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Consider this post on social media.
“Today we are paying our North Carolina real estates taxes, which are significant. I don’t have a problem with paying my fair share. This year, I DO have a problem that some of my tax dollars are being doled out to pay for private school vouchers for private schools! And some of the people getting those vouchers have incomes over $100,000.”
I asked if they were missing part of the equation. “Like what?” was the reply.
Well, the person using private schools also pays property taxes to fund public schools so – by choice – they are paying twice. However, there is a saving to the public schools when a child does not attend.
Logically the parent using a private school should not be paying for public schools, but that doesn’t work so transferring the public school savings to the private schools seems fair. My view is not shared by many that I can find. This is an issue in many states, but are we able to view it objectively?
In some areas there are movements to exempt seniors from paying school taxes. In our 55 plus community we all pay school property taxes and needless to say there are no children plus nearly all the residents did not live in this town before moving here when they did have children in school. Of course, we should pay. That’s what makes the system function.
But fair is fair. We seniors pay the same taxes as everyone else but the town won’t plow our street or repair the road as they say it’s technically private.
All’s fair in love and taxes.
The main issue I have with private schools is that they can expel “trouble makers” and kids with “special needs”.
Where do THOSE students end up?
In public schools that might be able to expel the “trouble makers”.
But they HAVE to educate the kids with “special needs”. Here in one of the “collar counties” of Northeastern Illinois, public schools must, by law, pay ALL THE EXPENSES of “special needs” students until they turn 21.
A friend of ours, who worked in the Administrative Offices of our local school district, told us that parents are easily willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers so that the public schools – paid for us taxpayers – have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars babysitting their kids.
I live in NC and am a big fan of charter schools. They are very popular (except by the school unions and bureaucracy), do not have the same constraints and generally perform better.
I understand the objection for vouchers for private or religious schools. Our church has a school with K thru 12. We do not get any funding from govt. Most private schools in our county are so expensive (think college tuition) that any voucher would be a small fraction of the tuition.
I think competition for the public school system is a good thing that will hopefully result in improved performance.
I’ve never had kids, but I always pay school taxes with enthusiasm and vote for new taxes and bonds, for the most base of reasons — personal greed, in terms of the value of my home. Quality public schools attract families to a community, and school funding drives property values. A 2020 study by the Harvard Kennedy School found that a 1 percent increase in public school spending increases local house prices by 0.95 percent. An earlier study found that for every $1 increase in per pupil public school expenditure, per pupil housing values increase by about $20. So even those of us without children in the public schools benefit from public school funding.
There is no such documented correlation between private school voucher spending and local property values. It would in fact be fair to assume an inverse relationship, because private school voucher spending often pulls tax dollars away from public schools.
And I am vehemently opposed to the expenditure of my tax dollars on private church-based schools, not based on Jeffersonian church/state principles but because I deeply resent my tax dollars going to support classes teaching a faith that is not mine.
Interesting correlation using spending. I know towns in my area with higher property taxes, high spending per child for schools and at the same time dismal results as measured by proficiency scores – among the lowest in the state while spending is up with the best performing districts.