Excessive violence in schools

[Ken]

It sounds like we agree. Can we agree Title IX should be repealed, then?

Title IX is essentially the implementation of the 14th Amendment in education. You want to repeal that too?

[Ken]

As an object lesson: CARMEL INDIANA

Anthony Brian Logan / Amazing High School Goes VIRAL For All The WRONG Reasons! / -13min

Description:
An amazing Carmel, Indiana high school recently went viral on TikTok for a variety of reasons, many of them being negative. Students decided to put together a TikTok showing off... (CONTINUE READING /

Found in Comments:

John WROTE:
“I live in Carmel and 10 minutes from the school.
This is exactly what happens when a community pours everything into its children.
I would argue 90% of the student body comes from two parent households with stable families.

Carmel is insanely clean, has a superior school system, and has the single best framework of infrastructure in the United States.
What you see in that school extends to the whole city, buildings, roads, business facades, employment, everything.
People shouldnt have an issue with this, they should strive to be like this.
Stop dumping money into woke [***] social programs, and put it into families.”

At about 5:00 ABL refers to a document that reflects this high school spends FAR LESS per student than (i think he refers to Baltimore schools).

Personally, i’m not sure i favor schools like this, to each their own. No question, the facilities are impressive.

Lots of folks are now recognizing schools cannot fix everything. The root problems are cultural and family problems, especially recognizing damage done by well-intended policies that resulted in huge increases in fatherless homes.

At about 7:00 ABL cited how money guarantees nothing, he gave an example of 2014 Mark Zuckerberg gifting $100 million to Newark schools, but the outcome was, “Raheem still can’t read.”

If your car has a flat tire, replacing the water pump will not fix your tire. The water pump salesman will be happy.

Carmel IN built a 5,500 student high school. So yes, they have things like 4 different gyms and a lavish theater and library. And it probably saved them a LOT of money to do it that way. How many gyms, theaters, and libraries would they have to build and maintain if, instead, they had built 6 separate 900 student high schools? A WHOLE lot more.

There are some big Texas high schools that do the same thing. In part so their communities can win lots of state championships in sports. I'm ambivalent about the whole trend. At some point you get too big. I think something is lost when your high school is as large as a university.

Carmel is also the wealthiest suburb in all of Indiana. It has a median household income of $119,772. So I'm not sure it is a model for the rest of the country. The median home price is over $500,000 so I doubt anyone poor lives there. You can basically find the same thing in ultra-rich suburbs everywhere in the country. Dallas, Chicago, New York, Seattle, etc. Wealth has its privileges. One of them is lavish schools.

[Josh]

It sounds like we agree. Can we agree Title IX should be repealed, then?

Title IX is essentially the implementation of the 14th Amendment in education. You want to repeal that too?

The 14th amendment is already the law of the land.

Why is Title IX needed? Do we need federal interference in education, or not?

If we do, making sure schools are safe and don't have beatdowns like I alluded to in this thread (or refugee girls getting harassed, beaten up, and their stuff stolen) would seem to be a top priority.

[Josh]

Carmel is also the wealthiest suburb in all of Indiana. It has a median household income of $119,772. So I'm not sure it is a model for the rest of the country. The median home price is over $500,000 so I doubt anyone poor lives there. You can basically find the same thing in ultra-rich suburbs everywhere in the country. Dallas, Chicago, New York, Seattle, etc. Wealth has its privileges. One of them is lavish schools.

Actually, Carmel spends much less per pupil than Baltimore does. Baltimore is one of the best funded school districts in the country, spending over $21k per student, with a budget of $1.6 billion - and plans for that budget to get even bigger.

Carmel, on the other hand, is under $10,000 per student.

Ken, can you explain how spending half as much leads you to say that a district is "wealthy" and has "lavish schools"? It seems like Baltimore (and Miami) city schools are the ones that are lavish, and Carmel is modest.

[Ken]

Carmel is also the wealthiest suburb in all of Indiana. It has a median household income of $119,772. So I'm not sure it is a model for the rest of the country. The median home price is over $500,000 so I doubt anyone poor lives there. You can basically find the same thing in ultra-rich suburbs everywhere in the country. Dallas, Chicago, New York, Seattle, etc. Wealth has its privileges. One of them is lavish schools.

Actually, Carmel spends much less per pupil than Baltimore does. Baltimore is one of the best funded school districts in the country, spending over $21k per student, with a budget of $1.6 billion - and plans for that budget to get even bigger.

Carmel, on the other hand, is under $10,000 per student.

Ken, can you explain how spending half as much leads you to say that a district is "wealthy" and has "lavish schools"? It seems like Baltimore (and Miami) city schools are the ones that are lavish, and Carmel is modest.

I haven't dove into the budgets of either district, but I suspect that isn't actually as you claim. School districts generally maintain separate capital construction and operational budgets. So the lavish schools we are talking about are not part of the Carmel Schools operational budget. They are generally paid for out of separate bond levies that aren't counted in a school district's operational budget. When new schools are built they can also pile a lot of expenses into capital budgets that would normally be part of operations. I saw this in TX. When my district build a new HS addition they gave us an extra $150,000 out of the capital budget for science equipment. Those would have had to come from the operations budget in any other year but that way it was essentially "off the books" spending. New schools are also far cheaper to operate and maintain than 100-year old schools.

[Josh]

Carmel is also the wealthiest suburb in all of Indiana. It has a median household income of $119,772. So I'm not sure it is a model for the rest of the country. The median home price is over $500,000 so I doubt anyone poor lives there. You can basically find the same thing in ultra-rich suburbs everywhere in the country. Dallas, Chicago, New York, Seattle, etc. Wealth has its privileges. One of them is lavish schools.

Actually, Carmel spends much less per pupil than Baltimore does. Baltimore is one of the best funded school districts in the country, spending over $21k per student, with a budget of $1.6 billion - and plans for that budget to get even bigger.

Carmel, on the other hand, is under $10,000 per student.

Ken, can you explain how spending half as much leads you to say that a district is "wealthy" and has "lavish schools"? It seems like Baltimore (and Miami) city schools are the ones that are lavish, and Carmel is modest.

I haven't dove into the budgets of either district, but I suspect that isn't actually as you claim. School districts generally maintain separate capital construction and operational budgets. So the lavish schools we are talking about are not part of the Carmel Schools operational budget. They are generally paid for out of separate bond levies that aren't counted in a school district's operational budget. When new schools are built they can also pile a lot of expenses into capital budgets that would normally be part of operations. I saw this in TX. When my district build a new HS addition they gave us an extra $150,000 out of the capital budget for science equipment. Those would have had to come from the operations budget in any other year but that way it was essentially "off the books" spending. New schools are also far cheaper to operate and maintain than 100-year old schools.

Baltimore just raised $70 million in bonds. That's a lot of capital. They also just opened 6 new school buildings. Exactly how much more capital do you think Baltimore needs until it can equal Carmel which spends HALF per student?

It seems, Ken, I have proven over and over that the large, failing school districts actually spend a lot of money, much more than the more successful school districts. Therefore it seems obvious to me that things like spending per pupil do not make a difference when it comes to providing a safe, good education.

[Jazman]

Related but a different perspective... last evening our church heard from a family that lives in our nearest major city (refugee per capita capital of the US btw...find out who that is) and this couple works closely with refugee's/asylum seekers etc. They didn't go into detail, but they talked about how all the new arrivals here (Christian or otherwise) were exceedingly grateful for public schools they could now send their children to for an education which would be far better than the nothing they had had before they came... ie the urban public school is an answer to their prayers...
I say this not to excuse or overlook real harms happening in real places (I'm sure those refugee/immigrant families know of some problems too and are trying to address them too) But, I wonder if we tried on some other shoes and walked in them awhile, maybe our perspective on some of these things would change...

In the article I shared, the experience in San Francisco public schools was so bad that the pupil and refugee wanted to return to an active war zone.

Of course, if you are in an area with conservative government and “good” schools, that might not be the same experience.

You have a point, but the schools in my area I'm referring to (and the ones the refugees are thankful for are my county's urban school district...not necessarily run by the 'conservative' part of our county; you're correct about a bunch of the suburban/rural districts in my county... those you could say are more run by the conservatives I suppose. They would certainly have a more conservative leaning patrons/students.
Now I do think our city schools have some Christian staff and administrators (Like my Christian sister-in-law works in one!), but I assume the majority of our urban district's are probably centrist to progressive leaning. Ok, maybe it's more conservative than San Fran... but I think part of my point still stands.

[Ken]

Baltimore just raised $70 million in bonds. That's a lot of capital. They also just opened 6 new school buildings. Exactly how much more capital do you think Baltimore needs until it can equal Carmel which spends HALF per student?

It seems, Ken, I have proven over and over that the large, failing school districts actually spend a lot of money, much more than the more successful school districts. Therefore it seems obvious to me that things like spending per pupil do not make a difference when it comes to providing a safe, good education.

Baltimore is a school district with 178 schools and 111,084 students
Carmel is a school district with 15 schools and 16,395 students

The Carmel HS that Temp referenced above? They are currently spending $133 million just for upgrades to that one single high school including $20 million for remodeled performing arts upgrades, $43 million for a new Olympic size natatorium (pool), and a $27 million football stadium expansion that will include a $10 million full size indoor practice facility. https://readthereporter.com/carmel-scho ... -upgrades/ and https://youarecurrent.com/2022/04/25/9- ... l-stadium/

Oh, and that new $43 million pool they are building? It will be the SECOND pool at that high school. By the way, how many Olympic size natatoriums do the Baltimore public schools have? And, of course, none this spending is counted in that $10,000 per student cost you cited because it is capital expenditures not operating costs. But OK, keep telling us how it is Baltimore that is spending more on school construction and upgrades than Carmel.

Now I don't begrudge communities that decide to spend money on education. It is a wealthy community and they can easily afford it. The money is probably better spent on the schools than on say a $133 million freeway expansion project or some such. I'm just pointing all this out to illustrate that it isn't always an apples to apples comparison when you compare new suburban districts to older urban ones. Their cost structures and spending can be very different. Also, wealthy districts like Carmel also run big education foundations which are basically endowment funds through which they fund all kinds of grants that are "off the books" so to speak because it is charitable donations from local companies and individuals. A PTA on steroids so to speak. That is another common way that wealthy districts spend more money than poorer ones. It is basically like a university endowment but for a public school district that operates completely separate from the regular taxes and operating budget.

[ohio jones]

Baltimore just raised $70 million in bonds. That's a lot of capital. They also just opened 6 new school buildings.

No, that's not a lot of capital. It might pay for one of the 6 new buildings. Maybe two if they are small elementary schools.

[Josh]

Baltimore just raised $70 million in bonds. That's a lot of capital. They also just opened 6 new school buildings.

No, that's not a lot of capital. It might pay for one of the 6 new buildings. Maybe two if they are small elementary schools.

That's just one bond offering from last year. Baltimore public schools has raised a lot more than that from other places as well.

My point being, Baltimore is well capitalised in addition to having a plenty big operating budget.