My mother lived for 30 years in Sun City, AZ, an "adults only" community a few miles west of Phoenix. Founded in 1960 on the unincorporated outskirts of the small farming and light industrial city of Peoria, AZ, Sun City was part of the Peoria School District. Its mostly retired voters always formed a block to vote down school bond issues.
My mother's response was typical. "We already paid to put our kids through school. We don't allow kids to live in Sun City, so why should we pay for somebody else's kids?"
Finally, school districts in Peoria, desperate for funds, made a deal with Sun City. Peoria removed Sun City from its school tax rolls, thereby making them ineligible to vote on school bond issues. Residents of Sun City now pay no school tax, giving them one of the lowest property tax rates in the state.
My wife's family lives in Washington County in upstate NY. It is overwhelmingly agricultural, with only a handful of very small non-ag factories in the entire county - a boxboard plant on the banks of the Battenkill River is typical. Per capita income ranks relatively low for counties in NY. Yet because of the harsh winters and low population density, running a school there is expensive. School buses drive routes that are dozens of miles long; buildings are heated for most of the school year.
Property taxes make up a huge portion of schools' operating funds. Bond issues are the only means of capital improvements, but the high per capita cost combined with low per capita income of the county make it hard to pass bond issues, and so schools suffer.
Some have claimed that the quality of schools is not directly related to per capita spending. Parent involvement and teacher quality are cited as having more influence on school quality. Much is made of the existence of high-performing schools in poor districts, and of the enormous sums spent on failing schools in Washington D.C. The converse, however, is never mentioned: In very few places in this nation will you find a failing school in a well-to-do neighborhood.
A study http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n9/ by Victor Willson and Thomas Kellow, professors at Texas A&M and U of Houston respectively, shows the result of 3rd graders' reading performance at 3,000 Texas schools, correlated with economic data for each school. (The paper presents the techniques for measuring "economic disadvantage")
[Sorry. I'm too inept to get the graph to show here.]
Of special interest is the fact that, while many schools with "100% Disadvantaged" performed well (80 or higher), only 7 out of 3,000 with No Disadvantaged performed below 80.
Most people understand that, whether we're talking about cars, appliances or schools, higher quality nearly always costs more than lower quality.
The question is How can we give kids in poor neighborhoods the same educational opportunities (not guaranteed results) as those in wealthy neighborhoods? Since education is the surest way to minimize poverty, shouldn't kids all have access to the same high quality schools?
Conservatives who care about general education tout vouchers that would allow kids in poor districts to pay for tuition at schools in wealthy districts. While vouchers have worked in very small test cases, a voucher program of such scale to solve the problem will NEVER work. Transportation is only one problem. Imagine the social stigma endured by 3 or 4 poor barrio kids entering a posh middle school. Now imagine the uproar from parents when 300 or 400 poor kids enter that school. The program would never survive.
I believe a better solution is to stop funding schools from property taxes. Sun City residents benefit from an educated population even more than do normal communities. The doctors and nurses in their clinics, the police who patrol their streets, the clerks in their shops are all produced by schools. Why should they avoid supporting education? Why should kids in the barrio have to swelter in Phoenix's triple-digit September heat while kids in affluent Scottsdale districts have new air conditioners (even indoor pools)? Why should kids in Washington Co. NY suffer poor heating because a bunch of farmers won't pass a school bond?
By funding schools completely from state general revenues, those unconscionable disparities disappear. Public education is at least as important to this nation as its military. No one would suggest that individual districts, or even states, pay for their own air force. Paying for schools that way is equally ludicrous.
Eliminating school property tax was proposed in Texas in the mid-1990s, by none other than Gov George Bush, and it gained some support. The proposal was defeated by Republicans who accused him of raising taxes. The funds lost from property tax had to be made up, but that, in their eyes, was a tax increase, and they wouldn't have it.
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Comments: 25
I have felt this way for a long time. When I was growing up, I lived in 8 different states in small towns and big cities; the difference in funding vs. caliber of school was striking and the level and quality of education from one state to another was appalling. It was so pronounced that I managed to skip 8th grade just on the educational differences alone when I transferred from one school to another.
I don't think Barbara's point as invalid, but all your doing is piling on disadvantages. Saying something akin to "Well, they don't get parental support so they don't deserve a decent school." I think that there is merit in saying that the best school in the world won't help a kid with an abusive household and no support system, but a bad school makes a bad situation even worse.
I would add that many a more well-to-do parent takes as little interest in their kids education as the worst poor person. Many parents kill themselves to provide support and encouragement for their child to excel despite working ridiculous hours and under poor conditions. Indifference is not a money-related demographic, in my opinion.
Head Start programs are one way to begin to offset the disadvantages of poor and, particularly, single-parent families.
Can they just stop and think for ONE SECOND that other people were paying taxes so THEIR kids could go to school???
Do they have any regard for anyone but themselves???
America the Selfish.
I have never had a house fire, but I have been paying taxes to support the fire department for decades.
I have never been arrested or been a victim of a serious crime, but I have been paying taxes to support the police, the courts, and the prisons for decades.
No one likes paying taxes, but most people would agree that having schools, fire departments and law enforcement is a good thing.
At least with property tax, there are fewer loop holes, exceptions and credits that shift the cost elsewhere.
No, I didn't say they didn't deserve a decent school. Quite the contrary. I believe that parents who are active in their children's education will produce children who will succeed. Whether the school is air conditioned or not is beside the point. My whole educational life, aside from my years at college, were in un-air conditioned buildings. What I'm saying is without parental involvement, some kids will not raise up to their full potential. Money, air conditioning, and indoor pools, do not contribute to producing educated children. Teachers and parents do. You can check the stats and it will show that kids in poor neighborhoods don't do as well as other kids in the suburbs. Parents in the 'burbs may have higher expectations as well as education. There is the difference. Our schools have a mix of rural kids as well as those who live in town. They all go to the air conditioned, newer schools. If the kids don't all perform, then who's to blame? The parents.
Do they have any regard for anyone but themselves???
America the Selfish.
Pat (mired in the midwest) D., Oct 16, 2008, 5:49pm ED
Pat, I had one child, and from the time I was 20 years of age, paid taxes so more than one child could attend school throughout all of these years. I don't think I'm selfish. Do you?
It is the responsibility of everyone to support the schools, not just the people with children.
Everyone in a society benefits from education, not just the people with kids in school. If nothing else, it gives kids the skills they need to get jobs and pay into social security for the old people who complain about paying for schools.
When the temperature is 105, as it often is in the Phoenix area in September, whether or not the school is air conditioned is NOT beside the point.
Everything else you said is true.
We must ensure that children get a good, effective education, one that encourages critical thinking and embraces learning. It must be consistent and give every child the opportunity to reach his or her potential. We'll need it. The future of our country, including cleaning up the mess we've made of it, is going to depend on the preparation we give those that will follow us. You aren't just short-changing a kid, you're short-changing our future.
I lived in Houston for 6 yrs - I know what you mean! The difference between Phoenix & Houston is the difference between a pizza oven and a dish washer.
Educating our young people AFFECTS EVERYBODY... Those with little education cannot support themselves with lucrative jobs and, therefore, take to gangs, stealing and drug dealing to make money...
IT TAKES A VILLAGE, etc., etc., etc.
I read that Prop 13 ruined CA's schools, but I thought it just required a referendum for any tax increase. The TX plan was to shift school funding from local property tax to general revenues, so they're not quite as subject to the whims of local politics.
I agree with Pat...others paid for our kids, so we shouldn't complain about supporting schools after our kids have benefited and moved on. I have never voted against a school bond issue. NEVER!
I also agree with Jean that Prop 13 wrecked the California school system. My kids graduated just before the effects of it were felt, and they got a great education, with lots of enrichment programs...all gone today. Fine arts classes? Languages? Forget it. It's really sad.
Have schools be paid for by the people who use them, according to how many children they have in them!
Think about it: a service, where the people who provide it, receive remuneration from the people who use it, the remuneration determined by a process of bargaining between buyers and sellers, affected by supply and demand, according to the subjective valuations of the relevant parties...
What a revolutionary idea!
But then, there would be no violence and threats of violence being used to coerce payments from one group to provide goods or services to another. I realize that people in a thoroughly socialistic nation like ours are dearly attached to that whole premise of "We decide what's right for everyone, and force everyone to go along, and pay for at all too, OR ELSE!"
But there is another way, you know. Peaceful cooperation, respect for human rights and dignity, liberty and justice for all; these are valid and legitimate ideas, not just words and catch phrases.
If you’re happy with a society in which only those with money get education, your system sounds great. If poor folks have to choose between paying for food and paying for their kids’ school fees, not so much. Universal access to education is one of the things that has made our country great.
Indonesia has a system much like what you seem to be proposing. Private schools, with high fees, take students from families that can afford it. They have the better facilities, books, supplies, teachers, things that make it easier to learn. The others have few books, broken & worn out equipment (if they have any equipment at all), dirt floors. And the desperately poor can’t even afford to send their kids to that.
The point of the article is that we already have public funding of education. Funding it from a different source eliminates some barriers to learning.
"there is another way, you know. Peaceful cooperation, respect for human rights and dignity, liberty and justice for all; these are valid and legitimate ideas, not just words and catch phrases. " How nice. How does "I got mine, Jack. To hell with you." fit into that?
Well shucks, Gary; you got me there. After thinking about it some, I've realized you have a point.
Moreover, you have an excellent point. Education is really important. But know what? Eating is really important too. So is having clothes on your back and a roof over your head. In fact, clothing and shelter are at least as important as education -- if not more so -- so I find it awfully cold and heartless of you to fully support taking the fruits of the labor of one group of people, to pay for the government-monopolized schooling of another group, and yet apparently you neglect to advocate taking the earnings of the first group to provide clothing and housing for the others.
Don't you even care about the plight of the poor, Gary?
"Indonesia has a system much like what you seem to be proposing."
Indonesia is a backward third-world country with a neo-feudalist government. They have nothing in the way of public policy that is anything remotely like anything I would propose. Your confusion stems from your inability to see the fundamental distinctions between free markets, and mercantilist government policy.
" How does "I got mine, Jack. To hell with you." fit into that?"
I would say "I got mine, Jack. To hell with you." is completely irrelevant. It has nothing at all to do with it.
People are always free to give voluntarily to any cause they want. If people want to freely and voluntarily give of themselves and their earnings, to help make schools better or to help pay for schooling for poor people, then that is great. I applaud it, and I would do it myself.
A few things, though:
First; schooling would be a lot less expensive if it were left to the market. Virtually all private schooling is expensive now, because the existence of gratis and compulsory "public" schooling precludes the existence of low-cost private schooling. If you don't understand why this is, then you really need to read a book or something, and get a handle on some of the most basic and elementary principles of economics.
This is also beside the fact that bureaucratic control of standards and curriculum -- resulting in rigidity and uniformity across the entire system -- is what makes our educational system the underperforming embarassment that it is. It is only in conditions of freedom -- freedom of experimentation for the providers, and freedom of choice for the consumers -- that the necessary forces of adaptation and change can work to improve the overall standards for the entire system.
Second; as I've already pointed out, one could make your argument for socializing education ad absurdum. There are lots of things in life that are essential, and that one could argue as just as indispensible as education. Does it then necessarily follow that all these things should be provided gratuitously -- and under compulsion -- by the government; via taxing one group to pay for the provisions of all others?
Why not just resort to all-out communism then?
In a free society, everyone is responsible for the decisions they have to make in their own life. Everyone must utilize what value they are afforded (from what they produce for exhange with others), for the satisfaction of their own needs and desires -- and those of their family's -- according to their own scale of values and priorities.
And everyone is unique. Some people produce things that are of great value to society, and thus they become relatively wealthy. Others are capable of providing only the most menial of services through manual labor. Those whose talents and abilities, or else foresight and thrift, accrue to them a relatively greater amount of wealth than others, have earned what is their ability to avoid making some of the tougher decisions that others may have to make.
I'm a relatively poor man myself. If I wanted to send my daughters to summer camp, then I would have to forego other expenditures equal to that amount. I would have to make some decisions, according to my own scale of values and priorities.
Some folks would rather have $200 sneakers, nice shiny rims on their car, and $100 sunglasses, with the value they earn through production and exchange -- that is their choice. Others might have used that same value to buy books and other learning tools for their kids. We all have to make those choices; but none of us has any rightful authority to presume to make them for others.
What we should aim for is not mass uniform and compulsory education through socialism; but the greatest opportunities for a good education for the most people, within the framework of a free society.
Schooling would become much less expensive, standards of schooling would increase exponentially, and the variety and specialization of educational opportunities would expand greatly (leading to a much more rewarding and valuable educational experience for the society in general), if the whole thing were left to the free and unfettered market.
Yes, people in poor neighborhoods would have schools not as posh or elite as those in wealthy neighborhoods -- but it's a very safe bet that the schools would be safer, and performance would be much more acceptable than the current situation, if the schools and their owner/managers were responsible to the parents who send their kids there, instead of being responsible only to some perpetually-underfunded and rigid bureaucracy.
And the parents could take the money they were saving by not having to pay property tax, and put it towards sending their kids to school.
And, anyone who wanted to voluntarily contribute their own money or effort into helping poor families afford school (I imagine private charities would exist for this express purpose in a free society -- you would be perfectly free to create one yourself, Gary), would be free to do so.
Since the "well, I would contribute to charity, but the government's already taking care of the people who need it, and I contributed at the tax office already" mindset would vanish from peoples' minds in a free society, charitable giving would likely increase exponentially --
and this in a country where people already freely and voluntarily contribute what amounts to nearly 2% of the GDP to private charities.
Freedom works, Gary. We only need enough people to desire liberty enough to demand it.