I cringed a bit when Murray was named. There have to be reams of other sociologists who provide similar evidence. But is poorly managing the optics of one's evidence enough to torpedo the article? I took the article as an exposition of how zoning boards and school boards--ostensibly local organizations--have had enormous national implications. I couldn't agree more that we need to decouple educational funding from local property values, maybe through something like federal funding. But I recall you yourself said this is too sweeping, smells too much like socialism, probably ain't ever gonna happen.Let's demonstrate our incontrovertable proof by throwing the most controversial sociologist we can find at it.
A liberal looks at the problem and says "we need to figure out a way to separate schools from wealth." A conservative looks at the problem and says "we need to figure out a way to let entrepreneurs build skyscrapers in neighborhoods."
The article is an argument as to why zoning boards shouldn't be allowed to stop property developers from fucking up neighborhoods. They aren't trying for better educational outcomes at all - they're trying for better performance from their REIT ETF. That's why they quote Charles Murray. Because it's dog-whistle language for "we hate black people just like you do." The issue isn't local organizations and national implications. The issue is that when there's no national the local takes care of itself. Up until the end of the Vietnam war, school nutrition belonged to the Department of Defense - but we privatized that and wasn't that wonderful. The argument you linked is three years old. We hadn't had a socialist nearly win the Democratic nomination for president. We didn't have nazis carrying torches marching in Charlottesville. I've moderated my opinion somewhat; No Child Left Behind was about test standards and the data on charter schools is controversial but the data on investing in children is anything but. I think a funding strategy change is no longer out of the question. And shit. I discovered last night that I can get 20 credit-hours worth of CNC training from a local community college for $247. That's because of a phat job-training grant from the Department of Ed. If we can spend money on job training we can maybe spend money on kids. After all, both political parties profess to like them.