Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by munk-a on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:13PM (#19732924)

This was once sort of the truth for the US, when everyone in the world owed America immense amounts of money after WWII and the US was paying _heavily_ into education. That's ended. The US is now becoming stupid politically and, even worse for the populace, uncompetitive - that "American Innovation" is dead and it ain't coming back for at least thirty or forty years unless education gets a serious booster shot.

This whole "But I've got mine" ideology that's circulating as "the essential America" right now is not historically accurate and is the biggest foot-gun the country has ever had.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by matwood on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:24PM (#19733032)

On a per pupil basis, the US is near the top in spending. The problem is that money does not make it into teacher salaries or even into the classrooms. Like many other parts of the US government, the money gets wasted away in administration.

This also is not a new thing. When I was in high school years ago, quite a few school buildings in the county were literally falling down trailers. With that going on, the school board decided to build a huge brand new building on some of the most expensive real estate downtown. There were some protests and the news did stories about it, but in the end the building was built. And, there are still schools with buildings that are nearly falling down.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by yardie on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @06:16AM (#19737001)

I see it as the schools in rich neighborhoods get more attention. If HVAC broke down the school district would hear it. Because the parents are more attentive and reactive. If the same thing happened to a school in a poorer neighborhood the parents wouldn’t react. Would t take time from work to attend those district meetings and the politicians will allocate the monies for their biggest complainers. Rinse and repeat for a decade and you end with those schools being in really bad shape due to delayed and neglected maintenance.

I live downtown and have been petitioning the school district for our own school. Downtown has grown from 10K to 80k residents in a decade. The school board has submitted and withdrawn plans for downtown. Costs are a big factor in withdrawing. But each year they delay that construction on a downtown school is only going to get more expensive.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by matwood on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @06:55AM (#19737160)

I wasn't clear in my original comment. The building built downtown was not a school, but a building for district administrators.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by munk-a on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:38PM (#19733179)

US education spending is somewhat tied to property taxes[1], Boston in particular has had historically terrible problems with inner city schools being underfunded while the suburbs throw around LCDs and laptops like they're candy - again due to a sort of terrible "the capitalist can do no wrong" ideal in the US a lot of money ends up being wasted by administrators on stupid technology that does nothing to help students learn.

[1] In most places AFAIK, and certainly in all the places I've ever lived

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