Send Your Kid to School, Go Directly to Jail

The funding of American public schools is completely broken.

Nearly 50% of the funding of American public schools is tied to local taxes, which, as you can imagine, leads to some great disparities between school districts. School districts that are found in wealthy areas -- areas that pay more taxes -- receive substantially more than school districts found in poorer areas -- areas that pay very few taxes. How large of a disparity? In excess of $10 000 per student per year, which is right around the amount that the Canadian province of Ontario provides to its students (for the 2011-12 school year, Ontario's average per-student funding is $11 207). Predictably, this arrangement also exacerbates poverty and increases the income disparity between whites and everyone else.