No kids-Why do we have to pay school tax (Howe: lawyer, insurance)

[wCat]

Originally Posted by F10gear

That's another good point. Why should that have to pay the school tax? I think that they have more than paid their dues. Don't they deserve to retire in a good community without having to pay high school taxes?

Well....there is an over 65 cap on homesteads for seniors. It just doesn't eliminate paying schools. But they do get a very significant tax break on property insurance. Ad to that a DV exemption, a historic property exemtions on top of homestead designations and some people are doing ok in the property tax department.

Where the county falls down is that they don't always catch "remodels" and improvements to property that might increase someone's property tax. Or the fraudulent people that might be claiming homestead exemptions here and homesteads in other states. That runs rampant and would save ALL of us taxes if they tightened up on that. It's not until a property sells that some of these "improvements" or added value is caught when the property is finally sold. These appraisers and asssesors that work for the county have sooooo many properties to access that they generally do drive bys to update changes or improvements to properties. Not everything can be seen from the street level!!

[SthrnInTX]

Originally Posted by blabride

OK here it goes. As a high school teacher with 23 years of experience I have seen this monster grow to reach rediculous proportions. First of all today's public schools have to deal with bureacracy at three different levels. Bush's no child left behind stuff has put an enormous amount of expensive pressure on schools to do whatever is necessary to educate everyone in a mainstream classroom. That means districts have to hire several different types of educators specializing in mant different things. For instance we have English as a Second Language teachers and aides, SCIOP now. We also have Sail psychologists to help 504 students with emotional problems, we have teachers that specialize in working with homebound students, we have social workers working with students that have family abuse problems. Well you get the idea.
The state also has us trying to adhere to there Excellence In Education plans. Which is a process to get teacher certification equal. So if you don't have a lifetime certificate your going to have to go back to school to get more hours and or training. Not to mention the taks test and the amazing amount of pressure to get an excellent rating. That means we have a whole testing department of employees working on this.
The local school boards are under a lot of political pressure to look good in all of these areas so there is a lot of micromanagement from central office. We have 10 curriculum director's making administrative type salaries.
Finally here at the school we are under a lot of parental pressure to constantly do the right thing and are always worried about law suits so we have an administrative staff of 1 principle and 6 assistant principles and one dean of students.
Yes this is absolutely rediculous. When I started in 1985 none of this existed, except for the Principle and three grade level assistants. When I started I had to generate paperwork for four different things. Attendance, content mastery, lesson plans and discipline. Today it is up to fourteen and I don't even have to do lesson plans any more.
You want your taxes to go down, get more active in your local school board. Also get politicians to stop using education as a political hot potato. Everytime a politician starts talking about fixing education I can guarantee its going to cost you and I more money.
Yes you also want everyone to pay for schools as we all benefit from an educated society.

Is it possibly part of the problem of the decline of academic performance in this country that the above-quoted post by a teacher claiming 23 years experience has no less than four misspellings (two of which are repeated multiple times), misplaced punctuation, and fragmented sentences?

Would you buy a car from someone who didn't seem to know how the car worked?

This is a selling point for home schooling.

[loohoo]

Originally Posted by imaterry78259

I only want to pay a nominal fee of $1000.00 for school tax. How come my generation got educated and became doctors, lawyers and strippers without this insane school tax? I even walk to school 1.5 miles going and coming each day and carried the girls books home from school.

We must have grown up around the same time because that is what I did. Also, the parents paid "book rental" for each child they had in school. No palaces for us. Homeowners nowadays are the cash cow for Texas schools.

[imaterry78259]

Originally Posted by loohoo

We must have grown up around the same time because that is what I did. Also, the parents paid "book rental" for each child they had in school. No palaces for us. Homeowners nowadays are the cash cow for Texas schools.

I concur!!!. Lets get back to fundamentals. I remember that we even had class outside on a nice fall or spring day. The ISD Super live in your neighborhood and not in the Dominion.

[imaterry78259]

What school district has the best academic awards?

[imaterry78259]

Reagan High School to spend 8 million on paving sidewalks???????????

[texasdreamin]

Originally Posted by imaterry78259

Reagan High School to spend 8 million on paving sidewalks???????????

They've got to spend it somewhere so they can keep their budget. So...8 million dollar sidewalks. What a ripoff. If at the end of the budget year they have money left over, then they lose it and get a lower budget for the next year. They will try to spend every dime to keep their budget.

[2Blonde]

Blast away at the current educational system but you pay higher taxes because everything costs more these days. When we were in school it didn't cost 300 million to build things because labor, materials and land were cheaper. Additionally, nobody bothered to check if we were building on contaminated land or if building in a certain place would affect the integrity of our aquifer.

You may not have children yet but someday you may and you will realize that you want your children to attend good schools that won't cave in and were built with good materials.

FYI... as for these palaces you mention, did you know that Reagan and other new schools don't even have A/C in their gymnasiums. Have you tried sitting through a game or a presentation in a gym filled with hundreds of people and no A/C.

But regardless of whether or not there is some waste, which I agree needs to be addressed, I want my doctors, accountants, military commanders and scientists of the future to be educated by the best teachers possible. And if we need to pay them more in order to get the best then I am all for that. The person who is responsible for my medical care or running our country when I am old deserves a good education and that happens to cost more money these days.

[texasdreamin]

But regardless of whether or not there is some waste, which I agree needs to be addressed, I want my doctors, accountants, military commanders and scientists of the future to be educated by the best teachers possible. And if we need to pay them more in order to get the best then I am all for that. The person who is responsible for my medical care or running our country when I am old deserves a good education and that happens to cost more money these days.

Intelligence has nothing to do with palaces. It is the teachers who are the catalyst between brilliance and ignorance, along with parental support. Granted, I agree about schools needing air conditioning...but what does good teaching have to do with multimillion dollar stadiums and other luxuries they really do not need? Seems to me that they could build less expensive schools sans 8 million dollar sidewalks, and pay the teacher more.

[imaterry78259]

Originally Posted by 2Blonde

Blast away at the current educational system but you pay higher taxes because everything costs more these days. When we were in school it didn't cost 300 million to build things because labor, materials and land were cheaper. Additionally, nobody bothered to check if we were building on contaminated land or if building in a certain place would affect the integrity of our aquifer.

You may not have children yet but someday you may and you will realize that you want your children to attend good schools that won't cave in and were built with good materials.

FYI... as for these palaces you mention, did you know that Reagan and other new schools don't even have A/C in their gymnasiums. Have you tried sitting through a game or a presentation in a gym filled with hundreds of people and no A/C.

But regardless of whether or not there is some waste, which I agree needs to be addressed, I want my doctors, accountants, military commanders and scientists of the future to be educated by the best teachers possible. And if we need to pay them more in order to get the best then I am all for that. The person who is responsible for my medical care or running our country when I am old deserves a good education and that happens to cost more money these days.

I have no beef with you but try telling that to a senior who has to pay 600 a month for property & ISD taxes living on a fixed income. Guess what I maybe old but my high school classroom didn't have any AC but we turned out ok. I want our kids to have the best education too but not on the backs of hard earning taxpayers for luxury items.