Posted on 07/14/2013 11:35:52 AM PDT by Deadeye Division
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A state lawmaker wants to give a tax break to property owners who home-school their children.
State Sen. Kris Jordan introduced a bill that would reduce property taxes for parents who home-school their children that is equal to the amount they pay for school levies in their local districts.
Jordan said the legislation -- Senate Bill 127 -- will help those who “sacrifice so much” to home-school a child. One group argues that the measure could lead to more tax breaks at the expense of public education.
“People who home-school pay twice for the education of their kids,” the Central Ohio Republican said. “They pay their taxes. Then they pay for supplies, transportation and everything else out of their own pockets.”
If passed, SB 127 would save home-schooling property owners in the Cleveland school district about $1,500 each year per $100,000 of home value. Shaker Heights homeschoolers would reap the greatest benefit -- about $2,800 per $100,000 of home value.
“That extra thousand or two will help them buy books, or help them take their kids to museums and give mom and dad a little extra money to educate their kids,” Jordan said.
The money saved by property owners would be money lost by local school districts.
Across the state, more than 10,000 children are educated at home, according to the Ohio Department of Education. The numbers do not indicate if the students are taught in owner-occupied residences and would therefore qualify the homeowners for Jordan’s proposed tax break.
The number of home-schooled children varies widely by district. More than 150 children are home-schooled in the Cleveland School District, and fewer than 10 are home-schooled in Shaker Heights.
Jordan said the impact on local school districts would be minimal.
“I don’t think it will have a dramatic impact on any school district,” Jordan said. “It’s just a tool to help moms and dads better educate their children. If moms and dads want to home-school their kids, we want to help them however we can.
“What I hear people complaining about from the right and the left is that we need more parental involvement with children and education, and nothing gives better involvement than home-schooling.”
The Ohio School Boards Association staunchly opposes the legislation.
“It takes away from something we think every sector of the economy should pay for, their fair share of public education,” said Jay Smith, a lobbyist for OSBA, adding that SB 127 could lead to a slippery slope of tax breaks for others who keep their kids out of public schools.
“What about those who don’t have children? Shouldn’t they be granted the same?” Smith asked. “What about those who choose to send their child to private school? It could just escalate.”
Smith’s fears are not off the mark.
Jordan said he would eventually like to see an end to public school reliance on taxes from property owners who don’t have kids in public schools. He also said home-schooling is an issue close to his heart.
“I was a public school child, but because my mom was a teacher, I kind of feel like I was home-schooled,” Jordan said. “My mom spent many, many hours reading and working with me, so I wasn’t behind like many children are who are enrolled in public education.”
Excellent.
This is where you see so called suburban conservative republicans display a sense of entitlement that would make they stereotypical inner city welfare queen blush. This is where the hypocrisy comes out, along with all the excuses as to why it's okay. They want someone else to put a gun to the heads of their neighbors and force them to pay for their kids to play games, be in clubs and if they get some three R's in between, bonus!
Let them learn the hard way...like they did with marriage. Maybe it will start to soak in one these days.
Are you willing to kill the people who would rather not help the homeschoolers?
An idea whose time has come: Separation of school and state.
Starve the beast.
That would be my first choice.
It’ll be there because no politician has the guts to oppose it. But like any ponzi scheme the people in it at the end get shafted the worst, especially if the numbers of recruits (who are now children) drop.
bump
For them, its about OTHERS doing for THM.
Parents complaining about having to drop THEIR kids off here or there.
Of course they're DROPPING their kids off. "Doing their part."
Of course, while they're complaining how hard driving THEIR KID around and dropping them off is, they seem not to notice that SOMEBODY ELSE is taking time out of their schedule to coach their kid.
Twenty kids (Or whatever the number is) on a soccer team. How many parents are involved with coaching or helping the coach?
Oh boy, but they are good parents, they show up at the game and root the child on. Oh boy goody for them. Meanwhile, while their in the bleachers cheering THEIR KID, their coach is on the sideline, teaching, encouraging, hugging EACH AND EVERY one of the kids on that team.
I was fortunate in the years that I volunteered with kids. I had some great parents involved.
But after 13 years, I felt it was over, and time to move on. One year later, the elders of the church made a decision to change the jr high ministry. After 20 years of meeting on Saturday mornings, the elders decided that the jr high ministry would now meet DURING the weekend services.
They did this without consulting the staff (full time staff...VERY LARGE church...very big ministry).
It seems some parents had been complaining that it was too hard for them to go to mid week services then take their kids to jr high ministry and then go to a weekend service. (The church is a seeker friendly church where weekend services were more casual, "seeker" oriented. Mid week services were more meat and potatoes)
My attitude was:
"Let me get this straight, they have to go to mid week services, on Wednesday or Thursday night, THHHEENNNN they have to drop their child of at jr high ministry on Saturday morning, THHHEENNNN they go back and pick them up at noon, THHHEENNNN they have to go to church either Saturday night or Sunday morning, ALLLLL ON TOP of having to work a job. YEAH SO...I did that for 13 years, WITHOUT complaining...for 13 years...for kids that weren't even mine. And there were literally a hundred other leaders who did the same thing.
But it was too hard for the parents...OH WAAAAAAH!!!!"
So know, instead of having another adult trying to pour into their child for 2-1/2 hours during a week, now its about 45 minutes to an hour.
I lost all respect for the elders at that point.
I mean, that's leadership? Some parents complain that things are inconvenient, so lets change to make things more convenient for them.
Me: "Hey!!! These are your kids here. You brought them into the world. They are YOUR RESPONSIBILITY." There should be nothing more important to those parents than the raising of that child. Don't talk to me about being a little inconvenienced.
I have no respect, ZERO, for the panty wastes who posted above, who think that OTHERS...SHOULD BE involved in the raising of THEIR kids, and that its fine to tax others so that they don't have to carry the burden of providing for THEIR kids education.
$2.6 TRILLION in a SS lockbox, of nothing but IOU's.
By law, any "surplus" in SS, SS has to buy government bonds. Government bonds, to pay for things like roads, bridges, levies (Like NOLA, that were never built), fountains, government trips...
General expenses, that when normal budgeting couldn't afford, they just used the money from the bonds, to pay for the things they wanted.
Well, I'm not sure you're aware, but SS no longer has a surplus every year. With the drop in employment came a drop in SS taxes.
Soon SS will be running deficits and it'll be time to open the lock box and start pulling out and cashing in those government bonds. Bonds where the money has already been spent.
We are running $1 TRILLION a year deficits...just on our everyday spending. We are $16.7 TRILLION in debt. Where are we supposed to get more money to pay back the government bonds sitting in SS? There are approximately 311 million people in the US. There are about 155 million in the work force. If SS started running a deficit of $155 BILLION a year (Which seems like nothing when your talking $1+ TRILLION a year in general spending deficit) That would be an extra $1000 a year for EVERY WORKER to contribute just to try and keep SS afloat.
And we haven't even talked about the extra costs Obamacare is going to place on everybody.
Across the state, more than 10,000 children are educated at home, according to the Ohio Department of Education.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It’s likely 5 times that number. I never trust the government’s numbers on homeschoolers.
Education is no more special than food. clothing, or housing. If parents can provide food, clothing, and housing for their kids, they should pay for education as well.
Raising the next generation is far more important than simply paying your own way.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Using this reasoning we would have socialist-entitlement grocery distribution centers and Soviet style clothing and cement block rabbit hutches to live in.
Gee! isn’t food, clothing, and housing more important that education?
Unfortunately, the evil infects us all, making many of us selfish. Many of us don’t feel we should have a part of the responsibility for improving others’ lots.
“Christian Charity” to them is evil.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Compulsory funding of socialist-entitlement K-12 schooling ( under threat of armed police action and court threat) isn’t my definition of Christian charity.
bump
Americans are the most generous people on earth. If all government socialist-entitlement schooling were to disappear tomorrow, does anyone **seriously*** believe that **generous** Americans would leave any child without access to an education? No, of course not!
Imagine this. What if schooling in the U.S. resembled the volunteer effort seen in our Volunteer Fire Departments. I have lived in two communities with volunteer fire departments and they were **first class** in training and equipment.
Question: What if we had **volunteer** community education?
Simply from the fact that with it being compulsory, there is just so much waste and graft.
At a voluntary level, those involved are going to want to make sure that their giving is going to a worthwhile cause. Or people will head up causes themselves to get things done. Instead of leaving it up to bureaucrats and politicians.
The real problem...And not just in the inner city, but everywhere...and that is people taking up PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.
Nobody has lamented the destructive, reckless spending of the government more than me -- I predicted we would already be in collapse, though it somehow hasn't quite happened yet.
Don't even mention the "lock box" -- there never was one, and it's naive to even assume so.
You can lecture all you want about how you don't expect SS but I hear this from people every day and every one of them will fight tooth and nail to secure "their money" they think they put into that "lock box". The fact that they even use the term "lock box" reveals their true expectations.
But as I see it the biggest problem we have in the long term is a decline in fertility. 50 million abortions and pop narcissism have put us into a position in which both political parties welcome tens of millions of illegals, because the only way to replace the workers we have is to import them from abroad. It's leading to the death or balkanization of our entire culture. It's happening in Europe right now, and it's not a pretty picture.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.