Does Class Matter? Options

[bananapants]

We had a class discussion on class and i was wondering if any of you think class matters today? Because i mean if you live in a rich neighborhood then obviously your property taxes are larger and therefore there is more money to be spent on schools. If you go to a public school then you go to the school in your district. If your district is rich then you go to a pretty nice school. Therefore leading to a good education. If you a have a good education then you can probably get into a good college based on you level of education because today you need a college degree more than before. There are of course many special cases in which people do defy the odds. But really does class matter? Does it matter if you are rich VS poor? How important is class? Does it define your future? Does it matter in which class you were born? Does it matter? Is it more possible today than 30 years before to go from rag to riches? The school example is only one of many reasons why i believe class matters.

[think!IMAGINARIL...]

yeah, i guess class matters.
but most rich kids go to private school. i used to go but i hated it soo badly. people are like really boring there...
the property tax here in Fresh Meadows is $4,500 for a single family house. i think townhouses are about $3,000. [and real estate prices are still rising...]
but still, in NY, our schools are jam packed with students from different towns. for example, Jamaica is one of the bad neighborhoods [lower class+high crime rate] in Queens and Fresh Meadows is one of the best [slightly higher class+one of the lowest crime rates in NY]. many people in Jamaica are zoned for my school in Fresh Meadows, so what happens is that the school is crappy. gum on all the text books and desks. and a shortage of textbooks.

Because i mean if you live in a rich neighborhood then obviously your property taxes are larger and therefore there is more money to be spent on schools. If you go to a public school then you go to the school in your district. If your district is rich then you go to a pretty nice

i don't NY goes by that. it's like there's a budget for all of NYC and then you split up the money between the districts. district 26, the district my school belongs to has i think... 5 middle schools? yeah. and it's supposed to be the best of NYC. and i think that it's better than the ones in brooklyn and the bronx, but if you really want to get a good education, you'd have to live out on long island. they have their own separate school system. but the real estate prices compared to Fresh Meadows are much less. for example, a house in Fresh Meadows costs about $800,000 now. a house in Valley Stream, Nassau County costs $500,000. but the schools in Valley Stream are better. and obviously the higher real estate prices, the higher the taxes. and so that means that the taxes in Valley Stream are less than Fresh Meadows and by what you said, the schools where the property taxes are higher are supposed to be better? no. the schools in Valley Stream are wayy better.

a school comparable to my school would be Valley Stream Memorial JHS. they spend $57,803 per student [according to the NY Times]. AND IT'S STILL A PUBLIC SCHOOL. now, when i look up my school, JHS 216, it says 'n/a' for how much they spend per student. which i'm assuming to mean that it's something ridiculously low. and if you want to see for yourself,

http://realestate.nytimes.com/Community/Pr...lley-Stream.asp
http://realestate.nytimes.com/Community/Pr...dows-Utopia.asp