Well it’s likely many of your neighbors do think that way. When our town in MA decided to build a new school, you got to hear directly what people thought. There were actually people (many older some younger) who stood up and said, I’m not using the school so I don’t want to pay for it. Some had kids who had graduated decades before, some had kids in private school. In any respect, it’s selfish. But there are many people like that. And to be fair, as people age, the taxes can really become a real burden.
Unless something has changed, other than one county in GA, all others with an exemption are tied both to age and income level. For example, 62 or older and income under $30k. I have no problem with that personally.
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There are excellent schools in every state, but in some states there are few and it’s very expensive to live in the school zone.
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I don’t doubt that some of my neighbors feel this way ( I have seen the signs in some front yards supporting candidates who encourage peoples’ darkest impulses) but thankfully not enough to actually prevail.
I am also very troubled by the wild inequality between schools in the same district. I’ve always thought that well off parents raising money for extra resources in their kids schools, while the schools in less affluent area go without basics is simply wrong and should not be permitted. Let them raise money for every school in their district and the rising tide can lift all the boats.
As an older parent myself, whose children have long since graduated I still feel it’s my responsibility to support education through taxes. It’s so sad that basic citizenship responsibilities are so easily discarded by so many.
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There is also a long term broader self interest in having a better educated population that is more likely to result in greater economic growth, compared to an economy where only the scions of the wealthiest can afford to become educated. That is part of the rationale for having government-subsidized education (that is more accessible to more kids from varying levels of parent income and wealth) to begin with.
But many people look only at short term narrow self interest in these kinds of issues. Hence the risk of a competitive market economy with widespread opportunities evolving into a more aristocratic economy that is poorer overall and where opportunities and results are increasingly determined by one’s parents’ economic standing relative to one’s own ability and motivation.
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When I was working a fellow teacher also lived in town–let’s just say he is to the right of the most right-wing person you can think of. Our town held a vote for funding for a new library–the current library had been built in the 1920’s. He has no children, and we have 3. On election day he asked me if I was voting in favor of the new library–I said of course. His reply was “hey, if you want your kid to read go buy him a f####ing book yourself!”
And this was an educator…swell guy…
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I have done lots of fundraising. It works best when people have self interest at hand, particularly THEIR kids.
Whether that’s good or bad, is another discussion. As a kid who grew up in the school without extras and who has raised kids in schools with tons of funds, I’m amazed at the differences. I’m pragmatic so I wouldn’t ever think raising all boats is going to work for fund raising. For local taxes, yes.
I don’t judge my neighbors based on their yard signs. And I’d venture to say I have no idea who is
In fact, I have no idea what any of my neighbors darkest impulses are, nor do I want to find out. Fortunately, I live in a rural area so don’t have to. LOL.
Have lots of friends across the board. As my financial advisor once told me, the ones who talk the most about philanthropy often give the least. I’ve seen some people at gala events whose “signs” would be one sided. Yet they give quite a bit to underfunded kids and programs. Most of the parents who I’ve worked with at multiple schools have the whole spectrum of beliefs. So IMO no connection unless you want to make one. And I don’t. If they are supporting education, it’s in the plus column for me.
100%. The way I look at it, I can only do my best to support education and donate to causes that I care about. If I won the lottery, I donate most of it to educational purposes.
Sounds like the school district doesn’t have enough money to fund the basics and taxes need to be raised.
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I concur. We moved from MA to CA (Bay Area) and as president of my PTA, my operating budget was over 250K and desperately needed to fund music, art & clay, PE and library programs. And mind you, sometimes these were only being offered 1-2x per month. Not at all talking weekly opportunities for enrichment. We also relied HEAVILY on parent volunteers to run these programs. An expected family contribution for K-5 was over $2000 a year for our single cash fundraising drive. That was on top of the 15 or so additional asks throughout the year.
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The problem in my area with relying on parcel taxes or bond measures is that they have not been passing in certain areas. Elections before the pandemic lacked the supermajority needed for parcel taxes for bond measures. In my district, people are tired of paying and not seeing results. Or voting these through and still hearing about shortfalls, pullbacks in curriculum, etc. This, on top of the prolonged pandemic school closures have all but guarenteed it will be years before another one passes. My district ran an independent outreach study this past spring (paid six figures for a private firm to poll voters) for an upcoming bond measure. Their assessment was a total no confidence that it would pass. We could have desperately used that money elsewhere.
We have no choice here. If you buy in a certain housing divisions, you have to pay. I think it’s noble to say I support the education system when my kids are all grown up. I actually have no choice here. They tack it in to my tax bill and I have to pay. While I do support it, but I don’t want to sound too noble, not when I don’t have a choice.
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My reply was not at all a criticism. Just pointing out the unfairness to our local education system when a portion (at least for my district) of the budget is reliant on an unreliable stream of funds. It stinks all around.
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I didn’t take it as criticism, every place is different. My current district is much better than my previous district in the Bay Area, as a parent I was so hands off and my kids turned out ok. In the Bay Area, I was busy trying to help with fundraising at their schools also. We have much better system here.
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Like @Joblue, I consider educating the next generation of kids a moral obligation. When my town needed to vote to override the relevant MA proposition, I both supported it and wrote an op-ed in the local paper even though our kids were out of school. I explained Baumol’s law and why keeping increases below the inflation rate effectively meant we were cutting services and / or deferring maintenance but that the bill would come due. I actually think from a strategic matter that towns should invest in the schools to enhance property values.
Like @Joblue, I think financing school via local property taxes seems like a really inequitable way to do things. Other countries don’t finance education with purely local taxes. Anecdotally, I don’t see any evidence that my Canadian relatives got a worse K-12 education than my American relatives.
I don’t know if there is any evidence the even top US public schools (ignoring magnet schools like Stuyvesant) provide superior education to schools in other countries. That may be hard to demonstrate either way in part because we have such stratification, e.g., towns with good school systems attract successful parents, who are selected for in part by effort and maybe genetics. I live in a town that typically performs very well but as far as I can tell, most of that has to do with the input material provided by the parents as opposed to the organization and teaching of the teachers (many of whom were quite good). I sent ShawSon to a private middle school and I used to joke that every third boy’s father was a biotech CEO, and but the joke was that it was pretty close to true. And, I would suspect that the IQs of parents of kids in the the two public high schools in Palo Alto are way above 100. So, as good as Palo Alto public high schools undoubtedly are, I’d guess that the drive, opportunities and IQ that the parents of students at Palo Alto High Schools bring to the table has a much bigger influence on student performance than the quality of the teaching.
Like @htas, I am a realist. It is much easier in the US to motivate people via their self-interest.
LImits on funding like the propositions in CA and MA just drive more private spending from those who care and can fund. I don’t think this is good public policy but that’s a much bigger question.
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Before Palo Alto real estate became super expensive, it was known for “good schools”… but that was likely due to the presence of kids of faculty from the nearby university.
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@ucbalumnus, I remember that as well.
Where did you find an average Hoosier rate of marriage age 17? I’ve lived here my whole life, and I find that very difficult to believe.
My first google hit shows average ages of 26.9 men and 25.8 women.
“In Indiana, the median age at first marriage for men is 26.9, ranking 36th among the states; the U.S. average is 28 years. Women in Indiana tend to marry slightly younger than Hoosier men, at the median age of 25.8 (ranking 29th among the states).”
The State of Hoosier Unions: A Demographic View of Marriage
https://www.incontext.indiana.edu › nov-dec › article3
](The State of Hoosier Unions: A Demographic View of Marriage).)
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While our two kids went to private schools in AZ through 8 grade but demanded to go to public high schools. Both admitted to their respective dream colleges.
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Here’s my thoughts. I am taxed in my local school district, a highly rated district. My kids went to private schools. I have absolutely no issue with paying toward the school district yet the parents in the he school district have a problem with me. Why? Because our high school is the athletic rival of the public school district I live in.
I purchase any ridiculous item that is being sold from students in their fundraisers going door to door. I NEVER say no if a student shows up at my door. But when my kids tried to do the same thing, 95% of the people in our neighborhood replied “oh, you’re supporting ……… absolutely not.
My kids loved the summer sports camp fundraisers from the local school. We used to get flyers mailed to us cause we lived in the district and payed taxes. We signed up and supported many of them. We were absolutely allowed to get the information as tax payers in the district. But then the school district discovered that the flyers were getting into the hands of families that went to the private schools and decided that the information could now only be handed out at school and not mailed because, god forbid, one of those evil private school families might get the information.
I was told this by co workers who lived in the district. They didn’t want to teach kids the fundamentals of sports If they might go to the private high school.
So people above say they would hate to live among people who didn’t use the public school but didn’t want to support them. It goes both ways people!!!
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