New Hampshire’s education funding mess keeps getting messier. The state Constitution doesn’t appear to allow any lawful mechanism for collecting taxes to fund public schools. We reported on it, and it has sparked a wave of abatements, but the Legislature doesn’t appear to be in the mood to fix it, since the courts have done a fine job of ignoring the Constitution as well.
Speaking of which, if we pretend the courts have legislative/budgetary powers (and we’ve been pretending that for a few decades, now), and that cherishing an education only applies to non-religious schools (no need to cherish seminaries), I had a thought. If the cost of an adequate education is (say) $7,000.00 per year, then no district ought to be allowed to raise taxes to fund school budgets in excess of that amount multiplied by student enrollment.
My town’s school budget would drop from over 70 million to 28 million. Talk about solving the property tax problem.
But we would then have to bother the robed crusaders for a definition of “adequate.” If you are to fund an adequate education, and the courts are needed to decide the sum, they must also determine the necessary outcome. What does adequate mean?
At a current average cost three to four times the $7K number, what currently passes for a public school education can’t get more than a third to half of the kids to grade level in basic subjects like math and reading. The School District Industrial complex seems to think that’s a good enough definition, but charter, private, and homeschool seem to do a lot better for a lot less.
Government school money pit advocates like to wield phrases like underfunded education, and that’s a great term. We can actually measure that. Those “schools” that produce better results with far less money prove that public schools aren’t underfunded.
It’s not a funding problem, and Parents in Arizona are figuring that out.
Arizona’s second-largest school district cut staff after losing enrollment due to “competition with charter schools.” …
CUSD’s governing board on Wednesday voted to cut around 60 positions in administration, among deans and coaching roles.
Lana Berry, chief financial officer for the district, said enrollment dropped to over 4000 students since 2022 and is projected to continue dropping.
In 2022, Arizona lawmakers passed universal school choice. Parents can put their kids anywhere and take up to $7,000.00 worth of their tax dollars per child to do it.
The schoolies claim the voucher program is riddled with fraud, but if it is it’s still a bargian comapred ot the graft in the Public school system. If we look at New Hampshire, we have districts demanding 20-30K per student per year. That’s 275,000.00 per K-12 “graduate,” and at least half of them are not reading or doing math at grade level.
Lots of nice cars in the faculty parking lot. Stories about awesome vacations during breaks.
Public schools have become education oligarchies whose membership looks a lot like the community elites, living large on the backs of the peasants, indoctrinating their kids, and releasing them into the world as dysfunctional idiots with gender issues.
Government-run public education is a failure. Anyone who cherishes education can see that. Anyone who objects is just trying to protect their financial self-interest or political power to the detriment of children and the public good.
