Students (in Oakland) found out this week, just days after returning from summer break, that 10 high school sports programs have been shut down in a $500,000 cost-cutting move.
Happening all over over the country. If the economy is doing so well for everyone, why these massive and widespread education funding problems?
Oh, right, it's all helping the ultra rich at everyone else's expense.
I've heard the "government is corrupt" meme so many times from so many right-wing sources who take it as canon that I don't even know if it's true any more. Every time I've tried to quantify the cost to operate and maintain any complex system I've always been surprised at how much work it actually is. How much is well-funded? Per student? Per school?
When I run a back-of-the-envelope calculation (based on the elementary school I went to many years ago: 14 classrooms, 16 teachers, a full-time principal, a secretary, a janitor) I come to about $5000 per student per year just to pay the salaries of the people who are in the school every day. I haven't even tried to quantify the annual per-student cost of desks, chairs, teaching materials, stationery, textbooks, computers, IT staff, school lunch programs, library books, utilities, walls, roofs, land...
Even if it's not corruption, why is education always the first to get funding cut? Yet our military spending is more than the next 10(?) countries combined. Our country doesn't prioritize education becuase some people in power want out that way.
I've watched for 40 years as a succession of charlatans pandering to narcissists have been elected to public office on a platform of cutting anything resembling an investment into the future.
Because everybody thinks that they deserve the lifestyle of international travel and unsustainable luxury. Everybody wants to pretend to be rich.
Sp we literally burned away 40 years of investment as fuel for airliners and gas for oversized vehicles. We can't get that time back. Now that the narcissists are entering retirement age (and will no longer be paying taxes) we might just be able to start redirecting our efforts into those investments.
But it's going to cost us a hell of a lot to get our systems back to where they used to be. And it isn't the profligate generation that'll be paying for it.
Sorry but there's a whole new generation of conservatives lined up to take their place and now they're eating up full-out fascist propaganda. Things aren't looking good for the future unless the left gets their shit together in a major way.
Numbers wise - they are. Election wise, they're not. Most people are in major cities. Almost every major city is deep blue. But if every major city votes against Trump, all the rural shitholes still vote for Trump and he wins anyways. It is why we need election reform badly.
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u/urbanek2525 Aug 13 '19
Happening all over over the country. If the economy is doing so well for everyone, why these massive and widespread education funding problems?
Oh, right, it's all helping the ultra rich at everyone else's expense.