allocate funding based on the number of students projected, with future disbursements reflective of gains/losses in the student population. IOW, if you lose students, you lose funding.
Here's where it gets a little interesting:
Of that funding, no more than 20% of each student's allocation goes toward administration, infrastructure, stuff other than what it actually costs to educate a student -- that being teacher salaries fundamentally.
Once you start targeting school board administrators/presidents and other bureaucrats, you'll see a bigger bang for the buck. They've been lining their own pockets for a very, very long time.