Whether you assign secondary schools by race or income, the same problems arises. Some kid is going to have to go to a different, probably more distant, probably also lower quality, school than his or her neighbors. Maybe because of race. Or because he or she is poor. Or just lives in a white neighborhood.

There's obviously a problem here. Most programs, whether free-market or government based, generally try to leave all parties who haven;t broken any laws or rules better off. Even with welfare-type programs, the taxpayers are, at least theoretically, on average better, because feeding otherwise starving people avoids social unrest, brings moral satisfaction, etc.

Moreover, the idea goes against traditional American principles. Even though nobody really has a right to go to a specific school, many people think about it that way. After all, many parents move kids to expensive suburbs with great schools (and stupendous taxes) to get their kids into good public schools. They have a reasonable expectation of a return on that investment. It is, in fact, very reasonable since that's what happens in the vast majority of cases - kids end up going to their local schools. And the Constitution prohibits taking away rights or property without just compensation. This is just one of the reasons the idea of forcing kids to attend a school worse than the one in their own neighborhood makes many Americans uncomfortable.

So how about this: offer to refund to parents of the kids being forced to a worse school district the extra taxes (if any) they paid. I guess that could be equal to the difference in % tax times the value of the property times the number of years they've lived in the district since their kid's been alive. But that's just one way of calculating it. If they rent, use the value of the property they live in since a bulk of those property taxes goes into their rent.

Of course, in some cases the tax difference is zero (or negative), and even if it exists there may be no takers. Then take the same approach airlines use: Auction the school switch off. Whoever is willing to move their kid for the lowest price gets the deal. It might sound cold, but it has the main benefit of market economics: whoever has the smallest relative burden of switching schools moves. A lot better than choosing kids randomly and winding up with lawsuits. Of course, this latter approach could even be used either instead or in combination with the tax-refund approach.

I bet that in many cases you'll see quite a few more willing participants. Some people will even volunteer. Since, as Slate writers have mentioned, the number of kids forced to actually switch schools is small, the cost to taxpayers would be insignificant. It shouldn't outweigh those much-spoken-of benefits of diversity and it might even be less costly than all the brouhaha surrounding these cases. Really, does this solution seem so unreasonable or infeasible?

How do you measure a "worse school"? In the Seattle case, the issue wasn't one of being bussed to a "worse school" per se. The issue was that if you entered the lottery for one of the Magnet programs (AP, Drama, Performing arts) and did NOT get in, you lost your automatic preference for your neighborhood school and the tie-breaker then went for diversity.

The school my wife taught at was the AP Magnet. And while it would get nationally ranked for its AP ratios and Ivy League attendees, it also had one of the higher drop-out rates because it served a poorer community as a neighborhood school, and because of its neighborhood, it had some gang problems whereas Nathan Hale (the one located in Bill Gates' old neighborhood) didn't.

Note also that in urban settings - where most of this controversey exists - there is a large percentage of renters. Do renters get the tax credit for the prop taxes they pay through their rent?

Sorry, this isn't really a workable system

These are great questions. I really think they can be addressed.I believe I addressed the renter situation in my original post (in the same way you proposed). Property taxes are just as costly for renters as they are for homeowners. Now, more importantly, what is a "worse school"? Simple. As far as any parent is concerned, it's any school they don't want their child attending instead of their neighborhood school. Whether it's due to education quality, length of commute, or gang presence. More specifically, it's a school I wouldn't want my child attending unless I'm paid at least x dollars. Let's take your example. Let's say you live in the neighborhood of Nathan Hale. However, the city would prefer that someone of your child's race or income or whatever attend the Magnet school further away. If your prefer that Magnet school yourself because of its higher Ivy League acceptance rates, you'll jump at the offer before someone else takes it. Everybody's happy. If you feel the bad outweighs the good somewhat, you'll wait until the city offers $500 or whatever sum you're happy with (the tax difference just seems like a good amount to start the bidding). Again, nobody really loses. The other kids win, theoretically, because they have more diversity, the city wins for the same reason, you and your child win because you got satisfactory compesation for your move. What's the issue?

I respect this attempt, but it seems dubious.

There's obviously a problem here. Most programs, whether free-market or government based, generally try to leave all parties who haven;t broken any laws or rules better off. Even with welfare-type programs, the taxpayers are, at least theoretically, on average better, because feeding otherwise starving people avoids social unrest, brings moral satisfaction, etc.

The programs often try to leave the community as a whole better off. You hint at this point in the closing sentence. Well, the same is argued here. The school placement system has the intention of furthering integration and a better society that this brings. As a whole, even if some go to schools in some fashion not as good as others (which will happen for any number of reasons anyway, ignoring the degme ranking problem ... and I share the idea that maybe something might be done, perhaps special programs favoring their interests etc.), the result helps society as a whole. The same applies to let's say paying school taxes even if you don't have kids.

Even though nobody really has a right to go to a specific school, many people think about it that way. After all, many parents move kids to expensive suburbs with great schools (and stupendous taxes) to get their kids into good public schools. They have a reasonable expectation of a return on that investment.

This is the mentality, sure enough, but it is selfish. Some people simply don't have this freedom of movement. This results in class and racial divisions and haves and have nots. I don't quite see this as "fair."

The net result is also unfair. This is seen with city/suburban divisions. People in the suburbs (I see this here, since I live in the city and family lives in the 'burbs) are upset about paying taxes to pay for city expenses, but gain the benefits of them all the time. They just fail to acknowledge the fact.

BTW, often the "neighborhood" is not too far from the school. It can be less than 1/2 hr away by bus. Many send their kids further distances anyway (as did my parents) for other reasons.

And the Constitution prohibits taking away rights or property without just compensation.

Their property isn't being taken by average understanding of the term. Nor are their rights, same. The same might be used to justify funding religious schools, since many want to send their kids to them -- they can, they just can't ask the state to pay for it. The gov't doesn't have a constitutional obligation to help people reside in comfty bedroom communities in this fashion.

So how about this: offer to refund to parents of the kids being forced to a worse school district the extra taxes (if any) they paid.

Again, this implies there is not net gain to the system. I also think ... I guess you can be supportive of the idea though it underlines its breadth ... any number of gov't programs might also have this requirement if we take things in a consistent way. After all, why limit the principle to one voluntary government program (there are any number of educational choices here) that in some cases supplies negative results to people?

Auction the school switch off. Whoever is willing to move their kid for the lowest price gets the deal. It might sound cold, but it has the main benefit of market economics: whoever has the smallest relative burden of switching schools moves.

In practice, this is liable to result in various disadvantaged people stuck with bad choices. It is also the problem with some voucher ideas. The net result will be more lawsuits ... just different types of lawsuits.

Since, as Slate writers have mentioned, the number of kids forced to actually switch schools is small, the cost to taxpayers would be insignificant.

I'm not sure how "small" the class will be since each plan would be different and it sometimes is a matter of choosing a certain school. The ultimate argument made in this litigation, after all, is that you can't use race. There is really not "constitutional" right to go to school right near your house, after all, and often enough people rather not (other schools can offer any number of benefits for their child).

Ultimately, even if some formula can be set up that would be workable (in practice, this sort of thing can be difficult), I don't really accept the premise of the idea.

-j

Thank you for your reply. Let me try to address your points.

The programs often try to leave the community as a whole better off. You hint at this point in the closing sentence. Well, the same is argued here. The school placement system has the intention of furthering integration and a better society that this brings. As a whole, even if some go to schools in some fashion not as good as others (which will happen for any number of reasons anyway, ignoring the degme ranking problem ... and I share the idea that maybe something might be done, perhaps special programs favoring their interests etc.), the result helps society as a whole. The same applies to let's say paying school taxes even if you don't have kids.

They key point in these other social programs is that no one is really much worse off than their neighbor. The same rule and tax formulas apply to all. We don't have a lottery that says that some people have to contribute more to paying for welfare than others with the same income in the same neighborhood.

Even though nobody really has a right to go to a specific school, many people think about it that way. After all, many parents move kids to expensive suburbs with great schools (and stupendous taxes) to get their kids into good public schools. They have a reasonable expectation of a return on that investment.

This is the mentality, sure enough, but it is selfish. Some people simply don't have this freedom of movement. This results in class and racial divisions and haves and have nots. I don't quite see this as "fair."

Have and have-nots are part of the nature of capitalism. If you're suggesting that someone having a nicer house in a nicer neighborhood than someone else because they've earned more money is unfair... well then we're starting from different places. Moving to a nicer house in a neighborhood with better schools is part of the incentive for working hard and thus contributing to society. I've lived in the Soviet Union and based on that experience I don't accept your premise.

And the Constitution prohibits taking away rights or property without just compensation.

Their property isn't being taken by average understanding of the term. Nor are their rights, same. The same might be used to justify funding religious schools, since many want to send their kids to them -- they can, they just can't ask the state to pay for it. The gov't doesn't have a constitutional obligation to help people reside in comfty bedroom communities in this fashion.

I understand that it's not a right; I said that in my earlier post. I just mean that the vastly common experience is that kids go to a school in their neighborhood. Therefore, most people have a reasonable expectation that this will happen. And they make an investment in terms of property values and taxes on that basis. And they're understandably and rightly upset when that investment is not realized because of their child's race. You'd be upset, too.

So how about this: offer to refund to parents of the kids being forced to a worse school district the extra taxes (if any) they paid.

Again, this implies there is not net gain to the system. I also think ... I guess you can be supportive of the idea though it underlines its breadth ... any number of gov't programs might also have this requirement if we take things in a consistent way. After all, why limit the principle to one voluntary government program (there are any number of educational choices here) that in some cases supplies negative results to people?

No one said that there's no net gain to the system. At least I didn't. I haven't seen studies that say there is, but they're probably out there. At least, I hope they are, given the effort people put into making diversity happen.

Presumably, though, that gain is greater than the loss to those people asked to change schools. So, why not offset their losses with fair compensation? There's still a net gain. And, just as importantly, you avoid removing incentives to buy houses and pay property taxes in certain good neighborhoods with these programs, because there's your risk your investment will be taken away by loss in a lottery.

Auction the school switch off. Whoever is willing to move their kid for the lowest price gets the deal. It might sound cold, but it has the main benefit of market economics: whoever has the smallest relative burden of switching schools moves.

In practice, this is liable to result in various disadvantaged people stuck with bad choices. It is also the problem with some voucher ideas. The net result will be more lawsuits ... just different types of lawsuits.

What exactly are the bad choices? I propose to make the program strictly voluntary. The minority or poor parents will get a choice to send their kids to a potentially better school, or if they don't want to or it's not better, ask for compensation for it. The majority (is that the right word?) or rich parents will have a choice to send their kid to a local school, to a more distant school for free (maybe it's better), or to a more distant school with adequate compensation.

Compare that to a system that exists now, where a minority or poor kid might be sent to a school with fewer opportunities (as in degsme's example) and not have any say in it. The only possibility I'm taking away is the "choice" of being forced to do something against your will that your neighbors don't have to do, without any compensation.

Since, as Slate writers have mentioned, the number of kids forced to actually switch schools is small, the cost to taxpayers would be insignificant.

I'm not sure how "small" the class will be since each plan would be different and it sometimes is a matter of choosing a certain school. The ultimate argument made in this litigation, after all, is that you can't use race. There is really not "constitutional" right to go to school right near your house, after all, and often enough people rather not (other schools can offer any number of benefits for their child).

I personally agree with the Supreme Court that using race is a bad idea, but that's not the point here. Even if you just use neighborhood affiliation and just get kids from different areas of a city to mix in a school you can achieve a level of desegregation. What formula is applied is up to the local administrators and the law. All I'm proposing is choice and just compensation instead of a Russian-roulette style lottery system.

Just a quick comment about the high drop-out rate in the magnet school degsme mentions...I think that makes perfect sense, actually. Do you really expect all students in an advanced program to succeed? That comment strikes me as having a whiff of the old assumption that every kid in America can be an Einstein under the right circumstances. If public schools really enforced the kinds of standards everybody seems to want, the failure rate would likely increase as a matter of course. The obvious solution for the drop-out problem in any school is to offer a wider range of choices for students, who currently have few options beyond college preparatory curriculum. I just don't understand how politicians and bureaucrats can't connect those dots. Houston ISD's motto is "Creating a College-Bound Culture." That must sound like a huge F* You to the seventy or eighty percent of our students who will never earn a college degree. Give students greater access to education in the trades, and you will see that drop-out rate decline.

They key point in these other social programs is that no one is really much worse off than their neighbor. The same rule and tax formulas apply to all. We don't have a lottery that says that some people have to contribute more to paying for welfare than others with the same income in the same neighborhood.

The same rules apply to all in the school choice system too. There are various responsibilities voluntarily and involuntarily entered in which everyone cannot get the exact same treatment. Teachers, for instance, might be uprooted from schools in locales where their families are settled. Slots in this respect is not the same thing as taxes. As to welfare, it can very well apply there too. For instance, you can imagine workfare or other req. being divided in a comparable way.

Have and have-nots are part of the nature of capitalism. ... I've lived in the Soviet Union and based on that experience I don't accept your premise.

There are degrees of inequality. As Jesus said, as I recall, we will always have poverty. Doesn't mean all anti-poverty programs in place are bad. We always have had some measures to lesser the hardships and inequalities of the system so I don't think there is some "entitlement" to not helping out to promote a fairer system. [Surely, because often enough the inequities arise from various injustices.] I assume our traditions of doing this is one reason why people ... including from the SU ... think this country is a nice place to live.

I understand that it's not a right; I said that in my earlier post. I just mean that the vastly common experience is that kids go to a school in their neighborhood. Therefore, most people have a reasonable expectation that this will happen. And they make an investment in terms of property values and taxes on that basis. And they're understandably and rightly upset when that investment is not realized because of their child's race. You'd be upset, too.

I missed you so saying but bring up the Takings Clause did confuse matters; if you "just mean" this, the connection is weak. As to their expectations, yes, but this doesn't make it acceptable. "White flight" was not just about getting away from dangerous people. The net result of the movement was de facto segregation and lack of support of urban schools. The fact that second and third generation residents hope to continue a bad system as a sort of investment expectation doesn't make it an ideal thing.

No one said that there's no net gain to the system. At least I didn't. I haven't seen studies that say there is, but they're probably out there. At least, I hope they are, given the effort people put into making diversity happen.

The fact there is a net gain has to be factored in to the argument that there needs to be compensation, which implies their ISNT a net gain. The fact the gov't might not specifically help you in a given situation happens all the time. You don't really have the right to ask for compensation if on the whole the system does help you. This is the idea behind AA ... in the end, it does promote "equal protection of the laws," which is the explicit constitutional command, not "color blind" programs.

Presumably, though, that gain is greater than the loss to those people asked to change schools. So, why not offset their losses with fair compensation? There's still a net gain. And, just as importantly, you avoid removing incentives to buy houses and pay property taxes in certain good neighborhoods with these programs, because there's your risk your investment will be taken away by loss in a lottery.

As noted, I dispute they "lose" something the state has a responsibility to repay. I really don't know how much the "incentive" loss here amounts to, especially if the program is required for a broad area that people would live in for any number of reasons anyway (the importance of city/urban combo solutions). As to using limited tax dollars for incentives, probably the funds can be used for other reasons that very well might have the same net result.

What exactly are the bad choices? I propose to make the program strictly voluntary. The minority or poor parents will get a choice to send their kids to a potentially better school, or if they don't want to or it's not better, ask for compensation for it.

If there is an "auction" process, people with limited resources and options will have less to "pay" and thus will be stuck with options others don't want. I'd add that to the degree there are limited resources, if the public offers a resource, they have a right to in some small way (the system here uses race as but one factor) to promote certain ends. The public school is different from the private/religious school in various respects, including the end of diversity.

I personally agree with the Supreme Court that using race is a bad idea, but that's not the point here.

I realize your post was not really about race specifically, but it's useful to remember what the case was about. Your post did assume that in some fashion society considers local schools a "right of sorts" (my phrasing), so underlining the fact seemed appropriate.

All I'm proposing is choice and just compensation instead of a Russian-roulette style lottery system.

The reality is that pure "choice" didn't work in practice, so given that people still can go to private school, when the public offers a resource, a certain factor is promoted in this case.

Any system will probably in some fashion include a "lottery" in which limited slots are given to students overall fairly equal in basic ways (five year olds etc. as one person noted don't have big cvs to interpret). Your system wants to find a way to compensate those that arguably get the shorter end of the stick. This doesn't include being shot in the head, so "RR" might be a bit harsh. [Seriously. Often it is just going to your second or third choice, not some hellhole. A place that shouldn't exist anyway, and that too takes tax dollars.]

You also defended it with certain assumed principles that I found somewhat dubious. I addressed these too, in summary form at least.

-j

Property tax reduction favors the wealthy. Assuming you can get around the Am14 issues of selective tax cuts (no one parent pays enough tax to fund more than a fraction of even one student) the prop tax cuts aren't going to be meaningful for all but the wealthiest. Seattle pays roughly 1% of assessed value in Prop taxes and spends $9,200/pupil so you would have to have a home value of $920,000 to be paying for even a full pupil. Thus cutting your taxes for going to a lesser school is essentially giving you a preference on a GENERAL tax.

Your approach also adds a matter of gaming the system. IE I put my kid into the lottery for a heavily oversubscribed magnet, even though I'm cool with them attending the local school. Then if they get in, great, if not - I get a tax cut even though my kid is attending the school I was perfectly fine with them attending..

You are trying to bring market forces to bear on education. And the research in this area, from voucher programs to tuition for universities, all says that 'free market' economies don't work for education. And the reasons are quite simple: For freemarket forces to work,

• you need to have a fairly tight feedback loop between decision and alternative decisions. Otherwise the feedback into the price-point gets attenuated.
• Furthermore you need to have a fairly tight feedback loop on the quality of what you purchased - otherwise your ability to make alternative choices is meaningless.

Education lacks BOTH of these measures. Once you commit to a school, you are stuck there for a minimum of a year. Additionally, one of the best predictors for poor educational outcomes is frequent change of venue. IE if you change schools every year, you could be going to the best schools, but the children won't do as well as if they were steadily in a 2nd tier school

And you really have no good measure for the short term quality of a school. Sure for the ends of the spectrum - the outstandingly good or bad teachers - yeah. But you really have no way to adequately measure K-8 performance year-to-year. Standardized tests won't do this since language, motor skill and socialization acquisition is so variable from child to child.

You can take broad measures, but you still really don't know.

The net result is that you have a system that then runs primarily on prejudice (ie racism). So your system EXACERBATES prejudice rather than ameliorates it.

Joe:

doesn't it really get back to the "separate but equal doctrine?" The fallacy is that underfunded city schools will never be the equal of property tax supported suburban schools, Property valuse do not support city schools .Even equalization has done little to correct the environment when city schools start in the hole.

That's not what the case was about. The case was about EQUALLY FUNDED schools WITHIN a school district, but with different facilities, neighborhoods and programs, using diversity as a tie-breaker in some (not all but some) situations where a school or a program is oversubscribed.

The issue then becomes that the parents in the wealthy lawyered neighborhood wanted to be able to game the system in a manner that they believe would benefit their kids. (ie enter the lottery for a desirable oversubscribed program, without surrendering the preference for the neighborhood school).

Robert's assertion that there was no historic discrimination in Seattle is just a canard. Because while there never was a lawsuit brought to PROVE that such exisited, LEGAL RACISM was used to segregate the housing within the district historically. And that went on LEGALLY as recently as the 1970s, and we all have seen data that it continues surreptitiously.

So the arguement goes that while in theory there is an equal allocation of resources across the district, parents with more legal levers in their hands are going to distort that distribution system. And from what my wife saw in the district, that was 100% true. Thus setting homogenous diversity targets accross all High Schools in the SD, is reasonable.

Seattle could very well respond to this by keeping magnet programs in place and simply assigning all other attendence by lottery. That would reach the diversity targets automatically without racial preferences - but I guarantee the howl heard from the suing parents would deafen even Robert's race-tone-deaf ears.

as an ivy league "attendie" social problems and tax returns are not related, definitely not a solution...can anyone present a solution for the potential higher-level students rather than reviewing the just nature of their tax-reforms....por favor...

the issue is teaching your children self-reliance and commitement, not relying on some system to magically put your children amongst the greatest learning environments in, honestly stating, only the United States...

without racial preferences

As you suggested various times, race is part of the problem, so has to be part of the solution, but it is useful to underline that even when other options are possible in some situations, those crying foul don't seem to really want to offer them realistically.

Thus, you have a "you are full of shit" reality in which cries of racism are just canards hiding another assumptions. This is suggested by the lead post which tosses in various assumptions when advancing a 'solution' that facially doesn't require them, but we can't analyze it realistically w/o looking at the assumptions made.

There is also often this "missing facts" problem. Breyer's dissent raises some of them, which the plurality refuses to seriously consider. For instance, legal racism in Seattle. The idea by some that segregation now came out akin to Athena from Zeus' head by some sort of self-genesis is a fallacy, but is a core assumption all too often.

To forestall confusion, btw run, D. knows the local facts. I'm just addressing some broader arguments raised by the lead post.

-j

I think that is an important part of the equation. I also share Degme's general sentiment that the proposed tax break wouldn't amount to much in practice, surely not enough to "solve" the problem in any real fashion. If Johnny or Jane need so desperately to go to school x or using race is such a problem, I doubt we such lawsuits will suddenly be stopped because of the tax subsidy realistically likely to be offered, money that should likely go somewhere else anyway.

-j

Joe:

Of course, degsme is correct. Kids in our district go to a $6,000 per year district. If you reside in Fowlerville or Bloomfield Hills, the state allocation per child is significantly higher (not even considering Detroit schools which is lower still). Non-property taxes (sales and lottery) support schools and the idiots in the state legilature failed to equalize the tax allocation (I do have a point here, somewhere). The argument was, they paid more in property tax and they should get more as it would be wrong to equalize.

So now we have a child from our district (which is agood district) wanting to go to another district. The student does not get the full $6,000 allocation and if he goes to Bloomfield Hills, who picks up the rest? The student picks up the rest. Poor student can barely afford to go to school besides pay more to go to a different district.

We are now faced with a shortage of school funding and the governor will cut funding ~$124/student across all districts equally applied to each district. This occurs as the state and local governments pave Woodward Avenue for the August "Dream Cruise." The priorities are messed up as well as the sense of allocating funds. It is not a two way street.

The lack of equalized funding in a sense is economic discrimination against poorer districts that can not raise taxes to meet the needs of the students. The greatest percentage of those in poverty are minorites as borne out by the US Census Bureau. The kids are trapped in a separate but equal (in theory) economic environment. Those who are not educated will not succeed (fact).

"Without education, you're not going anywhere in this world." Malcolm X

<link> The American Dream