I as a parent do not understand why my child has to go to a specific school because of the district if she has transportation and she feels better in some other school then why is she obligated to go to a different school?

-- karina simmons (DRs chula4u@aol.com), August 21, 2000

Answers

I've been in your shoes before. I was told that my daughter has to attend the school in the district that we live because the taxes that we pay go to that school. The school district said they get funding according to how many kids are in that district and the amount of taxes paid. If you were "free" to chose the school your child went to you'd probally experience problems with not enought textbooks for each student, over crowding, and so on. Tina L

-- tina l (tluxeneb@netscape.net), September 27, 2000.

The previous reply to this topic holds an important clue: Follow The Money. The way schools are funded is indeed the "bottom line" or "reason" behind a zillion different things that don't make sense. Notice that the district cited supposed problems your child might have if you were free to choose your school - fewer textbooks,overcrowding, etc. But they also mentioned the problem THEY might have - they might not get funding for your children. That's the real bottom line behind their answer. No one wants to lose money. But who says the system couldn't work if it was funded another way? I recently saw a TV ad about this issue, with an irate parent daring to ask, where does the government get the right to tell me what school I have send my kids to? It's an important question. And there are a lot of fake answers. The bottom-line answer is, because that's the way the funding has been set up. The key to making significatnt change is to go beyond ranting and raving in frustration. Trace the money trail from taxpayer to teacher, administrator, constructor, supplier, maintainer, etc. How many local, state, and federal agencies, boards, authorities, councils, or other entities are involved? Who actually decides what money goes where? In each case, how is the decision made? What local, state, or federal laws apply? To what extent is the decision arbitrary? Is the decision a matter of public record? Is it supervised or inspected, and if so, by whom? Are there mechanisms in place that make the decision secret or privileged? To what extent can it be corrupted? Those are the questions we should be asking. They can be answered. They can be made public in plain language on discussion forums and web sites like this one. Untangling the funding trail is not easy, but once we do it, our analyses of the public system will be more grounded, and less inclined to veer off in mpractical, theoretical directions.

-- john bostrom (jdboz!@ix.netcom.com), January 01, 2001.

I am a student and i no how u feel i go to a private school now because all the public schools here my house r very not anit-bully schools i probale would have started smoking by now or i might even have started up on drugs or i might even be dead

-- Siobhan Lynch (freakythang14@hotmail.com), November 08, 2001.