> Baltimore, MD, USA, spends more per student [1] than almost any other city in the country, and nothing changes. Oh well actually, there is a lot of corruption in the city council and I think over half of the past few mayors have been arrested on criminal charges.
I'm not connected to Maryland, but is there a reason, other than history that the school board is appointed by the mayor and not elected? Everywhere I've lived, school districts have been independent from the cities they operate in, and supervised by a state education organization and perhaps mildly supervised by the county board of supervisors in the counties they operate in (or city councils when operating in cities that are counties). Then you could have corrupt city governance without necessarily having corrupt school governance; although you could still have both if that's what your local electorate chooses.
The gov. of maryland at the time of the freddy gray riots had the national guard on standby for HOURS before the mayor finally permitted the state to assist.
It is a horribly fucked up city, corrupt from top to bottom, rampant crime, murder, fraud, etc.
But no worries, residents of the city pay an ADDITIONAL tax beoyo9nd federal and state taxes to ensure things stay exactly the way they are. Baltimore city could triple their tax rates and nothing would change.
This is a microchasm of the entire US. One of if not the wealthiest country in the world cannot figure out that throwing money at problems DOESN'T FIX THEM. It is a rich-person way of thinking: "something broke, I'll pay someone to fix it" but thr "someone" lines their pockets, pays lip service, does the least costly "fix" possible, and laughs all the way to the corvette store.
1950-1975 property taxes in Baltimore increased 19 times. It's double the rate in neighboring Baltimore county. In the 2010's Baltimore was losing 500 residents per month. The city is in a death spiral.
1950-1975 San Francisco was in a similar situation, losing population. In 1978 prop. 13 passed and placed a cap of 1% on the property tax. Reducing it by 2/3's. A huge boom started. The overall revenue increased by 80% after a few years as the property values increased.
I'm not connected to Maryland, but is there a reason, other than history that the school board is appointed by the mayor and not elected? Everywhere I've lived, school districts have been independent from the cities they operate in, and supervised by a state education organization and perhaps mildly supervised by the county board of supervisors in the counties they operate in (or city councils when operating in cities that are counties). Then you could have corrupt city governance without necessarily having corrupt school governance; although you could still have both if that's what your local electorate chooses.