The headline is “property taxpayers bear the brunt of costs.” The subject is education funding, which, if you are paying any attention, is a dramedy akin to The Money Pit but with no beautiful anything at the end of the “movie.”
There is no conclusion. Viewers, or in their case, taxpayers, get nothing for the effort except a larger bill every year and a declining return on investment. But the goal here, aped by the Valley News, is to increase taxes by pretending to offset the burden. They argue that programs will be cut without proper funding but never broach at least one very real problem.
Bloated administrative overhead sucks up most of the resources you would otherwise have for those programs.
Instead of addressing the contradiction that more money does not provide better results, they argue that the current funding model is unconstitutional. A cherished opinion backed by robed activists willing to screw taxpayers by giving progressives what they want. To expand the administrative state in Concord and add a metastasizing statewide taxing authority with an always carbon footprint.
They seek to wreck what has made New Hampshire a great place to live, with low poverty, high quality of life, the most economic opportunity, and better growth and freedom than any state in New England and most of North America.
There’s a reason for that: low tax burden and a focus (at least recently) on reducing bureaucratic burden—the opposite of the public education funding model.
Property taxes are an anchor around the neck of expanding government. A tax bill is a visible reminder of costs and obligations. But, the Schoolies, the Education Industrial Complex, effortlessly grinds conscientious objectors into dust. Towns negotiating contracts with national teachers’ union lawyers or reps can’t compete and almost always cave. Anyone daring to challenge an expansion of the money pit is met with a political firestorm.
Sure, 60% of funding comes from property taxes, but 75% of that tax bill is public education, and much of that has nothing to do with providing students with an education.
If property taxes in New Hampshire are too high, then the first question should be, why are we spending so much for public education and getting so little in return? And is it, perhaps, time for the town to consider separating some of the things a public school does that have nothing to do with reading, writing, or arithmetic and getting them out of the budget?
If a school can’t teach more than 4 or 5 kids out of ten to read at grade level, then no one deserves to be rewarded with anything extracurricular.
Alternatively, a town could probably hire a third-party vendor to run their schools and get better results, with more accountability to taxpayers, parents, and town officials at a fraction of the cost. And guess what? If they start to suck, you can replace them, and all you are doing is changing one lean management team for another.
The Valley News is more interested in pandering to the growing government education industrial complex than saving taxpayers money or educating kids.