Posted on 11/12/2002 10:07:07 AM PST by hsmomx3
It is a safe bet that you do not know how much you pay in school taxes. And if you do not know, you do not have an objective way of determining if you are getting your money's worth. This article attempts to provide an answer.
If you are a homeowner and not a renter, the starting point is your property tax bill, which lists how much of your property taxes goes towards education. Of course, the bill will not tell you how much you pay in other taxes to public schools, a number that is virtually impossible to determine.
Incidentally, the hidden nature of the other school taxes is one of the reasons that teacher unions and the education establishment want schools funded out of general revenue instead of property taxes.
Although it is an incomplete picture, let's focus on property taxes for a moment, using my property taxes as a starting point.
Sixty-four percent of my property taxes, or $1,853, goes to schools, excluding the additional $358 that goes to community colleges. That is a 35 percent increase over the last five years, or three times the inflation rate for the period.
When I lived in New Jersey for 10 years, the property taxes were over twice as much as the taxes on my current home in Scottsdale Arizona, due to the Garden State spending $10,000 per student, versus Arizona's $7,000.
Let's assume that an Arizona homeowner with a house worth half as much as mine pays half the school property taxes, or $926. And for ease of calculation, let's also assume that the amount stays constant in inflation-adjusted dollars over the homeowner's adult lifetime, which we will say for discussion purposes is 60 years.
With those assumptions, the homeowner will pay approximately $55,560 in education-related property taxes over his adult life (60 years times $926). I will pay twice as much, or $111,120, excluding the much higher amount that I paid while living in New Jersey.
Now let's assume that Arizona's per-pupil spending of about $7,000 also stays constant in inflation-adjusted dollars. That means that the 12-year cost of a public k-12 education is $84,000.
Thus, the person paying $926 a year in education-related taxes is getting a good deal, putting aside the issue of educational quality. If he sends one kid to public school for 12 years, he gets $84,000 worth of education at a cost in lifetime property-related taxes of $55,560. The deal is even better if he has three kids. In that case, he gets $252,000 worth of education at a cost of $55,560.
Of course, it is not a good deal if he has no kids or if he sends his kids to private school, in which case he gets $0 worth of education at a cost of $55,560. Since my kid attends parochial school, I get an even worse deal. I will pay $111,120 to public schools and another $50,000 or so in private tuition, for a total of $161,120 to provide my son with a k-12 education.
Another way to look at my cost and the cost of all parents who send their kids to religious schools is that we are paying twice for the same education in order to exercise our religious freedom. That angle is never covered in the mainstream media on the voucher debate and the related issue of the separation of church and state.
Are you getting your money's worth from public education? The answer is "yes" if you send at least one kid to public school, especially if you live in a lower-priced house. The answer is "definitely yes" if you send more than one kid to public school. The answer is "no" if you do not have children. And the answer is "definitely no" if your kid attends private school.
According to Genesis 1:28, the Lord told Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful and multiply." He should said, "To get a good deal at your neighbor's expense, be fruitful, multiply and send your kids to public schools."
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Mr. Cantoni is an author, public speaker and consultant. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.
well, yeah. but can you imagine the kind of offense the lib/dems and teachers union would mount against jeb bush?
f*ck 'em, i say.
Well, depressing from a taxation standpoint, but at least your kids are not being raised/desocialized by the other little yard-apes in kiddie jail!
Too many people in NJ cannot do simple arithmetic. Right here in our little blue collar town, the voters just put the same people who raised their school taxes after the voters shot down the tax increase at the polls right back into office.
Thank you, thank you so much for saying that. Actually, I would prefer to be exempt from school tax altogether, but I'd settle for an education tax credit at first. Vouchers wouldn't be given to the people paying the bulk of school taxes - they'd only be awarded to the "needy" (i.e. the people not paying the bulk of the school taxes). Then, not only would we pay for public schools, but we'd pay for other people's children's private school education, too.
You must be in the same situation I'm in right now. Some of my children have been home educated, while some have been educated in private schools. And I'm to my neck in property taxes that are supposedly going toward educating someone else's childre. Well, I, like you, want my money back!!!!
I hear ya'! We live in South Jersey where the property taxes are way out of sync with the property values and families' incomes. Our children are all homeschooled right now, but we hope to send them to private schools in the future. Yet, we may not have that option as, like you, we're struggling to pay school taxes.
Thanks again for your comments! I hope the situation improves for all of us soon.
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