quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
I don't have kids yet.

I think that there should be a baseline school tax for property owners. The baseline covers the benefit the property owner gets from being in a school district (increased property value) and the fact that the property owner has access to the school should he want to (when he does have kids and for other Civic services), and the mutual benefit to society of having an educated populace and partial day care to working adults.

Then, above and beyond the baseline property tax, schools should charge tuition to cover their operating costs. This takes care of people who rent and more kids than others.

Renters pay rent to landlords who pay taxes, as you undoubtedly know too well.

I don't use police services, why should I pay for them?
I don't use the library why should I pay? No food stamps why should I pay?

Any one supporting this nonsense see a trend?

To me, one of the bigger concerns I have with school taxes is how they use the money. For example (in my county), if you live on one side of the county you have the option of going to a school on the other side of the county. Years ago before we moved here, a judge decided there was not enough diversity and he made it that children who lived in poorer neighborhoods could go to schools in better ones. That alone increased operational costs. Now,some 30 years later and even before that, we have diversity through out the county and there is no need for the extra cost of busing kids throughout the county. This pisses me off more than the taxes themselves. Too much waste and is all about feelz.There needs to be more accountability but it seems we will never get it.

Never being able to have children, my wife of 39 years and I have always felt somewhat screwed by the tax system. First we have to pay taxes to support school systems and the people who have kids and use the taxes we pay get tax breaks for having kids. Absolutely seems like a rigged system. GO Tax Reform!

I would like to add if you send them to private school no taxes, I sent my daughter to private school and paid twice once for the invisible student and once for private.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Renters pay rent to landlords who pay taxes, as you undoubtedly know too well.

Correct, and the current system penalizes property occupants without children.

Under my proposed system, landlords would only pay the baseline tax for the school infrastructure. The rent charged to tenants would be commensurate. Property occupants, whether owner or renter, would then pay the appropriate tuition for the quality and quantity of education they are receiving.

Love the idea.

That's what economists would call the free-rider problem.

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
I don't use police services, why should I pay for them?
I don't use the library why should I pay? No food stamps why should I pay?

Any one supporting this nonsense see a trend?

except people without kids aren't riders

they're not getting anything, ever, at all from the school system

except the results of a broken institution which will have additional negative effects on them down the road, so its loose-loose

quote:

Originally posted by XLT:
I would like to add if you send them to private school no taxes, I sent my daughter to private school and paid twice once for the invisible student and once for private.

That is in included in the current proposal as I read it. It does not say people with no kids. It says people with no kids in the PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.

quote:

The “California Education Tax Relief Act,” proposed by Lee Olson of Huntington Beach, would allow California residents with no children in the public school system to avoid paying taxes and fees designated for state school funding, KTVU reports.

My tax breakdown is 60% for the local district. I completely screwed up buying my house in not looking into the taxes. It raised my monthly payment to a level that made me nervous.

Luckily, where I live has the cheapest electricity bill I've ever had, so it balanced out.

But I was shocked to see how much taxes I was paying to the school district.

quote:

Originally posted by Stlhead:
Private schools get by with only charging per student per year of classes attended. Public schools charge everyone forever! The amount of waste is staggering. I pay $3,265.90 this year in school taxes, and all of the folks that live near me pay similar. The average cost of private school tuition in my county is $5,698.50 per year. (I averaged the averages of elementary and High school tuitions) We should all be out front of the local public schools with fucking torches and pitchforks demanding to know who has squandered our tax money, but we are so used to getting fucked that we collectively shrug.

The answer is easy. The teachers unions. Here it is even better. The feds give public schools a stipend for each student who attends school by the day. So, if your kid doesn't go to school for two weeks, they are out bucks. That is the reason why they are so concerned about your child. Doubt that? In Kentucky, they have passed a state law that says even if you are 18, you can't drop out of school. You then have 17-18 year olds who don't want to be there, in over crowded classrooms, causing a disruption for those who do want to be there. BUT WAIT.....THERES MORE- The district gets to boast that it has a 99 percent graduation rate! YEA!!!! Everyone gets a trophy!!!! (They fail to mention that if the student refuses to take a test, or is "incapable" of passing the test, he is "assisted" by school personnel and he passes the test.)

Gotta keep the money turned on in the little empire of dirt.

A diploma from a Kentucky public school is almost worth the paper it is written on. If parents here give a crap about their children getting a 30+ ACT score, you had better be ready to buck up and help them prepare or shuck out the bucks to pay for assistance in preparation.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
I think this is a slippery slope.

Parents alone cannot afford their kids' education (unless I have my number swag wrong). If education of kids goes down, society will suffer. However, if my swag is off and what parents pay is enough providing schools stop paying administrators six figures and burdensome teachers are let go to do it, I'm all in.

I seem to recall from way back in the earliest days of this country that schooling of the children were the responsibility of the local populace.

They hired the teachers and determined whether those teachers were doing the job, or not.

That has obviously not been the case in this country for a long while. Teachers are not held accountable for doing their jobs of TEACHING the children. Not indoctrinating them.

And, in order to teach the teacher must actually know more than the students.

AIR, we tried to hold teachers accountable through the federal gubbermint using tests created by that gubbermint. As expected, and as usual, the tests were leaked to the teachers so they could actually teach what was on the tests, or even worse in some cases the teachers were actually cheating.

When we have all-powerful teacher unions that determine curriculum and course content, IMO, that is a recipe for failure.

We allow totally unqualified teachers to stand in classrooms and who supposedly teach our children.

Only one example from out family: When my oldest grandson was in high school his mother, somehow determined that he was skipping his math classes. She braced him about it and his response was that he need not waste his time sitting in the classroom as the teacher was no literate in the English language and nobody could understand her.

Daughter went to audit the class. The kid was right! Asian teacher and her English was unintelligible.

Only one example.

I taught night classes at the local community college for a couple years, and was kind of surprised that somehow, or other, there were a couple high school kids in the classes. Seems they were so frustrated with their high school they decided to just skip it as much as they could, and do college level night classes.

The Founders were all in favor of schools for children, and it was the responsibility of the the community to see that those children were educated. What amounted to taxes were used to pay teachers their salaries and since the benefits of educated children applied to the whole community, the whole community paid.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
except people without kids aren't riders

they're not getting anything, ever, at all from the school system

except the results of a broken institution which will have additional negative effects on them down the road, so its loose-loose

Pick ANY government service. A taxpayer out there is not using that service, why should they pay for it?

Whether too much money is being sunk in public schools, is another discussion all together. But government services CAN NOT be an a la carte thing.

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:

Whether too much money is being sunk in public schools

Great way to phrase it! That applies doubly to the school systems and teachers where I grew up in NJ, and to the whole rest of the government there. As for government/a la carte, NJ could fire 60% of State, County, and local government employees, choosing at random, and other than public safety, and public utilities, it would take a long time for anyone to notice.

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
I don't use police services, why should I pay for them?
I don't use the library why should I pay? No food stamps why should I pay?
Any one supporting this nonsense see a trend?

I see police services differently than the others. The police power is an extension of the sovereignty of the State. It is a theoretical monopoly on the use of force (other than self-defense) and it is non-negotiable.

Other government services are different. They were voted into existence, and they can be voted out of existence. Before the "progressive" era, beginning around 1900 or so, most schools were private and voluntary. Ever hear of a volunteer fire department? The same is true with private lending libraries, usually operated by churches or schools.

When enough people decide they aren't getting what they are paying for, they have the power to change things back in the direction of freedom and individual responsibility, and away from socialism.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
How about no school, no taxes?

Bingo!

I like that idea too.

I would love to that money in my pocket while shopping for good private schools.

quote:

Originally posted by Yanert98:
I like that idea too.

I would love to that money in my pocket while shopping for good private schools.

I’ve been harping for years that we should close the public schools, lay off the teachers and staff and sell the real estate and buildings back onto the tax rolls.

To smooth the transition, give whatever the school system was spending in each child to the parent or guardian, to spend on that child as seen fit.

Private schools would open, hire teachers, lease or buy space, to offer the educational programs that parents want. Some kids are Rhodes Scholar material and if the parents see that potential, put the kids in offerings to maximize that opportunity. Most kids are not. Music programs, trade schools emphasizing fundamentals, skills rather than academic emphasis. Word gets out, and parents will seek the best for their kids abilities, talents, interests, etc. It’s their choice!

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
The argument has always been that Society as a whole benefits from an educated populace, and I suppose there is merit to that line of thought. However, the state of public "education" has reached a point where the merit is dubious.

flashguy

That is the argument. And while public education isn't what we hope it would be, is there really any serious argument that it is better than the education a lot of people would give their children left to their own devices, which is none or almost none?

Even though public education is not good, or even bad, it is better than no education, which is what a lot of people would get. And those people would be even more a drain than they already are.