>But what this means is the wealthier localities have more tax revenue and thus better schools. This can be a vicious cycle of improving property values by having better schools and thus generating more tax revenue and so on.
No. This is a complete red-herring. Every school in the US is good enough to provide quality education. Every school in the US is staffed by good, well-trained teachers. Every child gets free textbooks, notebooks, pens, pencils, paper, etc (which isn't as common in the world as you'd think). Sometimes free breakfast or lunch is provided as well.
That some school district provides high-end iPads and another doesn't makes no material difference to a quality education. That some parents want to optimize their child's education by sending them to another district, makes no material difference to a quality education. Put another way, we're dealing with kids graduating being functionally illiterate - and that problem does not stem from school or teacher quality. That's a parent problem (as in, what kind of a parent allows their child to not be able to read by the time they are ready to graduate).
> Every school in the US is staffed by good, well-trained teachers
Unfortunately, this really isn't the case. There are many good teachers, and most teachers are genuinely passionate, hard workers. But many teachers get into teaching not because of a mastery of their subject matter or even teaching but because they want to be paid babysitters, more or less.
E.g. in Canada, which has similar issues, Ontario recently axed its math certification test for public school teachers because too many teachers were failing it and because it had "a disproportionate adverse impact on entry to the teaching profession for racialized teacher candidates." And, for demonstrative purposes, a sample test that prospective teachers were failing:
But there's not an easy solution. ~25% of test takers were failing it (and more for "racialized" candidates), and most people don't want to become teachers because it's a terrible work environment.
>But many teachers get into teaching not because of a mastery of their subject matter or even teaching but because they want to be paid babysitters, more or less.
You're missing the forest for the trees. We're graduating kids who are functionally illiterate. That isn't a teacher problem. That isn't a school problem.
No. This is a complete red-herring. Every school in the US is good enough to provide quality education. Every school in the US is staffed by good, well-trained teachers. Every child gets free textbooks, notebooks, pens, pencils, paper, etc (which isn't as common in the world as you'd think). Sometimes free breakfast or lunch is provided as well.
That some school district provides high-end iPads and another doesn't makes no material difference to a quality education. That some parents want to optimize their child's education by sending them to another district, makes no material difference to a quality education. Put another way, we're dealing with kids graduating being functionally illiterate - and that problem does not stem from school or teacher quality. That's a parent problem (as in, what kind of a parent allows their child to not be able to read by the time they are ready to graduate).