^^^It can be argued that having an educated population is a component of the common defense, since being educated is a necessary prerequisite to serving in our armed forces. Dropouts are denied enlistment.

I'm not saying the school system is running the way it should, but I do think it's fundamentally unfair that school taxes are the only one broken out on the tax bill.

Like it or not, compulsory public education has been the norm in every state since 1918. Does anyone really think that poor rural parents or poor urban parents will actually spend their own money to send their kids to school when the alternative is food or housing or heat or alcohol, or meth or heroin or simply being a "friend" instead of a real parent? Without the public education system we will have an underclass in this country that will run wild.

We don't have police, fire, administration, parks & rec, roads, libraries, zoning board, fish & wildlife, code enforcement, etc. broken out separately on the tax bill, so why do we have schools broken out? Because makes schools an easy target, and counties do it to give themselves negotiation leverage over the teachers. I saw this from direct knowledge in small town politics.

Someone said earlier that government services can't be paid for a la carte. If every service was charged separately or if the population could vote to "opt out" of things they either don't use directly or don't get proportionate value from, there would be no services at all. Some of you may wish for this, but I don't think it would be the utopia you presume. I too would like less intrusive government and lower taxes, but I also understand that with the depravity shown by humanity under our current system, that it would be significantly worse under a system of taxation that is essentially voluntary.

There should simply be a county tax bill without the schools set aside separately. In Florida, free public education is described in the state Constitution, and so it is clearly "constitutional" for revenues to be raised to support the effort.

All taxes for all services ought to be broke out and itemized, so that we never lose sight of what they actually cost, every time we pay the bill. Burying the real costs of things is one of the worst practices that's ever been done, and encourages waste, reduces accountability, and fosters a disconnect in a hugely problematic way.

And as has been stated several times by many in various threads, the relationship between tax day and election day ought to be tied together at the hip, by federal law, for perpetuity.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

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.

I disagree.
I think the majority of people want what they think is best for their children.
Sure, some would rather drive a new car or spend everything on hookers and blow... but I think most people, given a choice, would do what is best for their children.

Perhaps in your circles and neighborhood, but in my experiences the number of abjectly poor, lazy, stupid, and generally selfish or disinterested people and parents I've met leads me to believe that number is enormous, enough that the loss of public schools - as terrible as they are - would be supremely bad for a huge segment of Americans (double digit %s).

I do agree that vouchers, which give parents complete freedom where to send their kids and spend their money, are a vital, and long overdue solution. But I'm saddened to say there's just no way we can completely rid ourselves of public schools anytime soon for boatloads of Americans, as in decades or longer, without leaving too many too screwed.

And as much as I like the idea of being able to skip the school taxes when not having kids, I think it's barely not fantasy. Government programs almost never pay for themselves as it is, and the only way they "work" as well as they do is by making everyone pay for them, whether it's roads or schools or healthcare or anything else.

Neat idea though. I'd vote for it.

quote:

providing schools stop paying administrators six figures

^Years back, you had one Principal. Now you have several Vice-Principals and a ton of other staff to make sure the kids aren't traumatized by a leaf that looks like Satin.


This would have been great for me over the past forty years. But I have no objection to maintaining a good school system. It brings the property values up. But there is a limit.

Why is an additional bathroom, a backyard shed or central air a major factor in determining the real estate tax yet a larger than normal amount of kids in the school system not a factor?

The teacher's unions while scream about this. the endless flow of funds will stop. The liberal groups will call it racists because you are infringing on the rights of parents to have more kids than they can possibly provide for.

My tax bill is $8600 per year. Out of that, $6200 is for the schools.


Money well spent??

quote:

Someone said earlier that government services can't be paid for a la carte. If every service was charged separately or if the population could vote to "opt out" of things they either don't use directly or don't get proportionate value from, there would be no services at all. Some of you may wish for this, but I don't think it would be the utopia you presume. I too would like less intrusive government and lower taxes, but I also understand that with the depravity shown by humanity under our current system, that it would be significantly worse under a system of taxation that is essentially voluntary.

+1. I don't smoke, I work out everyday. I have enough money to pay for my healthcare in old age. Does that mean I can stop paying into medicare and medicaid?

I went to private schools. My kids go to private schools. So, I am indeed paying twice. I don't think we should stop funding education for our population, I just think it should be done differently.

Every family gets $/kid. You cannot ever receive those funds, you simply direct the government to send them to the school your child attends. If your school costs more, you cover the difference. Public schools are ended.

I'm pretty sure a number of for profit private schools will pop up. There will be a great many of them who will figure out how to effectively educate a child for the $/kid the government provides. Some might charge a little more but offer perhaps better services.

Parents can choose what school is best for their child.

I'm not sure why we can't do this, but it seems like it would be better for all in the public school system.

If you say, I don't have kids I shouldn't pay...like I said, be careful as that's a slippery slope.

The top tax payers in this country pay for a whole lot of stuff they don't use. If that is the new standard, stuff you do use will be lost. I hope you have enough funds to pay for all of those things out of pocket. I'd love to use this standard as my taxes would plummet, but I know it's not realistic.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
We don't have police, fire, administration, parks & rec, roads, libraries, zoning board, fish & wildlife, code enforcement, etc. broken out separately on the tax bill, so why do we have schools broken out?

I mean no disrespect by this, but who sets your county tax rate each year, and the percentage of property taxes? Here it is the school boards. That is the answer to your question here in the Commonwealth. Not because they are an "easy" target, far from it. It is assists them in figuring their budget, and by how much they need to raise the rates to keep the mafia funded.

https://education.ky.gov/distr...EEK/Pages/Taxes.aspx

quote:

There should simply be a county tax bill without the schools set aside separately. In Florida, free public education is described in the state Constitution, and so it is clearly "constitutional" for revenues to be raised to support the effort.

1. So people are just better off not knowing how much they pay for the public schools?

2. In St. Louis County there are many school districts, and each sets it's own rate, so your property tax bill does show the school taxes as an itemized line mainly because the school districts budgets are not controlled by the county. The people in each school district vote on tax rate increases (they never decrease) for their particular school district.

quote:

Originally posted by Herknav:
I am one of those unqualified teachers you all are complaining about. Teacher pay has been stagnant for 10 years, and teachers are leaving the profession/state at a clip of ~325/month, if you believe the propaganda. You can point to teachers only working 9 months, but the exodus tells you that our state is paying below market value.

To fill the gap, they are handing out emergency certifications like party favors. I'm currently on one of those, but I'm working to get full certification. I will note there weren't exactly folks lined up to take the job. Would you prefer I quit?

Are there changes that could be made? Absolutely. For one thing, a state of 4M people doesn't need 520+ school districts, each with associated administrators. Every little town with 400 people has its own school, but most refuse to consolidate.

You can complain about teachers teaching the test, but I don't think it's unreasonable for a teacher to know what, say, an Algebra 1 student is expected to know at the end of the year. The state gives us standards, and we are supposed to teach to those standards (e.g. Students should be able to "calculate and interpret slope and the x- and y-intercepts of a line using a graph, an equation, two points, or a set of data points to solve realworld and mathematical problems.") I also don't think any of us would like (as students) to be tested on something we haven't learned. Folks make it sound like I have a secret answer key to the SAT in my desk. I do not.

By all means, open us up to competition. Get involved with your local school. The more people working to solve the problem, the better. It beats complaining about it and then ignoring it. Goverment of the people doesn't work if people don't show up.

Well put.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
I'm not saying the school system is running the way it should, but I do think it's fundamentally unfair that school taxes are the only one broken out on the tax bill.

Like it or not, compulsory public education has been the norm in every state since 1918. Does anyone really think that poor rural parents or poor urban parents will actually spend their own money to send their kids to school when the alternative is food or housing or heat or alcohol, or meth or heroin or simply being a "friend" instead of a real parent? Without the public education system we will have an underclass in this country that will run wild.

We don't have police, fire, administration, parks & rec, roads, libraries, zoning board, fish & wildlife, code enforcement, etc. broken out separately on the tax bill, so why do we have schools broken out? Because makes schools an easy target, and counties do it to give themselves negotiation leverage over the teachers. I saw this from direct knowledge in small town politics.

Someone said earlier that government services can't be paid for a la carte. If every service was charged separately or if the population could vote to "opt out" of things they either don't use directly or don't get proportionate value from, there would be no services at all. Some of you may wish for this, but I don't think it would be the utopia you presume. I too would like less intrusive government and lower taxes, but I also understand that with the depravity shown by humanity under our current system, that it would be significantly worse under a system of taxation that is essentially voluntary.

There should simply be a county tax bill without the schools set aside separately. In Florida, free public education is described in the state Constitution, and so it is clearly "constitutional" for revenues to be raised to support the effort.

Yes. I agree.

Of course people should get to see what any given service costs, but it doesn't follow that means you get to opt-out.

Public schools are all over the place in quality. Society benefits from educated citizens. Arguably schools are deficient in that production and should be held accountable. Unions and school teachers shouldn't be associated. Actually any job that uses govt funds shouldn't be unionized. Very simply, union workers can put a business out of business but public workers can't. The govt will always find a way to make the numbers work, even if the y really don't work, see unfunded pension liabilities nationwide.

All that being said, this plan won't work for many reasons, some good some not so good. However, as a property owner you are benefiting if you live in a good school district. Even if you never procreate, when you buy you should be looking at school districts. It has a huge effect on your pricing of housing. Fact. Ie, you benefit from good schools and suffer from bad. Let the buyer beware.

Unfortunately we are a society. You pay for all kinds of products and services with your taxes that you will never use. While we can certainly curtail certain spending basic educational needs won't ever fall into that category. This is a complete waste of time.

Controlling school costs on the other hand would be a reasonable effort imo.

quote:

providing schools stop paying administrators six figures

Even a moderately large school district has thousands of employees and hundreds of facilities. You think you can get a competent CEO for a business like that for under $100,000? Or even under $250,000? Even a large high school has a hundred employees or more and a $10 million (or more) plant. Same question for the principal. You think you can get someone in that job for under $100K.

Well, you could, but he would be incompetent.

quote:

I don't think we should stop funding education for our population, I just think it should be done differently.

Every family gets $/kid. You cannot ever receive those funds, you simply direct the government to send them to the school your child attends. If your school costs more, you cover the difference. Public schools are ended.

I'm pretty sure a number of for profit private schools will pop up. There will be a great many of them who will figure out how to effectively educate a child for the $/kid the government provides. Some might charge a little more but offer perhaps better services.

Parents can choose what school is best for their child.

I'm not sure why we can't do this, but it seems like it would be better for all in the public school system.

Yes.... Competition is a good thing.
We want competitive grocery stores, gas stations, etc. Why not schools?

When people say "you are anti- public education", I always respond "Isn't education important enough not to turn it completely over to government?"

The breakdown of the taxes on your tax bill is shown because each of the entities, City, County, Township, School District, Water District, etc. is a separate government entity that has it's own budget and accordingly assesses taxes at a rate sufficient to meet its budget based on the assessed valuation that pertains to its tax district.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

providing schools stop paying administrators six figures

Even a moderately large school district has thousands of employees and hundreds of facilities. You think you can get a competent CEO for a business like that for under $100,000? Or even under $250,000? Even a large high school has a hundred employees or more and a $10 million (or more) plant. Same question for the principal. You think you can get someone in that job for under $100K.

Well, you could, but he would be incompetent.

Unfortunately, some of the ones out there that are high/reasonably paid are incompetent and its damn difficult to rid the system of them, that's my gripe.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
I'm not saying the school system is running the way it should, but I do think it's fundamentally unfair that school taxes are the only one broken out on the tax bill.

Like it or not, compulsory public education has been the norm in every state since 1918. Does anyone really think that poor rural parents or poor urban parents will actually spend their own money to send their kids to school when the alternative is food or housing or heat or alcohol, or meth or heroin or simply being a "friend" instead of a real parent? Without the public education system we will have an underclass in this country that will run wild.

We don't have police, fire, administration, parks & rec, roads, libraries, zoning board, fish & wildlife, code enforcement, etc. broken out separately on the tax bill, so why do we have schools broken out? Because makes schools an easy target, and counties do it to give themselves negotiation leverage over the teachers. I saw this from direct knowledge in small town politics.

Someone said earlier that government services can't be paid for a la carte. If every service was charged separately or if the population could vote to "opt out" of things they either don't use directly or don't get proportionate value from, there would be no services at all. Some of you may wish for this, but I don't think it would be the utopia you presume. I too would like less intrusive government and lower taxes, but I also understand that with the depravity shown by humanity under our current system, that it would be significantly worse under a system of taxation that is essentially voluntary.

There should simply be a county tax bill without the schools set aside separately. In Florida, free public education is described in the state Constitution, and so it is clearly "constitutional" for revenues to be raised to support the effort.

Are the school taxes broken out separately to make the schools a target, or are those tax dollar earmarked for the schools to keep the politicians (in theory at least) from pissing those funds away on some pet project?

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
Are you trying to be obtuse? Or do you really have no idea what you are talking about? Tell me how the police that are funded by the same property taxes is a "red herring".

Oh goodie, the ad hominem attacks have started since I keep pointing out that you haven't made a logical argument.

Yes, the police and schools are both funded by property taxes. However, if you had bothered to read the story I posted in the OP you would have noticed that it is a BALLOT MEASURE to "exempt residents who don’t have kids in state public schools from paying the taxes to fund them." We live in a constitutional republic and the California man is following the process to force the change of the funding source as bloated bureaucracies never voluntarily get smaller or more efficient. You could start a NJ ballot measure for police funding to change, and you could start your own thread on it. You won't as you're using it as a diversionary argument (aka red herring).

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
You think how much money is spent on education is something you vote on? Wake up. Policy is only minimally effected at a local level. State and federal requirements are the drivers.

Another diversion. This is about changing who is funding not about total funding or policy. However, if the 30% of people with school aged children paid 100% of the costs for education then they would be more interested in fixing the absurd total costs of education and the policies that drive up the costs as they would have more skin in the game.

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
So on your opinion the quality of today's education is no good?

In general, yes. As with all generalities there are exceptions, but that is another type of diversionary argument.

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
Maybe move to a better school district.

Out of all of the illogical lines of argument you have taken this is the least logical. I live in a very well rated school district, but it's beside the point. I have previously identified myself as part of the 70% who are paying to educate other people's children.

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
My daughter is taking college level courses as a JUNIOR in HS. She is taking the courses I took 40 years ago as a Hs senior and college frosh. You know those worthless courses like calculus, physic and chemistry.

Yep learning about those subjects is a complete waste of time, not valuable at all. / sarc off

Congrats! I'm a big fan of STEM classes, but the majority of the indoctrination occurs in the remainder of her school day. Additionally, it's yet another diversion (aka red herring) from citizens in a Constitutional republic can follow a defined process (e.g. ballot measure) to change the funding mechanism for schools (i.e. this is NOT an opting out argument).

Do you have any logical arguments on:

why a citizen can't start a ballot measure to "exempt residents who don’t have kids in state public schools from paying the taxes to fund them?"

the benefits to society that would be lost if 30% of the households had to pay 100% of the education costs only their demographic used?

a Constitutional issue that would cause a successful ballot measure to be struck down by the courts?

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

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

My thoughts as well.

The supposed benefit to property values because of good school districts only matters if you intend to sell the property at some point and reap the benefits. Many people intend to stay put, and don't care nor ever realize a benefit from said school districts and their relationship to property values. Combine that with those who have no kids and there is definitely a meaningful segment of the population who is getting screwed twice.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

providing schools stop paying administrators six figures

Even a moderately large school district has thousands of employees and hundreds of facilities. You think you can get a competent CEO for a business like that for under $100,000? Or even under $250,000? Even a large high school has a hundred employees or more and a $10 million (or more) plant. Same question for the principal. You think you can get someone in that job for under $100K.

Well, you could, but he would be incompetent.

Well, they would be like non-profit CEOs - doing the job for a heck of a lot less than they could get for doing a similar job in the for profit world. They wouldn’t all be incompetent, but there would be a higher proportion of CEOs with minimal experience. The good ones that hung around and stayed in the job would be those had a passion for the mission of educating kids and their part in it. At the end of the day, you’d be hiring from a smaller pool. Doesn’t make the hiring job impossible, but it sure doesn’t make it easy...

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

... they are nothing but liberal boot lickers.

Oh nice.

Look, it seems some are going on about two different things. If the conversation is about revamping public education and how tax dollars are spent in that regard, then I'm all for it. But what I'm hearing is that some want to be able to selectively pay taxes which is a horrible idea. And that opinion is removed from my very low opinion that I have of the average public school system.