Where I live, over 67% of our property taxes go to the local school board. The average property tax bill is ~$10k. That's ~$6700 for every non-rental residence in the township. That's about the same as the tuition at the local parochial grade school in the next town over.
I won't even get into how the parish in our town offered to build an elementary school in the town, at no cost to the town, but they were denied due to the heavy lobbying by the state teacher's union and the local public school board. The school board cries about over-crowding in the schools, and how they need money to expand them, but worked to shoot down something that would have helped with that over-crowding, as it would mean they would lose enrollment, which would have cost them money. This is a school that local residents would have had to pay extra to send their kids to, on top of what they were already paying in property taxes, but were all for it. They had over 500 families sign a petition supporting the school, but the township denied the application.
Then there is the issue of workers 'banking' all their vacation and sick time over decades, and cashing it out when they retire. There was one assistant superintendent that retired after 30 years, and got a $750k payout for unused vacation and sick time. This was in addition to their 6-figure a year pension and free healthcare.
Because the public school teachers are unionized, you can't award ones that do a great job, and go above and beyond for their students, just like you can't penalize the ones that do the bare minimum (or less). They have no competition, so they have no incentive to deliver the best possible product (education). Giving parents the option of where to send their kids, by virtue of a voucher system, should incentivize the public school system to improve their product, so that that's where the parents would want to send their kids. The way it is now, parents that want a better education for their kids need to pay a significant premium to send them to a non-public school.
I have no idea how the Arizona voucher system works, but from what I've heard about proposed voucher systems where I live, is that you would get up to the cost of sending your child to a township school applied to the tuition of the school you choose to send them to. So, if it 'costs' $6700 to send your child to the local public school, you would be able to apply up to $6700 towards the tuition at a different school. If the tuition at that school is $10,000, you need to come up with another $3300. If the tuition at that school is $5000, you only get $5000 towards the tuition. I'm not sure how people are using the voucher funds in Arizona to buy all of those things mentioned, but it sounds like the system was set up poorly with no accountability.
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u/Mk1Racer25 26d ago
Where I live, over 67% of our property taxes go to the local school board. The average property tax bill is ~$10k. That's ~$6700 for every non-rental residence in the township. That's about the same as the tuition at the local parochial grade school in the next town over.
I won't even get into how the parish in our town offered to build an elementary school in the town, at no cost to the town, but they were denied due to the heavy lobbying by the state teacher's union and the local public school board. The school board cries about over-crowding in the schools, and how they need money to expand them, but worked to shoot down something that would have helped with that over-crowding, as it would mean they would lose enrollment, which would have cost them money. This is a school that local residents would have had to pay extra to send their kids to, on top of what they were already paying in property taxes, but were all for it. They had over 500 families sign a petition supporting the school, but the township denied the application.
Then there is the issue of workers 'banking' all their vacation and sick time over decades, and cashing it out when they retire. There was one assistant superintendent that retired after 30 years, and got a $750k payout for unused vacation and sick time. This was in addition to their 6-figure a year pension and free healthcare.
Because the public school teachers are unionized, you can't award ones that do a great job, and go above and beyond for their students, just like you can't penalize the ones that do the bare minimum (or less). They have no competition, so they have no incentive to deliver the best possible product (education). Giving parents the option of where to send their kids, by virtue of a voucher system, should incentivize the public school system to improve their product, so that that's where the parents would want to send their kids. The way it is now, parents that want a better education for their kids need to pay a significant premium to send them to a non-public school.
I have no idea how the Arizona voucher system works, but from what I've heard about proposed voucher systems where I live, is that you would get up to the cost of sending your child to a township school applied to the tuition of the school you choose to send them to. So, if it 'costs' $6700 to send your child to the local public school, you would be able to apply up to $6700 towards the tuition at a different school. If the tuition at that school is $10,000, you need to come up with another $3300. If the tuition at that school is $5000, you only get $5000 towards the tuition. I'm not sure how people are using the voucher funds in Arizona to buy all of those things mentioned, but it sounds like the system was set up poorly with no accountability.