School Funding: Where the Candidates Stand
March 7, 2006 by admin
Filed under Funding Reform, General
I attended the Lake County United Candidate Forum last night. I thought some of you might be interested in the candidates answers on school funding.
Dr. Hugh Bartling of DePaul University gave a presentation on how schools are funded. His presentation can be found at his website http://www.hughbartling.com/lakecounty.htm. The highlights were the 4 ways schools are funded:
- Property Values
- Tax Rate
- State and Federal Aid
- Enrollment
The dynamics of school funding:
- Relying more on property taxes (Illinois – 54%, National Avg. 43%)
- Low income tax rate (33rd in individual income tax rate)
- Uneven levels of funding
- Achievement Gaps
Before the questioning of the candidates started, Michael Knight, who is a financial planner spoke about a couple who retiring at age 65. When he looked over their finances, he told them they would need a $225 K annuity in addition to the current retirement funds just to pay for their property taxes. This couple could not retire in Lake County because of this.
The following questions were asked to each candidate in one form or another as I have below depending on their responses:
- Do you believe there is a problem in the funding of Public Schools? If so, what would you propose to do about it?
- Would you support a comprehensive overhaul in the ways schools are funded?
- Will you sign the “No Tax Pledge”
Lennie,
Great Reporting! Here is the upshot of ALL of these spending debates.
SPENDING IS WAY TOO HIGH IN RICH DISTRICTS, and the system can’t be “fixed” until that spending comes DOWN…and hard.
The fact that Rondout spends nearly (or just over) $20k is an obscenity. Some argue that this is their “right” as a district. Perhaps, but there is a brewing “Equal Protection” issue. How can you have a fair education system with Rondout reaming taxpayers and North Chicago lagging based upon Property values? Some one ought to take Roundout to court and hit them with a “Windfall Profits Tax”. Ah, how just it would be to change the system using the left’s shopworn ideology.
Have the state vote to take away Rondout’s egregious taxation and spend it in North Chicago, and the doped white mice will vote to cut their taxes in a nanosecond.
Fantasies aside, the fact remains that we CAN’T tax and spend at Lake Forest or Rondout Levels across the state. We’d all go bankrupt unless we left the state. This is why the current system is unsustainable.
1. Pass 750 tax increases
2. Cut Education Property taxes to ZERO (a 60% cut for most IL citizens)
3. Abolish Districts, they educate NOTHING!
4. Make every school an Independent Charter
5. Give every Child in IL a EQUAL scholarship of about $7-8000 dollars.
The transition to such a system needs to be worked out, but when you look at all the problems and inequities of the current system, it is a far better system. The current one is beyond reform. Break it.
Thank you for the detailed notes allowing those of us unable to be present to get an idea of what went on.
Thanks Bruno. Every day I agree more and more with your plan. I see the educrats making a dash for Springfield to get more money since so many of their referendums fail. We need to get there in force to combat the deceptions and money grab. We need competition. It is the only way to force the educratic bureaucracy to actually teach our kids again instaed of just taking our money.