Some problems cannot be bought out of

In Sweden, each student can choose which school they want to attend. In practice, this means that you have to queue for school at a very young age. When YMD was 43 days old, we put him in line for several schools.

Despite that, he didn't get a place on our first choice at the time. Additional factors to queue time are whether you already have children at the school in question and how close you live to the school. The offspring entered our second choice, which was then exchanged in grade 4 for the current school.

For each student the school has a sum of money is allocated from the government depending on the area in which the school is located. A report shows an example of a school in a so-called deprived area in Stockholm receiving $10,800 per student and academic year, while a school in a non-deprived area in Stockholm receives $6,900 per student and academic year. That is almost 44% more per student and academic year.

Despite these big investments and priorities, the majority of young people leave these schools with failing grades. Many of them cannot even read or count. Primary school, high school and university are paid for by Sweden's taxpayers. Which in practice means that all children have the same chance for education. In order to deal with these children and parents, you need to understand why they choose to completely ignore school.

Simply increasing funding for these areas will not improve school outcomes for these young people.