[EDU] Tuition & Taxes

[ianb@sun670.telecom.tandem.com (Ian Bui)]

Hello everyone,

In the state of Texas (I'm not sure whether this is true 
across all states or not) homeowners have to pay what we call 
a School Tax, which is based on the value of one's property,
which in turn is appraised yearly and varies with the market.
If you are a renter, you don't have to "pay" this tax. However,
the owners of the rental property have to. (And guess what? They
just add the tax expenses to your rental cost! Same thing :))

The unusual feature of this system is that it doesn't matter
whether you have school age children in your household or not.
Everybody pays. I suppose the rationale is that everyone in 
society benefits from the education system, therefore everyone
is required to pay into it. (Just my guess) 

One of the consequences of this scheme is that areas where 
property values are high have better schools. And people who 
want their children to go to better schools would try to move 
to the more "affluent" neighborhoods. Of course, those who can 
afford to send their children to private schools don't care one 
way or another (but they still have to pay this tax, regardless!)

It's not a perfect system, but it's been working for a long time.
And one must realize that if the people of Texas didn't think this
was fair they would have revolted (at election time, that is) 
to have this tax abolished a long time ago. Indeed, a few years
ago the State Legislature introduced a bill which the press coined 
the "Robin Hood Law", which stipulated that richer school districts 
should share some of its extra income with poorer ones in order to
lessen the inequalities among school districts. Needless to say, 
the bill was favored by voters in poor school districts and opposed
by people in richer areas. In the end, the law was passed, but not
without a lot of heated debates.

Around this same time, Texas voters passed a law allowing a state
lottery. Some of the money from lottery revenue was earmarked to 
pay for public schooling, though I'm not sure how much. I understand 
that the State of Georgia has taken their lottery money to fund all 
kinds of educational institutions, even higher ones (community 
colleges, trade schools, universities, etc.) with a tremendous 
success record. Many states (Texas included) have been studying the
Georgian model to see if they, too, could implement something similar.

Just a little more information for your musing pleasure on this
highly important subject.

Cheers,
Ian