How are schools funded?

Local property tax funding of education gives all of a community’s residents, not only the parents of school-aged children, an incentive to monitor the local public schools and see that they provide a good education. Homeowners in districts with successful schools are rewarded with rising property values, whereas residents in districts with unsuccessful schools experience falling property values.

Each resident has an individual incentive to either support the status quo if it is producing good results, or work for change if it is not. Local property tax funding thus gives school personnel an incentive to provide high quality and efficient schools. School districts also must compete with one another or risk losing students, as well as tax dollars, to better-performing districts. (Written By: Caroline M. Hoxby Ph.D., found on http://www.heartland.org )

In searching for answers to the question of how are schools funded, the above quotation/information is one of the first things I came across. Initially, it clarified the fact that most schools are funded from the local property taxes, but then I began to wonder, if the author presents this idea as such a logical concept, why are there always so many people, who do not have children in the local school system, that are unwilling to pay school taxes, or high school taxes. Is it just that people don’t really see a high correlation between their local school systems and their property values? or what about the population of people in a certain town that are not property owners? Even if they do not have to pay property taxes, don’t they sometimes have a vote in education-related issues?

In trying to figure out if property tax based funding is the norm for all schools in our country, I came across a brief history of funding, including this interesting piece, “In a landmark ruling on San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, issued in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court denied this contention. By a 5-4 vote, the high court ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not require equal funding among school districts.” (http://www.dekalbcounty-il.com/propertyvsincome.htm)

While this is probably widely known by many, I didn’t know specifically about this court ruling regarding the equity of our educational system. I find it rather disturbing. As I read more, I found that equity among school systems, both within a state and from one state to another, is not a given. While this is something that is very apparent in our countries myriad schools, it is another thing to actually read the words and realize the no one is claiming that our country offers equality of education. I am curious, what are others thoughts on this matter? Do you think everyone deserves an equal education? Is it unrealistic to strive for such a thing?

Here is an interesting link I found that contains information on school systems state by state, including finance info among other things. I couldn’t possibly explore the whole site, but I did find some good resources. It has historical information as well as current news and issues relating to education, finance, reform, etc.

Another thing I have been thinking about as I consider school funding is the variance that exists between public, private, and charter schools. In a way, it is easier for me to understand public vs. private schools and their funding, but when it comes to charter schools, the lines around funding seem to get very blurry. Are charter schools gov’t funded, yet also allowed to accept private support? If so, this doesn’t really seem fair to me. If this is the case, it seems to put public schools at such a disadvantage. I did read about funding for charter schools, but did not find anything about rules regarding private funding for public schools. Any ideas on this matter?