I live and work in New York State. In order to attend public school a student must reside within the boundaries of the school district. If a student wants to attend a different public school the must pay tuition for that school. In my district the tuition for students grades k through 8 must pay 15 thousand dollars. For students grades 9 through 12 the price is around 22 thousand per school year. These rules are in place to protect the residents or school district from being taken advantage of. For lack of a better way to say it no district want a bunch of free loaders. I don't feel that this is the best way of doing things but this the way things work. Unfortunately the quality of a kids education is linked to how rich the town is they live in.
I came across an article about a border town school district with a problem. Every day van loads of kids would cross the U.S. Mexico border and drop them off at a U.S. public school. http://www.newstimes.com/national/ci_13387165
In resent days the school district in question has been putting a stop to this...
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I wrote about this very topic a couple of weeks ago and received quite a bit of flack because I am all for students who are from other countries coming to our schools. I think that it helps provide a lot of diversity and it is not like the districts are being completely flooded (400 students per day in a city with close to 50,000 people is not the epidemic ratio the superintendent describes in the article). In a town right on the Mexican border school administrators have had to be dealing with this problem for decades and should be budgeting for extra students. Honestly I would not care if I had 5 extra immigrant students in my class in the least if I knew we were providing a safe place for them to learn and grow. It is not like these students in this article are actually illegal; rather they have dual citizenship and come across the border each day for school. It is an issue of out of district students coming in district without the necessary paperwork. Sounds like a good excuse to me for an administration to single out a group of people. You know that the students from Mexico are coming to your schools - that comes with being a border town. Deal with it and make it a positive for everyone! There is a lot of potential there for great things to happen.
ReplyDeletecheers,
ct
Education is linked to the town a person lives. I agree with that, however, not fully. Again, I refer to my little town of 250 people in rural North Dakota. That school district, while not in session any longer, had more resources than the average district I have been involved with over the past 20 years. I've seen districts from Washington, California, North Dakota, and Connecticut. The educational level is linked to how much a community wants to focus attention and resources upon it. They didn't have to have wealth, as the different programs available provided different resource than even my current wealthy district can afford or qualify. Sometimes, it came down to how important it really was for the families of the area, whether inner city, suburb, or country school. How much of their money would they be willing to allocate to the district?
ReplyDeleteWell, in terms of taking advantage of the system, we have no shortage of that in California. The Hispanic population is the sort that doesn't pay taxes, makes their money under the table and ends up with 100% of their wealth in the bank as compared to a person who does pay 20-35% or even 60% of their income to the government. Why would anyone begin paying for something they've been getting away with for years? Should I, as a law abiding taxpayer and teacher allow illegals to take advantage of the system, government, and ignorant taxpayers?
If I was living on the border of Mexico, and they had better education than we do, I suppose I'd think about ways to get my kids that education. Do they deserve it? No. I don't think so. Not the kind that I'm not paying for. I'd be full of myself and a criminal if I did expect that everyone cater to me and my family. I also am not the sort to take hand outs. The Hispanic nation, however, well you can be the judge of each individual case. They're not all the same. But I wouldn't allow law abiding taxpaying citizens of my community to unknowingly spread their wealth to people who didn't earn it. If they want to publicly sponsor a child from another country and support the tuition, I think that's a grand idea. I believe it's called foreign exchange. Definitely, it is not illegals slowly taking over without paying their dues.
Have a good weekend. Good thoughts.
Randy B.
I'd also like to add in reference to Clint's numbers. With most districts assuming the cost of educating one child is between $10k-$25k, we'd have a border town with 50,000 people having to come up with anywhere from $4 million to $10 million dollars to "help" educate the illegals/non-taxpaying Mexicans. I think you'd be hard pressed to get $200 from every man, woman, and child in that town to help pay for the illegals no matter how kind they are. You might be able to find 200 wealthy people who'd be willing to pay $50k to sponsor a child from Mexico, but again, good luck finding that.
ReplyDeleteI'm tired of people taking advantage of others, no matter the group. Any "group" who does, isn't American if you ask me. If they aren't American, they need to pay their dues in order to take from American taxpayers. It's simple economics and law.
So, in short, Clinton, if you're willing to teach 5 illegals, you could expect to deduct $50k from your $40k paying job. Since you live in America, you have that right.
Have a good weekend.
Randy B.
In Georgia we just went through a similiar problem of parents sneaking students into other counties for schooling. About three years ago one of the counties close to mine started the process of losing their accreditation. Parents were outraged and began trying to move their students. When parents could not sell their houses they instead used others addresses. Counties like mine were being overrun with large numbers of students. Counties began checking students housing records by sending police offers to insure students lived there. Parents received large fines and even some jail time for falsifing documents. I completely understand that parents want their children to have a better education but I wonder how far is too far?
ReplyDeleteRandy,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up valid points (except that I wish I made $40k! and per pupil spending in Texas is around $7500) and it is incredibly expensive, I understand that. But look at the other stuff taxpayers are spending money on. It seems to me that spending money on students whose parents likely spend most of their income in your town, helping to get a safe education is a good thing (and completely legal in this case). How about we educate these kids so they don't end up in our jails eventually?
You are right to question when is it going to be enough. If we let in 400 there why not let anyone else in who wants a free education? I can't argue with you there and it is easy for me to have an opinion on the subject when I do not have to deal with it. However, I just feel that there has to be a way to help out the kids who truly want to get an education here. I don't know how, but if I find out I will let you know =D Have a great weekend.
cheers,
ct
Wow, that is some serious cash for switching schools out of district. It makes sense though. I cannot believe that people would actually pay this money, but I bet there is a lot that do.
ReplyDeleteAs far as this school making people show residency, I think that it is fair. People should have to show that they are residing in America in order to come into American schools. We cannot support the whole world as we are now. It is a tough choice, but it must be done. We can not let anyone and everyone come into American schools. It just does not work that way. I would not expect to be able to send my kids to a neighboring country without going through the requirements. There are guidelines that need to be followed and we need to enforce these in order to financially fund our schools.
Philip