On Jan 31, 2011, at 8:35 AM, Alan Rudy wrote:
> Without suggesting that there's not very much merit to this argument,
> because there is a great deal of merit to it, the situation on this front
> isn't as bad as it was before the Supreme Court determined that using local
> property taxes to fund education was unconstitutional. Where things get
> messed up is - as I understand it - that per student funding is done at the
> state level in almost all states but that this applies only to instructional
> costs. In terms of buildings, facilities and other infrastructures, whether
> or not local millages pass dictates the physical and technical structure and
> quality of schools and extracurriculars and this matters no little bit.
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/08f33pub.pdf
Funding for public schools is 44% local, 48% state. Given the fungibility of money, I don't see how the flows can be separated easily.
Doug