How to properly fund our schools has been a question we have been struggling to answer for years.  Options range from having the state completely fund our schools to having parents pay for the education of their children.  Providing a public education has been an important part of American culture since the founding of this country.  Our forefathers knew that an educated population was essential for the country to be successful.  The Ohio constitution says that the legislature will provide for an adequate education.  This does not mean that the state will completely fund that education, but will provide the means for that education; whether it comes from the state, allowing the local community to collect taxes, or a combination of the two.  Currently, the state provides $5,700 per student to provide for that education, with the remaining money needed coming from the local community.  No matter the equation, the bottom line is that our schools are funded completely by tax dollars; all we are really arguing about is the collection method.  With that in mind, the real question to me is how we fund our schools with the least impact on tax payers.  As I wrote in my previous post, the more money we accept from big government, the more regulations and restrictions we will have placed upon us.  It is not that we are not providing enough money to our schools; it is how those dollars are being spent.  Our local schools have so many mandates placed upon them by the government that our local educators have limited control over education and spending.  These mandates were designed to address issues in large schools located in our largest cities and do not necessarily apply to our smaller schools.  The cost of implementing those mandates consumes a larger percentage of our smaller school’s budgets and in many cases is simply not cost effective. 

            Rather than turn to government to solve our problems, I propose that we resolve this issue where it occurs, at the local level.  In my judgment, we need to reduce the mandates placed on our schools and allow our local officials more control over our schools.  We elect our local school board members and we hire our superintendents and principals; we do so because we think that they can do the job.  I think it is time we let them do that job.  Our schools are representative of our communities.  Our local educators know the morals and values of our communities.  They need the control to be able to determine what to teach and how to teach it, they need the control to determine where best to apply our tax dollars to most efficiently and effectively educate our students.

            Predominately, we generate our local funding from property taxes which is wrong for both the tax payers and the schools.  As tax payers, we don’t pay our bills with our property value; we live off of our income.  Those that are retired and living on a fixed income face rising inflation eating into their income putting them in dire financial straits.  Property taxes also put our schools on a fixed income.  Regardless of whether property values rise or if the number of students in the district significantly rise, the school essentially receives the same amount of revenue from a property tax.  Just as inflation eats into our income, higher utility bills, higher medical insurance premiums, and other elevated costs eat into our schools’ income.  A much better method of collecting local taxes is through an earned income tax.  It is better for tax payers because it does not tax those that are living on their retirement income.  If a tax payer finds their income reduced through layoff, downsizing, outsourcing, or having to take a lower paying job, their tax liability is reduced accordingly.  As the economy improves and prevailing wages rise, revenue to our schools also rises and provides a hedge against inflation, preventing the need to put additional tax levies on the ballot.  Schools that have adopted permanent income taxes to fund their schools have essentially eliminated the need to ask for additional funding.

            By giving our school officials control to determine how best to educate our children and how to spend our precious resources efficiently and effectively and by utilizing an earned income tax; we can improve our children’s education and do it with fewer tax dollars.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 7:30 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.