minorities fitting in, in Middlesex (friends)

[willdufauve]

There's a new Chinese language charter public school just starting here. I think it's in Hadley or Amherst and I think it's elementary grades. If I remember from the news some Chinese biracial and adoptive families pushed for the charter from the DOE and got approved last year. Might interest some of you?

[maestramommy]

Originally Posted by Parsec

I really don't know much about the schools here compared to the midwest or west coast. It seems like most of them are underfunded by the state, so you have to look at each specific community. Some towns will tax the heck out of the homeowners to keep the school system top-notch, while others are forced to cut faculty and extra-curriculars.

I really like the schools here because they have small class sizes and smaller schools (high schools have graduating classes of between 200-300 students for the towns I'm looking at). The kids get to know each other and there's a better sense of community and individual identity. When I was living in Atlanta, I was horrified by the high schools which had 2000-4000 students each. And each town had 2-3 high schools! They were like college campuses where kids can easily get lost in the system and become "a number." I don't mean to be stereotypical, but in Atlanta and Cali (especially SoCali) there were a lot of illegal immigrants attending the schools. Too much of the faculty resources were tied up w/these students trying to teach them the basics, and the smart students ended up being ignored.

Heh! I grew up in Chicago, and my HS had 5000 students! You'd start out freshman year in a class of about 1400, and a little less than 1000 would graduate. My class ended up with 986. We usually had 30+ students a class. So when I saw that MA has 15 or fewer students per class I was stunned. That's smaller than college!

So property taxes aren't the same across the state? They different from one town to the next?

[smarty]

Originally Posted by maestramommy

So property taxes aren't the same across the state? They different from one town to the next?

That is correct. Property tax rate for each town is different.

For fiscal 2007, the five communities with the highest average tax bills are Weston ($13,379), Sherborn ($11,733), Lincoln ($10,790), Dover ($10,353) and Carlisle ($9,833).

At the lower end of the spectrum, the five communities with the lowest average tax bills were Rowe ($780), Hancock ($785), Florida ($1,014), Monroe ($1,086) and Erving ($1,203).

Tax bills are calculated by multiplying the town's rate, typically set toward the end of each calendar year, by the property's assessed value, divided by $1,000.

Here's a complete list
http://www.mass.gov/Ador/docs/dls/pu...07/oct_nov.pdf

Here's an article about shifting state tax to property tax
http://www.massbudget.org/Property_T...sachusetts.pdf

[smarty]

Originally Posted by willdufauve

There's a new Chinese language charter public school just starting here. I think it's in Hadley or Amherst and I think it's elementary grades. If I remember from the news some Chinese biracial and adoptive families pushed for the charter from the DOE and got approved last year. Might interest some of you?

Yup... I just found this article
As China's power grows, so do Chinese programs in public schools - Boston.com

[Parsec]

Originally Posted by maestramommy

Heh! I grew up in Chicago, and my HS had 5000 students! You'd start out freshman year in a class of about 1400, and a little less than 1000 would graduate. My class ended up with 986. We usually had 30+ students a class. So when I saw that MA has 15 or fewer students per class I was stunned. That's smaller than college!

So property taxes aren't the same across the state? They different from one town to the next?

Yup, generally the more rural towns in the Boston area have higher tax rates because 90% or more of the town's tax burden is placed on residential homeowners. The larger towns and cities with lots of retail shops can place a larger tax burden on their commercial base and lower the rate for the homeowners. This is something to keep in mind when purchasing a house here, since the property taxes for a similar house in 2 adjacent towns can end up costing an few hundred extra dollars a month in the more rural town.

Depends on what you want ...

[maestramommy]

Originally Posted by Parsec

Yup, generally the more rural towns in the Boston area have higher tax rates because 90% or more of the town's tax burden is placed on residential homeowners. The larger towns and cities with lots of retail shops can place a larger tax burden on their commercial base and lower the rate for the homeowners. This is something to keep in mind when purchasing a house here, since the property taxes for a similar house in 2 adjacent towns can end up costing an few hundred extra dollars a month in the more rural town.

Depends on what you want ...

Should I assume that the higher the property value the higher the tax? The other thing I noticed was that it seems as though towns with higher real estate values get less $$ spent on the schools, by the state. I was looking at greatschools.net, and as an example, Westford as more expensive houses than Wilmington, but the state spends more money on each student in Wilmington than Westford. And Winchester, which has even more expensive houses, gets even less money per student from the state. However, test scores are the highest there. Is this one of those things where the state places more of the burden for schools in wealthier towns. Is that one of the reasons why property taxes vary from one town to the next?

BTW, these towns I mentioned. Are they considered rural?

[TheWereRabbit]

It should be emphasized that Parsec says the more rural towns in the Boston area. Weston, Sherborn etc. are all relatively rural (and extremely wealthy) but nowhere near as rural as the towns with the lowest average tax bills which are all out in Western Mass. (That aside, everything he said is completely true)

The state spends more money on poorer towns because the towns themselves raise less money. I guess. If anyone else knows more about this feel free to correct me.

Of the towns you named Westford and Wilmington are both suburbs but pretty rural. Winchester is not rural at all. But, it's all relative.

[CaseyB]

Originally Posted by maestramommy

Should I assume that the higher the property value the higher the tax? The other thing I noticed was that it seems as though towns with higher real estate values get less $$ spent on the schools, by the state. I was looking at greatschools.net, and as an example, Westford as more expensive houses than Wilmington, but the state spends more money on each student in Wilmington than Westford. And Winchester, which has even more expensive houses, gets even less money per student from the state. However, test scores are the highest there. Is this one of those things where the state places more of the burden for schools in wealthier towns. Is that one of the reasons why property taxes vary from one town to the next?

BTW, these towns I mentioned. Are they considered rural?

As a general rule you are right that more state aid will go to the towns whose property values are lower. But property taxes will also vary because if a town is rural and has few commercial properties to tax, then the burden falls all on the homeowner. Also, some towns are just better at managing their $$ than others.

[smarty]

The current formula is heavy based on property value.

Here's a good presentation of where money comes from and goes
http://www.lwvma.org/FiscalPolicy/FP...HR%20-%202.pdf

http://www.doe.mass.edu/research/rep...907finance.doc

Here's an interesting proposal
http://www.lwvma.org/Testimony/Testimony-LWVM%20ed%20funding%20formula%202007Final2.pdf (broken link)

[willdufauve]

I think the discussion of the towns is both correct and missing the point.

First, to clarify, Lincoln, Carlisle, Dover, etc aren't really rural towns. That's inaccurate. They're very affluent high end suburbs of Boston where people live on big lots with lots of trees because of money and zoning.

The property taxes are high there because the actual value of the houses is very high. Think old money and mutual fund managers.There are no 2 million dollar houses in Erving - there are $150K houses.

Rowe, Monroe, Florida are very pretty towns that are in rural western Mass. They're not Boston suburbs, and you better like trees because there's no jobs, stores, or anything else there. They're not even really on the road to anywhere.

Rowe has low taxes partly because the nuclear power plant is there. Erving is another region. You won't find a less attractive town than Erving. There's a huge paper mill on the river right in the center of town. The people in Dover might own paper mills around the world but they certainly aren't going to live next to one.

The size, quality and value of the houses, and the resulting schools, social life, opportunities etc in Erving and Dover don't compare in any way. The taxes reflect all of that.