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Comcast Rejected by Small Town -- Residents Vote For Municipal Fiber Instead (arstechnica.com)
A small Massachusetts town has rejected an offer from Comcast and instead plans to build a municipal fiber broadband network. From a report: Comcast offered to bring cable Internet to up to 96 percent of households in Charlemont in exchange for the town paying $462,123 plus interest toward infrastructure costs over 15 years. But Charlemont residents rejected the Comcast offer in a vote at a special town meeting Thursday. "The Comcast proposal would have saved the town about $1 million, but it would not be a town-owned broadband network," the Greenfield Recorder reported Friday.
"The defeated measure means that Charlemont will likely go forward with a $1.4 million municipal town network, as was approved by annual town meeting voters in 2015." About 160 residents voted, with 56 percent rejecting the Comcast offer, according to news reports.
"The defeated measure means that Charlemont will likely go forward with a $1.4 million municipal town network, as was approved by annual town meeting voters in 2015." About 160 residents voted, with 56 percent rejecting the Comcast offer, according to news reports.
Comcast would have been a bad deal.
No one simply rejects comcast.
Comcast will sue and ironically claim anti-competitive / anti-free market behavior on the part of the town. They will seek to add hundreds of thousands in legal fees before this is settled, win or lose. That is what they do.
There are 1266 people in that town as of the last census. This contract was supposed to be for 15 years. Assuming the interest cost for both infrastructures was the same, there was a cost difference of ~940K. Averaging that cost per month over 15 years amongst the 1266 people yields a monthly cost of 4.12$. I find it hard to believe that comcast was going to provide service cheaper than the municipal would. And I find it very easy to believe they can do it for less than 5$ a month cheaper than comcast.
You're a moron any day. My comcast internet went out as recently as 2 weeks ago for the entire weekend. The fourth time this year. And I'm in a major metropolitan tech city. Their shit goes down constantly.
Their streaming TV is shit quality and constantly throwing compression errors. Sometimes it blinks for 3 seconds before it catches up. Even on-demand is jerky AF, and I have GIGABIT INTERNET. Netflix, ZERO issues.
Anyone apologizing for anything Comcast does is a fucking moron, period.
Every small town and city should be like this.
Very soon.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
How shared is that 1G/1G 2.5 gpon split 16/1 32/1?
I'm seriously conflicted here.
I've had "city" supplied utilities before and I can attest that if you want some infrastructure really messed up, get government to do it. It will cost too much, be mismanaged and end up a total mess... My experience was less than acceptable with city supplied utilities.
Then there is Comcast.....
So what evil do you pick? I don't know... None of the above? How about we foster competition and draw in multiple commercial providers? Or is the town just too small to make this happen?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
well comcast does let you use your own router.
Will this town wifi force your into something like ATT where you are stuck with there hardware?
I don't understand why Comcast would expect the town to pay them? Is that common?
I thought that the cost of infrastructure was a cost of doing business that Comcast would recoup through subscription fees, why do they need a subsidy?
There are 1266 people in that town as of the last census. This contract was supposed to be for 15 years. Assuming the interest cost for both infrastructures was the same, there was a cost difference of ~940K. Averaging that cost per month over 15 years amongst the 1266 people yields a monthly cost of 4.12$. I find it hard to believe that comcast was going to provide service cheaper than the municipal would. And I find it very easy to believe they can do it for less than 5$ a month cheaper than comcast.
Yeah but sending Comcast the middle finger is priceless.
I'm seriously conflicted here.
You shouldn't be - Comcast being a monopoly in virtually every market it is in, is basically itself like an arm of the federal government delivering internet - with all of the quality issues you so rightfully fear.
That's why preferring the city utilities is an easy choice to prefer, because when you are given the choice between two governments, always choose the smaller option.
I've seen some small municipalities have excellent community fiber. Longmont, Colorado is one such where residents seem to love it...
I have Comcast gigabit myself, and while it is OK (often preforming more at half-gigabit levels, but whatever) I would JUMP at the chance to switch to a community fiber solution if offered.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Comcast tried to kill Utah's UTOPIA fiber project. They failed and now even a town with less than 1000 people has a 10G fiber option (most go with 1G).
The hell with Comcast.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
There are 1266 people in that town as of the last census. This contract was supposed to be for 15 years. Assuming the interest cost for both infrastructures was the same, there was a cost difference of ~940K. Averaging that cost per month over 15 years amongst the 1266 people yields a monthly cost of 4.12$. I find it hard to believe that comcast was going to provide service cheaper than the municipal would. And I find it very easy to believe they can do it for less than 5$ a month cheaper than comcast.
That's assuming a few things:
This is highly appealing to city councils and communities in general.
So the equation has a few more factors involved - not just: Comcast vs. Fiber (but $1M more). To wit:
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
not an true bridge-mode and you can hit the NAT session limits
What you're talking about is a form of corporate socialism, but not quite a cooperative socialism. Neither involve state ownership and both involve corporations that can make profits in the manner you describe.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The only issue that I've ever had with AT&T crap in bridge-mode has to do with building VPN tunnels, but I have never experienced any NAT limits. Of course, AT&T changes hardware every few months, so maybe this is the case with some batch of their shitty hardware.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Nobody with a brain calls Comcast, and Chattanooga is doing nicely with their ten gigabit to the home metronet. How's yours?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I doubt it'll be shared. Fibre is cheap. It's digging up roads that costs, but if you own them, it's not nearly so bad.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Ah yes, Slashdot where alt right useless cunts mod down a simple statement of fact.
Then they cherry pick Venezuela to whine about. Yawn.
I fully expect Comcast lawyers to fight back and somehow get the FCC and/or the state government to tell the town they absolutely cannot build their own network and be forced to take Comcast....becuase you know those cunts are going to be filing complaints that we all know will be upheld with monopoly-loving GOP in power.
Expect court battles. Expect comcast to bring the most lawyers. Expect this to be a bigger nail in the coffin for municipal broadband.
They are certainly kicking your asses in life expectancy, education and public health. I know it’s hard for a seppo to comprehend, but money isn’t everything.
meanwhile the lobbyist are no doubt hard at work to get municipal broadband banned in the state.
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and I hope they succeed, but I fear government fails more often than not, when trying to do most things. I hope they do a great job and prove me wrong and that this can actually work.
;)
Just my 2 cents
Iâ(TM)m sure being voted the worst ISP in the country for X years running had something to do with it.
Though, in defense of the poster above stating they have few issues with Comcast, I have to concur.
Obviously an exception to the rule but my connection is up and running about 95% of the time.
I have an IPSLA trigger running which makes a log entry any time I lose visibility to the network and, as much as youâ(TM)ll hate on me for saying it, that loss is rare and not always their fault.
Iâ(TM)ll see an hour here and there for maintenance ( unlikely unscheduled when it lasts exactly one hour ) but the last major outage ( ~12 hours or so ) was due to an idiot crashing their vehicle into a gas line.
The resulting fire burned up the vehicle and the closest telephone pole which was carrying a Comcast line. They had to wait till the fire was out and the gas line repaired before starting their work.
They sent out an apology and credited everyone for the outage period.
This really isnâ(TM)t behavior I can complain about.
-shrug-
Seriously, this is a town that FUCKING GETS IT. So many others do as well. Comcast screwing you over? Quit trying to regulate them. JUST PUT IN YOUR OWN FUCKING FIBER and quit bitching about it. Not only will this town get a much better deal (instead of paying 100/month for 100 MB, they will pay 50/month for 1G), but, they do not have to deal with the issue of net neutrality or caps.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That a town can legally offer a commercial service of their own is bad enough. That a government is in a position to deny a business a right to operate there is an outrage.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
what is interesting is that your GOP has created this situation and now, they back one that has more in common with a dictatorship like Putin/Communist like China, then he does with UK, France, Germany, western democracies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
if you are in a town or above, push for fiber-as-utility. You folks will have better service at a fraction of the costs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hi!
You've just committed a "false dilemma" fallacy. A city hall can outsource technical support to a private company that operates in multiple cities. Example: http://www.insitesupport.com/i...
Moreover, this company can also be used to service the infrastructure. These days the costs of running a fiber network are well-known.
You certainly have some sort of evidence to back that up, right?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
About 160 residents voted, with 56 percent rejecting the Comcast offer, according to news reports.
So, about 90 voted for the town to spend $1.4M to create a new municipal service. Wonder how the rest of the town feels about the tax increase 90 residents pushed on to them?
Ken
Funny, nearly every place that has tried it has had good results. The key, of course, is to do it correctly. First, the city comes in and installs the lines. Then, they contract out service to local ISPs. ISPs compete with each other to provide service over the existing infrastructure, which means that the cost for a new ISP to join the mix is negligible, leading to a highly competitive market even in low-population areas. And the only thing the municipality has to do is maintain the infrastructure, which, it turns out, is something that government does pretty well.
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The difference is that pizzerias aren't a natural monopoly the same ways that ISPs tend to be in small towns.
If you have to chose between a corporate monopoly and a government monopoly, you are better off with the government monopoly since there is less of a motive for them to squeeze their customers for more money than they need to. plus you can vote out the people in charge if they get abusive. When dealing with a corporate monopoly, you have no choice but to keep paying whatever they ask.
No True Socialism.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In this country (US) are numerous forces in play to take away more and more rights from the general population through various tricks and manipulations to get it to a much smaller section of folks living in the same country.
Not allowing municipalities to supply their own Internet service is one of many attempts, please see:
https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks/
I am happy to live in a municipality who made it and provides this type of service. After getting rid of ComCast, whose manner in getting out of their claws and get my right required a small claims court case, it just feels better to now "own" it better in some way.
-------------------
The day is not far distant when humanity will realize that biologically it is faced with a choice between suicide and adoration.
-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin † 10. April 10, 1955
I'm old enough to remember when we used to make fun of "European socialism", but now that those countries are kicking our asses
They are not "kicking our asses". The only European countries ahead of America on either median income or per capita GPD are Norway, Luxembourg, and Switzerland.
Norway has a small population and plenty of off-shore oil. Luxembourg and Switzerland have tax shelters and international banking.
It should be well known at this point that the higher per median capita income of the U.S. is largely due to a few things.
The most important is the Americans work longer hours than any other advanced economy. This is largely not voluntary, try taking extra time off from your job and see how that goes for you, career-wise.
The other is that the U.S. has an extremely unequal distribution in income, approaching third world kleptocracy levels. Thus a good chunk of that "median income" is in the hands of very high income people.
And finally the EU spends 9.5% of its GDP on health care. The U.S. spends 17.9%, with no better results (in many cases worse). So about 8.4% of the "higher" median income is being sucked down a black hole of corporate inefficiency.
When you take all of these things together it turns out that average American's standard of living is below that of much of the EU, have shorter lifespans, poorer educational outcomes, and less chance of moving up socially and economically.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
since Comcast doesn't offer service over their entire monopoly area.
Venezuela is an example of corrupt populism (pitting the people against each other), especially the corruption part.
For this thread, a good example of socialism would be co-ops running the local infrastructure. Can't get much more socialist then a co-op..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
You left out Ireland for per capita GDP. Anyways a better measure is happiness, something that lots of money does not produce, but rather enough to not worry and have some spare. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... the US ranks 18th with many of the higher scoring countries being ones that Americans call socialist.
Personally, I'd rather live with slightly less per capita GDP, but not worrying about healthcare, having a longer life expectancy, easier social mobility, some rights in the workplace including being able to take a vacation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Do they dig up the roads or is it like around here where the majority is hung on poles?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
it shows the base cost of broadband internet is $5 bucks a month. Maybe add another $5 for maintenance. I don't know about the rest of you but I pay $100 bucks a month.
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You really are a fucking idiot.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Yep, there's a crew of the dipshits here that always do that.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Thus a good chunk of that "median income" is in the hands of very high income people.
I see that you have absolutely no idea what "median" means.
Try reading this: Median.
Municipal broadband "should" be better, because it is kept LOCAL. In theory, that means those running it should be more accountable to the subscribers, whereas a huge corporation would say who cares what some little town says. Of course in theory, a bumble bee can't fly.
There is no such thing. "Natural Monopoly" is a myth. In my town, the same pole carrying a FiOS cable to my house carries a Comcast cable to my neighbor's. It could carry 20 more...
Google, for example, would've loved to lay its own fiber nation-wide, but got thwarted by "numerous regulatory challenges.".
?? Why? The incentive is the same, while the means of doing it are more powerful. Haw many have successfully fought an increase of their property taxes?
The cost of your child's schooling quadrupled since 1960ies (inflation-adjusted) — you didn't even realize this until now, much less voted anyone out over it.
Governments — local governments, like this town's — are the reason many places have such limited choice of ISPs. Allowing the same people to offer their own monopoly just helps them solidify the unfortunate situation.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Do you really need evidence, that government-provided "services" cost too much and are of poor quality?
Yes. If you make a claim, you should be able to back it up. Even if it's clear and evident, or if you think it should be. For the longest time we thought it should go without saying that heavier things fall faster. Guess what, they don't.
Let's start with public schools, for example. Per-pupil costs have quadrupled since the 1960ies (inflation-adjusted), while 2/3rds of 8th graders still aren't be considered proficient in reading .
This is interesting. Why is that the case? How do private schools in the US fare? How do schools outside the US compare, especially in countries that also have a public school system?
What you have shown is that the cost of education is rising and that pupils of public schools fare poorly in academics. The latter is easy to explain, everyone who can at least remotely afford it will try to get their kids into a private school. What's left is the, how to put it nicely, less qualified student material of parents that don't give a shit. That has less to do with private vs. public but more with a perceived (or even real) quality of education of different school systems. You will experience the same even in school systems that offer public education in varying schools at high-school levels, as is the case in many European countries, where you have schools for vocational training (which are generally regarded as inferior) and schools that prepare for university studies (which everyone who gives a shit about their kids try to cram their kids into).
Where do you think you'll find the "bad" students who slack, don't show up and generally don't care about their academic progress? A school where you have kids of parents that don't give a shit about their kids or a school where helicopter parents stuff their offspring?
I now expect you to apologize for the condescending tone and, as a penance, challenge dgatwood below for evidence of his claims...
When you managed to convince me, you'll receive an apology. Until then, I expect you to provide more than single-point statistics that can be interpreted away by a statistics student in the first semester.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Allow me to provide an example (or rather, a study), since you asked in our discussion above. Here you go.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fortunately for the US, we don't have many government-provided services. What I have shown is those few services the government does provide around here, have demonstrated an explosive cost-growth without any quality-improvement to justify it. Indeed, some would say, the quality has gone down.
Infrastructure-maintenance is deteriorating too — for a particularly striking example, consider the recent repainting of Brooklyn Bridge — which cost more than building the structure did originally.
Given that, 11 years ago, when Municipal WiFi has become an obvious disaster, you personally continued to defend it — much to the acclaim of your fellow Statists — I do not expect you to ever be convinced. "Municipal Fiber" is just another go at that same harebrained idea and, of course, you are going to defend it after it flops too...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Fortunately for the US, we don't have many government-provided services. What I have shown is those few services the government does provide around here, have demonstrated an explosive cost-growth without any quality-improvement to justify it. Indeed, some would say, the quality has gone down.
Then I guess you have more of a corruption problem than one with municipal services, because it does work in Europe pretty well. Maybe you need to get rid of pork barrel filling politicians that are in the pockets of certain corporations?
Infrastructure-maintenance is deteriorating too — for a particularly striking example, consider the recent repainting of Brooklyn Bridge — which cost more than building the structure did originally.
Unfortunately I cannot read the article about the Brooklyn Bridge, but it would be interesting to find out why painting it is so expensive. You know, there's generally a reason for something, so what could it be? Maybe safety regulations that actually require gear where the workers would actually be more likely to survive working on it? I honestly don't know, and you didn't provide a reason so all I can do is speculate.
Given that, 11 years ago, when Municipal WiFi has become an obvious disaster, you personally continued to defend it — much to the acclaim of your fellow Statists — I do not expect you to ever be convinced. "Municipal Fiber" is just another go at that same harebrained idea and, of course, you are going to defend it after it flops too...
You really went back 10 years of my posts? Are you stalking me? There are days where I actually reach the limit of postings I'm allowed to make, please don't tell me you read them all.
I can't help but feel a tiny bit flattered ... in a weird, creeped-out way...
But back to the point. You might have noticed that some time has passed in the meantime. The amount of people who use the internet went up. The internet is no longer a playground for early adopters and tech geeks, old grannies and very tech-illiterate people now spend many hours every day on it, mostly using social media platforms or communication and discussion tools. Anyone under 25 pretty much can't even live anymore without it. The "digital natives" are growing up and they have come of (voting) age in the meantime. This isn't 2007 anymore where the "I cannot live without it" people are under the voting age and can't affect jack shit, the internet has pretty much become what TV used to be: The must-have convenience toy in our life.
You think people would have voted for municipal cable access 20 years ago? I am pretty sure they would have.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Charter schools do an objectively worse job with the same money, so it sounds like you offered a counter-example to your own argument.
You certainly have some sort of evidence to back that up, right?
Switching topic, huh? You asked for evidence — of government-provided service being worse than privately-provided ones. You got the evidence.
That's too bad...
The same sort of demagoguery — about telephony — was used by Statists in the 1930ies. As a result we had phone companies with monopolies on telephone service. The monopolies, which had to be ripped from them later...
Here in the US we still value the Individual — however cantankerous, greedy and stubborn he might be — and impose limits on what the Collective — however Glorious — may do to his rights.
The wide adoption of the Internet hasn't changed that. As I said, "Municipal Fiber" is "Municipal WiFi" 2.0. It was a stupid — and evil, inasmuch as it increased the government's role in our lives — idea back then. It is the same now. And, of course, you'll continue to defend it — demanding evidence from opponents, while offering nothing but flawed rhetoric of your own.
I doubt, I'll reply again.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You forgot to include evidence.
Would you like to try again, or should your claim remain unsubstantiated?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Went to them for a 25/5 deal. It was a promo package two years at like 49/mo. The rep said that adding basic cable would be 10 bucks or so more. The closer was that one premium channel was included. I chose HBO. So got my local broadcast channels, bunch of cruft and HBO. I chose to use my own modem/router to save like 10/mo. The tech rep gave me the log in credentials over the phone and we were on line in like ten minutes.
I put the bill on auto pay. I had an equipment headache with the first TV decoder. When I took it in they gave me an upgraded model beyond what I was entitled to get. After two years and change I got posted overseas again. So all service at promo rate with one month at normal rate, which admittedly was a bit steep but was also no surprise. I can recall one outage after a massive`thunder storm. They were too cool when I cancelled my service and brought in my equipment. I know they have`a terrible rep, but my guess was the cord cutting is being felt. They practically gave me the TV bundle. I'll have been away for more than two years so when I re-up I may well qualify for another promo. Woot.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
That study picked 27 towns. For all we know, there may be 270 such places, with the undertaking flopping in all of them except in the 23. They claim, there are 40 such networks nationwide, though it is unclear, how they got that number.
The study also cited only the prices — without any attempt to compare the quality of the offerings.
In other words, it does not support the broad claim that "nearly every place that has tried it has had good results".
Remember to logout.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
to the rescue.., and if that's not enough.
Cheap storage VM.
Quoting the document: "Charter school performance is a complex and difficult matter to assess." No kidding... The study was done with "the support of the State Education Agencies and School Districts who contributed their data to this partnership" — the obvious conflict of interest is likely to have tainted its conclusions.
There is nothing there about costs either so it does not support your claim "Charter schools do an objectively worse job with the same money [emphasis mine]".
And then, even if you do manage to substantiate this claim, you'll still have nothing against my argument regarding the inferiority of government-run services, because charter-schools are also government-run. You'd need to show, that private schools are inferior — that privately-offered education has quadrupled in price without improving quality...
Citing Communists as evidence, huh? Ok, I'll hold my nose... Unfortunately, there is nothing there supporting you claim either. The article cites some anecdotes and talks about racial justice.
Fail. Remember to logout.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
1. Provide an IP. Might eventually need to start doing v6 rather than v4, but that is a municipal task.
No, that would all be an ISP task. The municipality leases out a physical glass fiber that goes from a government building (the central office) to the customer site. All equipment involved in using that fiber, up to and including provisioning IPs, routes, converting from optical to Ethernet or whatever, etc. is the responsibility of the ISP leasing the glass fiber from the municipality.
2. Services like local channels and even cable are presumably delivered via multicast, with perhaps some encryption for security.
Again, entirely determined by the cable company providing service. More than likely, they would use CATV-over-fiber, but they could also use anything from multicast to a head end that provides unicast streams to individual Roku boxes owned or leased by the customer. And because a cable company could put their antenna tower and satellite dishes anywhere within the covered region and potentially send the entire chunk of data digitally to their head end in the CO via a single leased fiber, the cost of setting up a new cable company would be roughly the cost of tower and satellite dish installation plus head end equipment and receivers, and that's it. So municipal fiber opens up the possibility of real competition in cable companies, too, which is mostly impractical in a world where everybody has to run their own coax.
3. Basically all the ISPs that show up to the CO are basically valid routes to the rest of the internet. The routers at the ISP deal with those details, providing you access to 1 or more valid routes. This could potentially be handled even for large buildings since your connecting an IP to being able to access certain routers and routes.
Presumably, the owner of the building would get service and distribute it to everyone in the building, but other options certainly would also be possible. That's mostly between your landlord and whatever ISP the landlord decides to work with. :-)
4. Phone is pretty much just whatever IP phone service you want, save those packets might have a higher priority.
5. Netflix could install its own box or boxes right in the CO to eliminate the bullshit, so it becomes its own ISP, sort of.
In all likelihood, they would provide a single caching box that would be tied to all of the various ISPs at that location, obtaining its upstream service for pulling down new content from whichever ISP offered a better deal.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
From the report, " Evidence of financial insolvency or corrupt governance structure, less easy to dispute or defend, is much more likely to lead to school closures than poor academic performance. And yet, as this report demonstrates, the apparent reluctance of authorizers to close underperforming charters ultimately reflects poorly on charter schools as a whole. More importantly, it hurts students. "
This is clearly evidence of government interference causing poor outcomes. You don't think that if we're going to prop up institutions they should be ones that have accountability to the community and transparent book keeping?
The Nation does pretty well respected journalism, I know you don't like that. I'm pretty sure your a 'Roman Mir' alt and possibly an account for Rush Limbough. I've heard him talk about how he enjoys trolling progressive tech forums.
Either way, that article has clear citations, not anecdotes. There is evidence that charters do worse with their funding and are more likely to disrupt education. The vast majority of kids go to public schools and get a great education. There are certainly problem districts, but often this goes hand in hand with reduced funding and social ills that fall heavily on the community.
Cheap storage VM.
Exactly the point I was making, thank you!
They are Communists, I know you like that.
The vast majority — 65% — of kids aren't proficient in reading by age 15, despite per-pupil spending increasing four-fold since 1960ies. Not in "troubled districts" — the 65% is a national average.
There is no way to put a good spin on this colossal failure of government — which is why those "journalists" you respect so much have never pointed it out to you — and you blundered into this debate not knowing the facts. Disarmed by actual facts and logic, you've been reduced to attacking the opponent's person — a sure sign of an argument lost...
Which part of four-fold increase are you calling reduced funding?
You attempted to explain this away by pointing out — without evidence — that "charter schools" are worse. Clearly unaware, that "charter schools" are also government-controlled.
That article cites anecdotes — about "charter" schools, which are also government-controlled.
There is no way anyone — even you — would willingly agree to pay 4 times more for the bad service. The only way this situation can persist is because government forces us (at the implicit gun-point of the tax-collector) to keep paying for it.
Of course, you — a Statist — love this and want the same to spread into other aspects of life, such as Internet-service provision. It is both Illiberal and counter-productive — I know you like it, but the rest of us do not.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.