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ABrusca1105 t1_itrnjr6 wrote

Reply to comment by keepseeing444 in How does your town’s property tax allocation compare to the state average? by Downtown-Prompt-6499

Ah, I see your point now. I just took issue with the point you made about people getting no benefit from school taxes.

The real solution is to decouple schools from property taxes and municipalities entirely and fund schools at the state level and either organized at state level or at county level. But, that would get rid of the precious "local control" some people scream about. A common curriculum is heresy for some. It would, however, make NJ one of the states with the lowest property taxes. You could even unify small and enclave towns to eliminate redundant FD, PD, etc leadership positions and overhead.

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keepseeing444 t1_itrrwi5 wrote

I like your ideas! But sadly unions rule this state and politicians. They will never say yes to less memberships.

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ABrusca1105 t1_its1gx9 wrote

I'm a perfect example who is very left leaning but not in the way most people are.

Another uncommon opinion in a similar vein is that I want to nationalize all the real estate PROPERTY of every class 1 railroad in the country (The big ones) and have the state build and maintain track and systems. BUT, have a free market of private operators running similar to the interstate highway and airline industry and simply charge usage fees/tolls for operators to bid for schedule slots. This would pay for maintenance, dispatching, and construction. Basically, nationalize the rails, privatize the operations. Though, I would personally keep Amtrak as a public option to compete to keep prices low and quality high.

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Accomplished_Day2991 t1_itstpng wrote

What can the government run well? We’re in this mess bc they can’t be responsible. This is just dumb.

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ABrusca1105 t1_itsu2f3 wrote

What? What makes the government special over a corporate monopoly? The rail industry has two players in the west, two in the east, and two down the middle. Why not treat rail like the highway system and let the free market operate the trains? That's what you want, no? Even if all you think is "government bad"

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Accomplished_Day2991 t1_itsyof7 wrote

Let’s just use this school situation as an example. Private and catholic schools opened up pretty quickly. They got the kids back, their scores are good. They managed a budget, followed their curriculum, no issues. Then the public schools, it’s just coming out with how bad test scores are across the country. Closed for 2 years, I’m sure JC is even worse. And the best they can do is take more money. Yet a well run private school can do it for way less, and get better results? Now let’s ask ourselves why? 🤔 They can’t just decide to keep raising tuition or people won’t go. The jc public schools don’t care about you, don’t care about doing the right thing for your kids by going back and figure out why 33k per kid should be more then enough. They just take more bc they can’t be bothered w digging in and finding what the real problem is. And politics make people have no backbone because no one wants to upset anyone. So they will just agree, even if they disagree. And bam your off throwing another couple of thousand dollars at these people for what? Guarantee in two years the school results won’t be much better. It makes them sound like they are trying to do something….but it’s just being lazy.

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ABrusca1105 t1_itszpzz wrote

Orrrr, it has more to do with family income... As the data shows. The evidence actually shows charter schools are way worse at providing good outcomes and regular private schools self-select for the wealthiest families, as do public magnet schools.

Income is the single greatest factor in school outcomes along with other factors out of the school's control.

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