Saturday, March 28, 2026

Costs of Underfunding Concentrated Poverty Schools

 

Concentrated Poverty Schools


If a kid comes out of a school in a poor area partially illiterate or illiterate and ends up in the criminal justice system partly as a result, this costs society in several direct and indirect ways.

  • Lost tax revenue (income tax, sales tax)
  • More police
  • More judges
  • More jails and prisons (public and private)
  • Public defenders
  • Prosecutors
  • Probation officers (public and private)
  • Parole officers (public and private)
  • Monitoring (drug tests, tracking) (public and private)
  • More courts and court services
  • Pre-release centers (usually private)

So basically all these people end up making money from this, whether it's a contractor building a new jail, or a probation officer working for a private contractor. It may even be a non-profit: they make money.




Lobbying and Revolving Door Politics

  In 2021, Biden signed Executive Order 13989, which had several protections against harmful lobbying and revolving door practices. This was...