Why is no one asking Mark Sanford about this? He stands up and argues that Obama is on the wrong track, displays his bonafides with his MBA from UVA, and talks about good government management...but this school is in his state. How can he show his face and talk about good government when there are schools like this in his state? No media interview with Sanford should be complete until the anchor asks the Governor what he is doing to make sure that schools function and that kids can learn. God forbid that Sanford ever gets the chance to do to America what he has done to South Carolina.

Small world, aint it? Anyway Dillon really is a dying town. It has 6300 people and has been shrinking steadily for 30 years. 26% of the population is BELOW the poverty line. The entire Dillon county only has 30,000 people and 24% of them are below the poverty line. Dillon is a poor place, a wide spot in the highway who's only notable attraction is "South of the Border". The only reason to go to Dillon is it's on the way to Myrtle Beach.

Everywhere in the US, anyhow. If you have a system that uses PROPERTY TAXES to fund education, then obviously poor school systems simply don't have valuable enough property to generate the income for decent schools. Period. Paragraph.

The answer isn't rocket science, and it has been staring us in the face for a couple of generations -- school funding has to be fair, uniform and done through fair progressive taxation, which means it has to be done at the state level through INCOME TAXES. Only income tax can be rated progressively, so that the wealthy (individuals AND businesses) pay more than the poor.

Your home may or may not reflect how wealthy you are -- a widow, a divorced mom, might still be living in a nice house but have a very low income. (The elderly and handicapped usually get a "homestead exemption" but no one else.) On the other hand, in some areas, a very wealthy person might be renting or living in a place owned by their elderly parents who are getting the homestead exemption! I personally have a family member who is doing just this and in part, his reasoning is that he doesn't want to get stuck paying thousands in property tax.

On the other hand, your income is ALWAYS a reflection of how wealthy you are, especially if profits on investments and interest income are taxed.

When this is done, the money should be funneled to schools based SOLELY on the number of students legally enrolled (because illegal enrollment is a big problem in my area and probably yours). One thing I will gladly pay more taxes for is an INCREASED NUMBER OF TRUANT OFFICERS.

So what holds us back? Why can't any state achieve this? Very simple -- rich people in rich suburbs (and some cities) are gaming the system to provide the most desirable thing of all for their own kids...."the unfair advantage". Our entire society is built on this, the ability of wealthy parents to give an unfair advantage to their OWN children, and they won't give it up easily.

But the alternative is what we have now, which is smart kids like Ty'Sheoma trapped in filthy, unsafe, dying school systems where they are not really getting an education, which means we must deal with them later as poorly educated adults, as the unemployed, as welfare recipients, as criminals.

It is physically impossible to run any school system, let alone keep up infrastructure, on the tax receipts available to inner city school districts or poor rural school districts, and let's face it, that was true during boom times, so you can imagine the disaster ahead of us NOW in a RECESSION. And -- this is important -- NO AMOUNT OF STATE OR FEDERAL DOLLARS can ever address the inequity. NO AMOUNT. It's impossible.

The only thing that can break this logjam is when we have the guts to say to wealthy parents in wealthy districts that we can no longer afford to enable you to give your own spawn "the unfair advantage" and evolve a decent fair system that treats every child as equally important.

I'm not holding my breath, and Joan Walsh, I am talking to you personally -- it's YOUR child in YOUR "special school" in YOUR affluent San Francisco that is the problem. Yes YOU AND YOURS. Writing about it, but not acting on it, is what keeps our society hamstrung.

Ty'Sheoma!

She could be giving tours and sitting down with congressional folks, reporters and anyone interested in the condition of her county schools.

What a bright and courageous young woman.

Someday we will move from being our brothers and sisters keepers to being our brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters. These young chldren and students are our children. We must believe this and act accordingly by providing the education and environment for them to thrive and learn.

Change the tax system that sets up such disparity for the children in the state of SC and anywhere. Just do it!

Her little light shines and illuminates the way for many of us.I am so glad that Ty'Sheoma is not a quitter.

Laurel1962, knock off the self-righteous lectures -- how do you know I haven't acted on it? I've worked on that issue for my whole adult life -- equitable school funding, how to achieve it, etc. Yes, I sent my daughter to the best public school I could find here in SF, crappy "temporary" bungalows and rodent infestations and all. If you think I'm part of the problem, well, you're more interested in ranting than in social change. Yikes!

I've been fuming about an issue for the past few days, and this is a good place to address it. With everyone talking about the stimulus package, and whether it's "fair" to them personally or not, I've seen quite a few people state that they don't want to pay for public education because "I don't use that service."

Huh? What are people TALKING about?? I know what they mean--they mean that they personally don't have kids in the public school system right now. But this is exactly the short-sighted, selfish attitude we need to address as a society. Do you plan to go to doctors and dentists--not just this year but from now on? Do you plan to go to the grocery store? Do you plan to drive a car on a public road? Well guess who's going to be responsible for all the jobs that make all those activities possible FOR YOU from now until the day you die: some PERSON who we can only hope is reasonably well educated enough to do the job for which they're hired.

And if we don't create enough educated citizens right here at home to do all of those jobs, we'll have to start hiring more people from other countries to come here and do those jobs for us. Nobody really seems to like that last choice, but they don't see that the first choice--EDUCATING our own population, and not just our very own children--is all that's keeping that second choice at bay.

I'm going to make it a point to rebut this particular argument EVERY SINGLE TIME I see it in print or hear it in conversation. If MY child is going to grow up to be responsible for providing services to you and your family members for the rest of your natural lives, don't you think it is indeed in YOUR best interests to make sure that my child becomes an educated, income-tax-paying, Social-Security-contributing, "productive" member of YOUR society?