When did schools become our 'taxmasters'

[SuzeOFan]

Please This has nothing to do with teachers. I honestly don't know how they do it! And have nothing but respect for their hard work and dedication.

This has to do with the whole school 'SYSTEM'.

When I look at my bill for local city and even state tax - and than compare that to how much I pay for school tax.... it leaves me scratching my little wooden head with nothing but questions.

The main questions I have is HOW & WHEN did the school system become our latest 'taxmaster'? They seem to have the ultimate cosmic power over citizens property taxes and even income tax.

Talk about taxation without representation!

Anyone else here feel the same way?

[LuxLiving]

Yes - as a homeschooling parent it bothered me to be forced to pay for the school system... as it did when I was single...as it does now that we will in the future as retirees have no children using the system. I understand that is just the way it is - but BAUGH!!!

Just like I hate paying additional taxes to keep up the fairgrounds, the civic areana, and a local museum, etc. All places I never use. My thoughts are if they aren't economically viable on their own merits, shut 'em down!

[SuzeOFan]

Lol! Well put!

[tinapbeana]

just got my property tax for the new-to-me house, and 50% of the bill is for school taxes. please bear in mind i live in a state where we have an 'education lottery': all the profits from the lottery system go to our education system, and i've seen the numbers they're bringing in some major bucks!

why, then, do i have to pya 50% of my property taxes to fund schools? can't i just promise to buy the equivalent in scratch off lottery tickets? i would, too: at least then i'd have some sort of chance of getting the money back!

[LuxLiving]

Yeah tinap, an 'I already gave at the casino' free pass.

[tinapbeana]

Originally Posted by LuxLiving

Yeah tinap, an 'I already gave at the casino' free pass.

hehehehee! there is a casino 2 hours away run by the cherokee nation. i could save up all year long and then when tax time comes in december i could buy a bunch of scratch off tickets, drive to NC and gamble and the casino, get my lottery and casino 'passes', and mark my property taxes paid and take the casino gambling as a charitable deduction!

i like it!

[SuzeOFan]

tpbeana - Consider yourself fortunate!

Most people (including muah) pay anywhere from 70-85% of their taxes to the schools in our area.

We pay a whopping $6000 every year in local taxes! That's about $4800 to just the schools....

Imagine how much they must be raking in - when you consider all the residents in our area? Even the old folks and those without school age children? They must be cleaning up!

[PrincessPerky]

Ditto the tax thing, I am soo not happy with the cost per kid around here,and parents complaining the schools need more money...throwing money at the problem wont fix it!

[SuzeOFan]

Speaking of cost per kid...

The other thing that rattles my little cage is the ever-growing 'hidden' costs of sending kids to school BESIDES THE TAXES...

It's not just the clothes, shoes, coats, bookbags, tissue boxes, pencils, colored pencils, glue, notebook paper, binders, erasers, crayons, notebooks ....etc, etc.

It's all the endless fundraisers, the increasingly expensive school trips, (my 8th grader had about 3 trips costing close to $115 last year!) class parties $ and party donation requests, yearbooks, (even in K-5th) school t-shirts, jackets, etc, etc., 2nd and 3rd set of new clothes (because they wore out or grew out of the old...) teacher gifts, and many other incidentals I haven't thought of...

You would think our contribution of $4800 in taxes would cover at least SOME of that...


Sorry for ranting. But thanks for listening!

[Ima saver]

I pay about 75% of my tax money to the schools also. The schools were so dangerous in florida that we had to send our child to private school the entire time, plus pay the school tax.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I really want everyone's kids to get a good education. Everyone's! I even want them to get an expansive education. One that indulges their natural curiosity. I want them to get an education that enables them to aim for all kinds of goals in life, that allows them to competently take care of themselves and their offspring through future employment or enterpreneurship.

I want other people's children to have an education which makes them feel connected to me and to the larger community so that they think of how their own actions have effect on others. I want them to feel good about recognizing and creating all kinds of beauty so that they will be happier people who feel confident and satisfied with the good things that are out there.

I want to live among educated people. I even want educated people who are happy and satisfied partly because of their education to be the people who cash my check at the bank, sell me three and a half yards of fabric, take my order for a salad and hot tea, sell me beer at the stadium, take care of my nieces at daycare, and wash my former neighbor's body in the nusring home.

I think I do have a big stake in having everyone's children educated. I say this from the point of view of someone whose local school district is up against some terrible odds and, sadly, not prevailing.

[SuzeOFan]

I hear the public school system in Florida (at least in St. Petersburg) is pretty much broke. I have cousins there who dropped out. And their kids too. My brother tried high school there when he moved down to live with them...and he ended up dropping out too. (bad influence? Who knows) But I've never heard anything good about them. Sounds like you did the right thing Ima. But as we all know sometimes the 'right thing' is usually also the costly thing.

Right now we're debating whether to send my 9th grader to a private high school next year or not. It's expensive and I have 5 other children. But I just hate the idea of him being in a public high-school. Too much secular nonsense being taught there these days ...not to mention drugs and violence. Just can't trust schools anymore...

So I guess it's no suprise that I'm all for school vouchers...!

[SuzeOFan]

Joan - are you a teacher by any chance?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

No, Joan.of.the.Arch is not a teacher. She is someone who is seeing the results of really bad schools in her community (Of course, the whole story is more compolicated than just bad schools.)

[PrincessPerky]

I am for homeschooling, and offering my knowledge to any and all who ask, so I am for education, but I am not for expensive day care, and in many ways that is what school is...a very expensive tax payer supported daycare. Not that many teachers don't care, they do, but they are fighitng a losing battle when children who have no desire to be there are dumped in their laps and they get to spend the day on crowd control.

I am also against mass school for any kid who didn't ask for it, if you are being forced to learn, you are not ready to learn.. (cajoled, yes, forced no)

Which means IMO take her home, and let her learn whatever she wants, in the end if she wants to go to school for some reason other than the cute guys in the lunch room, so be it. If on the other hand she decides she wants to learn to sew, make a webpage, write a novel, explore the world, or whatever..why shouldn't she?

I personally feel the longer we assume people cannot or will not educate the more people will join the crowd of not teaching. Why teach the alphabet your kid will get it soon enough (well why wait, and why force them to sit for 6 hours to get it?) Why teach math they will get it soon enough..err my kid gets it now, and any other time he wants it, no forced to sit..school is not a burden to any of them...no forced sitting, no forced learning of boring tasks (though some things DD wil have to learn weather she cares or not..like the capital of NC..which still has her beating the average joe on the street..who was schooled!)

This is not my opinion of your family (whoever you are reading this), no need to come on here and tell me how great your personal school is, one here or there is nice, but the attidude in general is the problem IMO..the attitude that a school is in charge of learning, when in truth it should be mom and dad and extended family and friends.....instead of feeling obligated to open our pocket book for the local school we should feel obligated to open our minds, our hearts our ideas, and our knowledge..we should feel obligated to fill in the kid at the park when he asks what kind of tree that is..we should feel obligated to find a kid to help us bake at least once in a while (we also deserve some alone time) we should feel obligated to offer neighborly knowledge on gardening..or frugality..or anything we know! If you are fixing a house and a kid wonders by..why not answer a question or two? If you are fixing your car and a kid wonders in, why not see if she can help? If you are paying bills and your kid grabs the calculator, why not let them help you add or subtract?

I think the number one reason why most do not share is they are too darn busy.....and why are we so busy? aren't kids more important than stuff, or certificates?

[budgetmom]

Don't forget the enrollment fees and the book fees.
Seriously though, a better question would be where is the money actually going? It goes to pay the teachers salary, to maintain the school building or to build a new school in an over crowded area, to maintain the buses and to keep them full with gas. It helps to buy computers to help our children learn, it goes for craft projects, it goes for payground equipment and basket balls for gym... if you add up that money that everyone is giving it seems like a lot. But then you have to pay everybody.
I know it stinks because your kids are grown or the go to private school or you don't have any, but what are you going to do? Somebody's gotta pay for it.

[SuzeOFan]

Hats off to you Princess!

I only wish I had the self-discipline it takes to home school.

Thought about it alot. Believe me.

But I am one of the most disorganized (and lazy) people around - which is a terrible thing to have to admit.

I am so jealous - not of people better off than I am - but of parents who homeschool... ! Now there's dedication for you!

Maybe if I knew of a group in our area I would have the confidence to try it...

[sarah]

You'd rather have an illiterate workforce than pay taxes?

[lrjohnson]

I am very wary of homeschooling, having known some really bad examples. Not every parent is doing it well or for the right reasons. Not all children have parents who can effectively home school. I have no kids and will have no kids, and have no ties the the public school system. but have no problem contributing my tax money to ensuring that future generations have educational opportunities.

Examples off home schooling that went awry that I know of personally include:
A parent not wanting to deal with getting the child to school, so they sign up to home school and the child sleeps late every day, gets up, watches tv, and is ignored. Another where a a mentally unstable woman is keeping her son at home and all he witnesses is her paranoia and only seeing his mom ever, starts becoming like her. A child who spent 7 years being home schooled and not leaving the house except to go to the mall on the weekend-she has no friends, no poeple skills, couldn't get pass the test to get a ged...mom did some very rudimentary scvhooling the first couple years and then just left her kid at home alone, with no stimulation. A white supremacist who has raised three kids to hate just about everybody, not jus tother races. A woman who no longer has contact with the younger siblings and her parents...they were all homeschooled to keep them out of "the system" which was ungodly and too PC according to their views...the woman bitterly regrets her lack of education and can't see how her parents were allowed to deprive her n such a fundamental way. These are off the top of my head. I know many parents home school well, but I don't want the kids who suffer to be forgotten.

[PauletteGoddard]

I'm guessing everyone who's contributed to this thread has gone to private school?