In USA, can a kid, born in a City / Town A, allow to study in a School in a City / Town B? They can't in Australia

Question

In Australia, if a kid born in a City / Town A, then he/she needs to join the school in City / Town A & he/she are not allowed to study in a School in a City / Town B.

I think that is kind of racist. In Australia, normally each area has different race. General speaking, white people lives in area that has most white people, the houses there are very expensive. Most colored people live in a much cheaper place. So, in Australia, the colored kids living in colored area are not allowed to study in schools located in white area and vice versa. If a kid living in colored area want to study in school in white area, then he need to make a fake address or something like that, then he can be allowed.

I think that is kid of racist.

But what about USA? are they the same as in Australia? I also want to know what about Europe like UK or Germany handles this issue.

There are several fundamental flaws with this question, so I'll just stick with the more obvious ones. 1) Desegregation busing was US phenomena; outside of certain areas of Sydney, this level of segregation does not exist in Australia. 2) Schools in Australia are funded at the State and Federal levels (using a very complicated formula) from the general budget, not at a local level from property taxes as used to happen in the USA; hence the geographic inequality isn't as acute as you surmise. — LateralFractal, Nov 17 '14 at 13:25
I think it could be an interesting question but as it is, it sounds more like a rant. — Relaxed, Nov 17 '14 at 15:02
@LateralFractal - You really should post that as an answer, not a comment. — Bobson, Nov 17 '14 at 15:03
@LateralFractal - I'd tell you to "be nice", but the question as it stands is an utter poor quality. — user4012, Nov 17 '14 at 15:51
@Bobson I felt I might be validating unsalvageable questions if I did so. Bit like answering a question "Obama eats babies, do other world leaders eat babies?". If it had a higher quality spelling I would have thought it was trolling. Anyway, if my eye twitches when I read this question because I have relatives who are teachers, I apologise. — LateralFractal, Nov 17 '14 at 22:10
@LateralFractal Property taxes still are a major source of funding for US schools (it's not just something that used to happen). — cpast, Nov 18 '14 at 23:50
@cpast Yes, I suspected so; but with Wikipedia's article on US Schooling suggesting a shift toward state-funding, I wasn't conformable in outright declaring that white-flight levels of local funding disparity are still the norm. — LateralFractal, Nov 19 '14 at 00:56
Further to LateralFractal's point 3, in Australia some kids go to a school in a different town and state to the one they live in, commuting on a daily basis. — nnnnnn, Nov 22 '14 at 13:38
Where is the kid living in today, A or B? In America, if he had moved to City B, that would be the most important determining factor, not where he was born. — Tom Au, Nov 25 '14 at 20:01
Do you have any evidence or reference that assert your claims here? I heard some stories about poor life condition of native Australian people in comparison to white people, but your claims seem new to me. As far as I know, there is no such discriminatory things in the US but think about it this way: Does it worth to register your child in town B's school when you live in town A and town B is 50 miles away from town A even if town B's school is much much better and town A's school? I won't say no, I don't want it cause it may be dangerous to my kid because of accidents probably... — Mithridates the Great, Jan 06 '20 at 18:34

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 18 '14 at 18:49

The USA is geographically broken up into school districts, each of which is responsible for providing education to the residents within its boundaries. So a student's current residence, not their birth place, determines where the student may receive free education provided by the government-sponsored schools.

Most school districts that are large enough to require multiple schools will further subdivide their geography to determine which students attend each school. There are exceptions to this: some districts have specialized schools (STEM, Magnet, etc) where students may choose to attend if they meet admission requirements (usually based on academic performance). Another exception has historically occurred when a judge will order busing to force integration when a school district is highly segregated racially.

There are also a growing number of Charter schools in the USA. These are non-secular schools run by private businesses for the purpose of providing an alternative to public education. When a student chooses to attend a charter school, the school district in which they reside must send the money that would have been spent on that student to the charter school to pay for the student's education.

Finally, there are private schools, both secular and non-secular, that a student may attend. These schools do not receive public funding, and the student's family must pay the cost of tuition.

Where I live a student can apply to go to any school in the district, not just the magnet schools. If there is room for him, the school lets him in, but the family provides their own transportation. We use very minimal busing here and rely more on choice. Everywhere is different I think. — Razie Mah, Nov 21 '14 at 20:15

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 17 '14 at 16:05

I'll try to address the useful and meaningful part of the question.

In USA specifically, the primary (K-12) school educucational system is in large part funded by local property taxes assessed on people and businesses in a specific locality (town, borough, county, state).

In addition, a smaller factor is that local PTA fundraising drives supplement a lot of items in school budget; which presumably a bussed-in poor students' family would also fail to contribute to yet benefits from.

As such, going to a school which is outside of your local area of residence is basically equivalent of stealing the money of the people who live in the area where you go to school to, since THEY pay for your education, instead of your family doing so.

Does this have an effect on inequality? Somewhat. However, the effect is significantly less than people who loudly proclaim to "care" about inequality state, since both historical practice, anecdotale evidence, AND research indicate that the main predictor of success in school is NOT money, but:

The level of engagement of the students' parents - which going to a better far-away school may be correlated to but isn't caused by
Lack of hunger - which is 100% addressed in USA on federal and state level by providing taxpayer-paid food to all poor kids in school
... and, very specifically, NOT the amount of money spent per student, above a certain basic level (the state of New Jersey demonstrates that conclusively).

The only factor that matters in terms of transferring school, but isn't typically addressed by research due to political correctness considerations, is cultural. If a smart minority student is surrounded by his peers who pejoratively call doing homework and studying "acting white", it actually has detrimental effect - bad enough that Barack Obama spoke out against the idea.

For those unfamiliar with acronyms, PTA = Parent/Teacher Association, which is a group of volunteer parents and teachers that will raise money and do other things to enhance the programs offered by the school beyond what is possible with public funding. — jalynn2, Nov 18 '14 at 18:31
I think it's possible some places to go to school outside your district under certain cases; there's just a tuition you have to pay (because you don't pay property tax). — cpast, Nov 18 '14 at 23:52

In USA, can a kid, born in a City / Town A, allow to study in a School in a City / Town B? They can't in Australia

2 Answers2