alt Hacker NewsThe country as a whole may be "rich" in terms of GDP but school districts are funded locally and many towns are struggling or underwater in terms of finances.
I lived in a working class town with a school district that built up a great reputation, especially for special needs students, due to the hard work of some amazing teachers and local parents. After I left I found out that the district had to scale back many programs dramatically because the number of students, especially special needs students, was growing significantly faster than the overall tax base and got close to bankrupting the town. Most of that was an increase in the ratio of families (esp special needs families) moving to town for the schools, but apparently there were fraud cases as well.
I have sympathy for the incoming families that sought out the best school they could find for their children, but I also sympathize with the existing families who lost the great programs they helped build because they became too successful.
A better solution would have been to fund education more equitably at the state level, but that was not a lever that the school district had.
> started growing much faster than the tax base
So you have two unaddressed problems.
> A better solution would have been to fund education more equitably at the state level
Which could only work if the state was "richer" than the local district. So by playing abstract and unnecessary games with money and districting we intentionally prevent schools from accessing the funding which could obviate concerns over this "fraud" issue entirely.
> but that was not a lever that the school district had at the time.
The idea of a parent "fraudulently" getting their child an education from a "district" is still just hilarious to me. What is the point of this system? To make parents play games or to educate children?