Thank you, the claim that our educational outcomes are poor due to underfunding is a huge pet peeve of mine.

Its really terrifying to see people confidently and passionately argue about politics while pulling their "facts" from an alternate universe.

I think it is in large part due bad spending priorities at schools. Several years ago I lived small rural community and the school district passed a heavy levee on homes to pay for a new football field and a far larger than needed grandstand/bleachers and field lighting. Turns out the high schools roof was needing replaced at the same time but they purposefully waited until they got the levy for the field through first to put forward the one to repair the school because they figured that they could get them both that way but could not get the field after replacing the roof.

The highest paid government employees in most states are football coaches for the state schools? Why? I thought schools job were to educate not cause brain injuries in their students? Why pay millions of tax payer dollars earmarked for education for someone to coach a game that injures the mental capacity of the students. Why not hire more professors with that money? why not pay teachers more or fix facilities buy material and equipment make teachers not have to spend their own money on basic supplies?

> The highest paid government employees in most states are football coaches for the state schools? Why? I thought schools job were to educate not cause brain injuries in their students? Why pay millions of tax payer dollars earmarked for education for someone to coach a game that injures the mental capacity of the students. Why not hire more professors with that money? why not pay teachers more or fix facilities buy material and equipment make teachers not have to spend their own money on basic supplies?

I used to feel this way too, but my understanding is that investing in sports programs tends to _bring in_ more money for universities, on net. I don't think it's accurate to consider it as trading off against academic investment.

At any rate, this is a bit tangential: American universities are the best in the world, so the conversation is more about high school and lower, where our educational outcomes lag by some metrics.

This is high school. They don't need to attract students, they need to educate the ones they have. Considering the risks football should not be in public schools at all. Sure at university it pays for itself but that is a different level with different conditions

I would say that the discourse is insufficently precise in accounting for variables as well. One complication found is also that the better off need less funding in the first place. Which makes some sense upon reflection - parents who are illiterate in the local language for whatever reason would be incapable of providing "baseline" assistance in knowledge transmission. Asking for 100% equal outcomes would clearly result in a procrustean bed but counterintuitively equal opportunity does not require equal input costs as convenient as it would be.

This awkwardly also highlights ignored externalities and implied awkward questions in ways essentially nobody is comfortable is with the implications of especially regarding free choice and perverse incentives where the "best" option still has messed up implications.

Strictly speaking what you're saying is true, but it ignores other realities of the association of wealth and education outcomes which are implied when folks are talking about these subjects.

One of the best places in America to get education happens to be free: the public school system of Lexington [1]. But you'd be hard-pressed to get a house there for less than a million. Secondly, every other student in Lexington happens to have private instructors on the side. It's funny, if you randomly walk into a Starbucks in Lexington, chances are very highly you'll see an elder person with a young person training for standardized exams.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upshot/money-...

The thread is about government (specifically, the congressional gop) underfunding education spending. The effects of parental wealth on educational outcomes is a complete non sequitur.