Tag: Schools

Short term plan to Un-Florida Florida’s Public Schools

A Two-Year Plan for Reforming Florida Public Education Finance & Governance

In a recent report on public education in Florida, I made the following recommendations:[1]

  • Recommendation 1 –Financing a Uniform System of High Quality Public Schools
    • Phase 1: Engage in the work of setting a manageable standard of “high quality” public schooling for Florida’s children by engaging in analyses of the costs associated with providing each and every child in Florida with equal educational opportunity to achieve high education outcomes.
      • Establish a statewide commission on school funding.
      • Engage stakeholders in setting standards of excellence for Florida children.
      • Engage experts to estimate the costs associated with meeting those standards, applying appropriately rigorous methods.
    • Phase 2: Guided by those estimates, reform the school finance formula and increase state aid to schools so as to provide them with the necessary resources for all children to have equal educational opportunity to achieve high education outcomes. That is, meet the constitutional standard ratified by Florida voters in 1998 and 2002. This should include estimates of commensurate funding for charter schools, based on needs and costs.
      • Take eliminating or reducing property taxes off the table. The most effective form of property tax relief is increased state aid, as would occur under implementation of this recommendation.
  • Recommendation 2 – Charter School Reset
    • Part 1: Impose a moratorium on charter school expansion, including the Schools of Hope Program. The existing charter school sector in Florida is compromising equity, eroding efficiency and producing poor educational outcomes for those it serves.
    • Part 2: Establish new regulations for evaluating existing charter operators and vetting new charter operators to ensure improved equity in the distribution of students by their needs across schools. Adopt and enforce stricter regulations pertaining to student outcomes.
    • Part 3: Adopt updated charter school legislation to ensure that charter schools are sufficiently “public,” required to operate as if “state actors,” protecting children’s constitutional rights and abiding by all relevant federal statutes.
  • Recommendation 3 – Voucher Freeze & Reallocate
    • Freeze expansion of the voucher program to free up state resources to support a fully funded, overhauled public school finance formula, to provide a uniform system of free public schools.

The justification for each of these recommendations is thoroughly documented in the cited report. The next step is to lay out an action plan for policy advocacy for the next two years, and next two Florida legislative cycles.

Two year Plan

Following are my recommendations for that two -year action plan:

Year 1 (2026 Session, fy2027) – Pause, Reset & Evaluate

  • Repeal and rethink Schools of Hope (SoH)

    The Schools of Hope legislation and regulations which have been fast tracked over the past year are an ill-conceived patchwork with little potential to solve systemic problems in Florida public education. But, conversations around that program have revealed three key issues worthy of consideration.

    • First, the SoH plan acknowledges that Florida’s existing charter sector is not strong and that recruiting proven providers from other states might be necessary.
    • Second, the SoH plan includes substantial additional funding (nearly $5k) per pupil to ensure that designated schools could be successful.
    • Third, the SoH plan acknowledges the importance of and costs related to operations and maintenance of capital – land and buildings needed for providing quality education.

    Presumptively, a taxpayer financed school of choice shouldn’t exist to begin with unless it provides some element of “hope.” Hope for better student academic outcomes, while maintaining children’s and taxpayers’ rights. Empirical evidence in my report indicates that the charter sector on average in Florida, does not advance “hope” for better academic outcomes for Florida’s children. The purported need to create a special class of charter schools (ones that do offer “hope”), requiring access to free capital and substantial additional funding in order to be “successful” is indicative of the systemic problem state legislators have failed to address.

    My report explains that Florida public schools, inclusive of charter schools lack the funding needed to achieve high performance. Still, they perform quite efficiently with the funding they have. Florida public district AND charter schools would benefit from that same boost in funding (approximately 50% increase to annual operating expenditures). But the proposed SoH plan instead, taps into the operating expenses of district schools to offset costs for charter schools (for operations and maintenance of facilities), giving district officials little control over that allocation, while also boosting revenues for designated SoH charter operators. This plan is grossly inequitable, applying non-uniform treatment across schools and usurping constitutional authority of local boards of education to efficiently operate a system of high-quality schools. The plan as currently proposed must be repealed. 

    • Revisit charter schools and charter sector statutes and regulations

    The U.S. Supreme Court may soon rule that charter schools under most state charter school laws do not operate as “state actors” and thus are not compelled recognize children’s constitutional rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, due process in cases of disciplinary action, or equal protection. Thus, it will fall on states to rewrite their charter school legislation to ensure that the protections available to children in charter schools are equal to those attending public district schools.[2]

    A second issue that must be addressed is the evaluation of a) current charter operators and their reauthorization and b) the vetting of potential outside providers. The state must tighten statutory and regulatory requirements – and apply existing ones – to ensure that providers of schools of choice are a) not having detrimental economic or demographic segregative impact on local neighborhoods and schools and b) are provided quality education as measured by relevant outcomes compared against schools serving similar student populations and with equitable resources. Outside providers wishing to be authorized should validate that they have been successful serving a representative population with respect to the spaces in which they plan to operate locally.

    A third issue that must be addressed is the equitable distribution of and cost-sharing for capital space. The SoH plan essentially provides squatters rights to recognized charter operators and then pushes the costs onto local districts. My previous writings have asserted that it may be reasonable to provide access to publicly owned and maintained capital for charter operators, rather than have them use tax dollars to acquire land and buildings for private ownership.[3] Publicly owned and operated schools are governed under the constitutional authority (in Florida) of local boards of education. The state may develop guidance for local boards of education to collaborate with charter operators for access to under-used district capital. Local boards can/should submit plans for such collaboration. This approach is favorable over selling those assets to affiliates of charter operators via 3rd party transactions wherein tax dollars are used to buy – via revenue bond debt, a facility that the public owns – and after buying that facility a second time, the public no longer owns it.[4]

    A fourth issue is the equitable financing of district and charter schools according to reasonable estimates of the costs associated with differences in student populations served, and with separate consideration of equitable cost sharing for capital space. On the first, point, a study conducted for the State of Maryland provides insights on the complexities of “commensurate” funding (e.g. “uniform” in a Florida context) for district and charter schools. [5]

    A final issue that must be addressed is transparency and thoroughness of financial reporting including reporting on and regulation of related party transactions of contractual services and for capital acquisition.[6] The latter can be mitigated by public oversight of access to publicly owned capital. Recent reporting by CBS News exposed the complex web of financial relationships between charter management companies and contracted service providers, most of which under current law, remain permissible, however suspect and opaque.[7] These issues can be fixed.[8]

    • Equal Opportunity for High Quality Schooling Commission

    The tacit acknowledgment in the SoH proposal that schools in Florida need more money – a lot more money – if we expect them to succeed, at high levels, while serving the state’s most disadvantaged communities – is a good starting point. As I noted in my report, funding matters for the quality of student outcomes that can be achieved. [9] Funding matters more in higher poverty, previously lower spending settings. Further, well designed state school finance policies are guided by outcome goals, wherein funding levels are calibrated with respect to the costs to achieve the desired outcome goals. Those costs vary across children and settings, to achieve comparable outcome goals.[10]

    The legislature should establish commission and engage the public in setting those goals and then working with qualified experts in determining the costs to achieve those goals across children and educational settings in Florida. Those analyses may guide a comprehensive reform of school funding for Year 2 of this plan.

    The back of the napkin spending increases proposed for Schools of Hope may be a useful guidepost for year 1 increases for the state’s highest poverty schools and districts, where those increases are just under $5,000 per pupil. Figure 26 of my report shows that if the state were to recapture even 70% of the budgeted school voucher funds for the current year, per pupil funding could be increased by just under $5,000 per pupil for the highest poverty quintile of school districts and $2,000 per pupil in the second highest poverty quintile. Per the relevant research on return on investment of education spending, this would be a far more productive and efficient allocation of those same dollars. District and charter schools would equally/uniformly benefit.

    • Resist any and all reductions or limitations on major tax revenue sources

    On average, tax and expenditure limits have long run detrimental effects on public service quality including the quality of public schooling measured by students’ outcomes or by the quality of inputs to schooling including class sizes and teacher compensation.[11] Florida district and charter schools are already suffering a lack of sufficient funding to produce high outcomes. As illustrated in my report, Florida’s local public school districts are highly efficient at producing outcomes with the resources available.

    At the same time, Florida school districts have become more dependent on local property tax revenues to maintain current levels of service. While the share of revenue from property taxes has increased over the past 30 years, current spending per pupil has remained stagnant. Eliminating, cutting or capping property taxes either inclusive of school property taxes or not will place undue strain on local county and municipal budgets that will either directly or indirectly squeeze public and charter school resources for both operations and capital. The appropriate approach would be for the state to identify new tax revenue sources and use those sources to increase state aid to municipalities and school districts, taking pressure off local property taxes. State aid is the best form of property tax relief, permitting the services to be provided at the level of quality desired with less burden on local taxation to cover the costs of those services.[12]

    Year 2 (2027 Session, fy2028) – Overhaul School Funding Formula & related Governance

    • Overhaul (replace) the School Finance Formula

    Adopt a comprehensive school finance formula designed to cover all annual operating costs of schools, with the exception of transportation and capital. That school finance formula, unlike the present formula, should be calibrated to ensure that every district and school statewide has the resources necessary for all children to have equal opportunity to achieve the desired outcomes (as vetted through the public engagement process in year 1).

    • That formula must include appropriate adjustments for the costs of serving children from different backgrounds and attending school across different settings. This includes but may not be limited to a) children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, b) English learners, c) children with disabilities. Geographic and location factors should include but may not be limited to a) very small schools in remote, sparsely populated locations, b) differences in labor costs (associated with recruiting/retaining teachers of comparable qualifications across locations).
    • That formula should be inclusive of uniform funding for charter schooling, with potential exclusions (or charges applied) for services provided to charter students through the host district.
    • Separate, equitable formulas must be developed for a) the financing and allocation of capital (educational spaces) for district and charter enrolled students, and b) the financing centralized planning of transportation services.
    • Phase down (and out) funding of any new cohorts of voucher students

    This should free up substantial resources to support the first recommendation above, but additional revenues will likely still be needed.

    • Reorganize/reconstitute charter operators that do not contribute positively to equity or efficiency

    Florida has far too many charter operators that underserve children with disabilities, English learners and children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and yield poor academic outcomes for those they do serve when compared to district regular and magnet schools serving similar student populations.

    Using policy tools (legislation and regulations) developed in year 1, the state should begin the process of reconstituting these schools. Decisions should be based both on whether a school (or operator of many schools) contributes to or erodes equity with respect to students served versus those served in surrounding schools and residing in surrounding neighborhoods, in addition to performance metrics based on the population served. Any changes to or closures of schools should consider the least disruptive option for those currently enrolled. 

    NOTES

    [1]Baker, B.D. (2025) Financing a High-Quality System of Free Public Schools for Florida’s Children https://schoolfinance101.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/florida_school_finance_12.02.25.pdf

    [2] Green III, P. C., & Eckes, S. E. (2024). All Aboard!: Making Charter School Boards All-Purpose State Actors under the Supreme Court’s Amtrak Case. Drake L. Rev., 71, 562.

    [3] Baker, B. D. (2016). Exploring the Consequences of Charter School Expansion in US Cities. Economic Policy Institute. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED588750.pdf

    Baker, B., & Miron, G. (2015). The Business of Charter Schooling: Understanding the Policies That Charter Operators Use for Financial Benefit. National Education Policy Center. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED574733.pdf

    [4] Baker, B.D. (2015) We bought it twice but we nolonger own it. School Finance 101. https://schoolfinance101.com/2015/07/21/we-bought-it-twice-but-we-no-longer-own-it-is-co-location-the-better-option/

    [5] Levin, J., Baker, B., Atchison, D., Brodziak, I., Boyle, A., Hall, A., & Becker, J. (2016). Study of funding provided to public schools and public charter schools in Maryland. American Institutes for Research. https://marylandpublicschools.org/stateboard/Documents/01242017/TabG-CharterPublicSchoolFundingStudy.pdf

    [6] Green III, P. C., Baker, B. D., & Oluwole, J. O. (2018). Are charter schools the second coming of Enron: An examination of the gatekeepers that protect against dangerous related-party transactions in the charter school sector. Ind. LJ, 93, 1121.

    [7] https://www.cbsnews.com/video/florida-charter-school-company-gop-figure-parents-frustrated/

    [8] https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-exploit-lucrative-loophole-that-would-be-easy-to-close-111792

    [9] Baker, B. D., & Knight, D. (2025). Does money matter in education? Albert Shanker Institute. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED671888.pdf

    [10]Atchison, D., Levin, S., Levin, J., Kolar, A., Blair, D., Srikanth, A., & Salvato, B. (2024). Equity and Adequacy of Colorado School Funding: A Cost-Modeling Approach. https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdedepcom/schoolfinancecostmodelingadequacystudyreport

    D. Atchison, B.D. Baker, J. Levin, S. Fatima, A. Trauth, A. Srikanth, C. Herberle, N. Gannon-Slater, L. Junk, K., Wallace, L., & Baker, B. (2023) Assessment of Delaware Public School Funding. https://education.delaware.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/23-22933_1_Delaware_Full_Report-FMT-ed103023-Version-2.pdf

    Atchison, D., Baker, B.D., Levin, J., Kearns, C. (2020) New Hampshire Commission to Study School Funding, Final Report. https://carsey.unh.edu/sites/default/files/media/2020/09/20-12685_nh_final_report_v10.pdf

    Brooks, C., Levin, J., Baker, B., & Salvato, B. (2025). Understanding the Cost of Providing Adequate Educational Opportunity in Oregon. https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/291280

    [11] Downes, T. A., & Figlio, D. N. (2012). Tax and expenditure limits, school finance and school quality. In Handbook of research in education finance and policy (pp. 395-410). Routledge.

    [12] Baker, B. D., Di Carlo, M., & Oberfield, Z. W. (2023). The Source Code: Revenue Composition and the Adequacy, Equity, and Stability of K-12 School Spending. Albert Shanker Institute.

    Preserving an Educated Future for America (Short Term Plan)

    Draft excerpt from forthcoming work:

    The short-term plans presented here are focused primarily on mitigating damages inflicted by the current federal administration, focusing on states likely to fight back and pursue educational equity and excellence on their own. I have less short-term hope for other states that have been green-lighted and even incentivized to engage in additional erosion of public schooling. Mississippi is presently proposing elimination of its income tax, the primary source of funding for public education and Florida is discussing elimination of property taxes, the primary source of that state’s funding for public schools, meanwhile diverting substantial funds to voucher programs (Baker et al., 2025). Neither state’s high court has previously affirmed their own constitutional requirements to be enforceable, however strong or recent the constitutional language. Other low spending, generally low performing states are taking similar steps to erode their public education systems.[1] At the same time, federal aid is at risk and those same states are the most reliant on federal aid (Baker, 2025c). The short-term prospects for children in these states are bleak.

    It may be that the best we can do for the next few years, while facing a federal administration hostile to public education and seeking actively to undermine it, is to work with states that remain committed to providing quality public schooling, such that they may be beacons as we emerge from these times.  Southern states resisted federal policies a) during reconstruction and b) during the civil rights era, adopting state policies to undermine the provision of more equitable and adequate education to all. The Education States (not exclusively “blue” or northern) as I will call them here, might use similar strategies this time around to advance education equity and equal opportunity, including racial equality, in the face of a federal administration which seeks to ban these very things and even the words that describe them. We might be wise to focus on those states where state courts have been willing to uphold AND enforce education quality and access standards, those states where legislators and governors have done so, whether court ordered or not and those that have already refused compliance with anti-equity demands of the current administration.

    We are in an era where efforts to advance educational progress depend on states, state legislatures, governors and states’ own constitutional requirements (Corbin, 2025). Unfortunately, the current federal administration has not merely deferred to state’s own preferences but has chosen to weaponize federal aid to coerce states to oppose principles of equity and inclusiveness. As noted previously, the recent shift in federal policy has been a green-light for some states to go even further. Thus, the following short-term efforts might best focus on states: 1) that have maintained or reinstated effort to fund schools (or shown willingness to do so); 2) that have maintained or reinstated progressive funding (funding targeted to areas of greater need); and 3) where state high courts have enforced education rights in recent decades (and where legislatures have been responsive). Kansas, for example, despite being a “red” state, meets all three of these goals (Baker, 2022).

    Antiregulations for the Modern Era

    During the civil rights era in the 1960s, when the first significant direct federal aid to local public schools was introduced (under ESEA) and regulations adopted to enforce school integration, southern states adopted state aid adjustments, local tax policy changes and other resistance policies to support districts refusing desegregate (Bagley, 2018; Baker & Green, 2005; Milligan, 2018). These aid provisions were part of antiregulations acts, referring to opposition to federal regulations requiring desegregation.  Ironically, these are the states that are now most dependent on federal aid. By the time of this writing, several states and local district officials have responded to the current administration’s threats to withhold federal aid for any school or state promoting equity with a hard “NO.” These states should consider adopting into law, provisions that protect the revenues of their local public school districts by filling any temporary or permanent losses with additional state funds. The same strategy used during the civil rights era, to oppose civil rights, should now be used to protect them.

    Federally tax-exempt state education endowments

    Many if not most of the Education States are higher income and high GDP states which over the years have contributed more in federal taxes than they receive from the federal government in aid, programs and services. Taxpayers in northeastern states with strong public education systems, are subsidizing underfunded, increasingly oppressive, discriminatory (removing undocumented children), increasingly Christian nationalist (via voucher programs, religious charter schools and bibles in public district schools) school systems in states like Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma. These same taxpayers took an additional hit when the Federal tax code was revised to place caps on the deduction of state and local taxes (SALT deduction). Admittedly, these are equity-oriented tax provisions. These provisions lead to more progressive taxation and redistribution from wealthier to poorer states. That should be a good thing and would be necessary under my long-term plan (a later post, but also, earlier version here). But in the present times, these provisions are a) penalizing the Education States for having higher taxes and spending on schools and other state and local services and b) subsidizing the expansion of Christian Nationalist and other religious (and racially) exclusionary schooling in other states, through what has been proposed as a national voucher program .

    Under the circumstances, to preserve public education in the national interest, I propose that the Education States establish federally tax-exempt Endowments for the Future of Education in which to hoard (yes, hoard, sadly, hoard) significant war-chests of (1 to 2% of GSP for the next 5 years) to stabilize elementary and secondary education funding in future years. The goal is to convince as many individual and corporate taxpayers to contribute as much as possible to these funds (reducing their federal taxable income) in support of their state’s education and economic future. That is, I am encouraging the Education States to be Harvard in this moment. It’s a substantial uphill climb to build an endowment of such magnitude. But in these states where so much personal and corporate wealth have been accumulated over time, it is not infeasible to build endowments that can, in four to five years’ time, generate hundreds to thousands of dollars per pupil to be directed toward the highest need schools and districts, and buffer the state’s schools from future economic uncertainty.[2]  

    Significant public school endowment funds are not an unprecedented concept. For example: “The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) was created by Texas’ first Constitution in 1845 as a perpetual fund to support the state’s public schools and was seeded with $2 million in 1854. Since that time, the PSF has grown to comprise over $57 billion in assets and will distribute over $2.4 billion annually to Texas K-12 schools.”[3] Texas PSF is 57.3 billion in 2024 which is about 2.2% of GSP. It yields 2.4 billion per year to support the available school fund. Other states, including Alaska have similar funds.[4]

    Expanding & Improving State Data Capacity

    As continued collections of federal data erode, have gaps or are at risk of elimination, Education States should take steps to improve the quality of their own data and research capacity, including continuing and improving upon collections of statewide school level expenditure data and collections of a wider array of student outcomes, from assessments across additional content areas to more detailed measures of completion and dropout rates, chronic absence and more. Many states have already engaged with outside consultants to compile their data, construct comprehensive outcome measures, set goals and standards, and estimate statewide school level models of the costs of meeting those standards. The findings from these models have been increasingly consistent in recent years (Atchison et al., 2023; Atchison et al., 2025; Brooks et al., 2025).

    Interstate consortia for the improvement of education data and evaluation could lead to improved data collections on measures including school revenue and spending and greater consistency on student outcome collections across states. These efforts may lead to improved federal data collections in the future (as those data collections typically occur through states, presently, with federal guidance and vetting of data), including improved methods for harmonizing and cross-walking revenue and spending measures across states.

    Unblurring the Lines between Public and Private

    I close here with a bleak foreshadowing of our Supreme Court’s next possible move in further dismantling church/state separation in public schooling in the United States. Chief Justice Roberts in Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue explained that if and only if a state does provide funding for private, non-state-actors to provide education, then that state cannot exclude religious providers. But, that’s only if the state chooses to provide funds to private providers. In his dissent in Espinoza, Justice Breyer pointed asked “what about charter schools?” noting the ambiguity of their status under widely varied state charter statutes.

    The court is now considering this public/private status question in a case where an Oklahoma charter school wishes to operate openly as a religious school. If the court determines it to be private (non-state-actor), then a) it most certainly can, and b) other religious operators cannot be denied similar opportunity to apply for and run charter schools. As I’ve previously written, this opens the door to these same schools refusing (likely succeeding at the Supreme Court) to comply with any/all regulations they claim conflict with their religious views, including racial discrimination (Green, Eckes & Baker, 2024).

    We are at a point where there is only one way to shut this down in states that wish to preserve strong, accessible, public education systems. Voucher programs are rare or small in what I have referred to here as the Education States. That is no coincidence. But charter schools have a significant presence in the Education States, and these states must either substantially tighten state charter school laws, allowing only government authorization and oversight, defining governing boards and board members of charter schools to be public officials (subject to all laws pertaining to public officials) and making all employees of those institutions public employees, perhaps under the contract of the local host district. While these changes may seem restrictive and unappealing to existing charter operators in those states (like New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut), the alternative is to eliminate charter schooling altogether, to ensure that religious and discriminatory charter schools cannot make their way into the state.

    This also means that states like Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire and Connecticut which have long been home to “town academies,” many formed by private citizens and benefactors as centralized secondary schools in the early to mid-1800s to serve surrounding communities, will have to take steps to change the status of those schools. In Carson v. Makin, the court decided that these academies were enough of a crack in the door to require states to provide similar funding for religious alternatives. States that are home to these town academies will need to either eliminate funding for them or require academies to be sold to and/or absorbed by their local public school districts or the state. Unfortunately, the courts have left us with no alternative but to seal off that crack in the door as well.

    [1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/tracking-the-fallout-from-state-tax-cuts

    [2] We understand that it is likely that the current federal administration would seek to deny tax exempt status for these state created, privately governed endowment funds. That said, they are quite similar to pass through organizations used in state tuition tax credit and voucher programs. One strategy to counter this move is to declare these endowments to be religious organizations – Endowment for the Church of the Educated Public – wherein their mission is to support the provision of public schooling to all across their state. More details to be provided as needed in future writings. 

    [3] https://texaspsf.org/

    [4] https://pfd.alaska.gov/

    NJ School Funding Suburban Taxpayer Scam?

    I hate wasting so much time countering completely absurd claims, like those that spill out on the E3 Cartel commercials. This is a short reply this time. At the end of one of the commercials, the spokesperson slips in the claim that not only are we wasting a ton of money on our low graduation rates in poor urban schools (I discuss this claim here: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/cartel-recap/), but this whole inefficient mess is a “suburban taxpayer scam.” Yep, suburbanites (like myself) are being dreadfully over-taxed and our hard earned money is being thrown down the rat-hole. We don’t get any of it back.

    A simple question to answer here is whether the property tax effort in suburban communities (however we are supposed to define suburban?)  is that much greater than in “urban” communities. An appropriate way to measure this is by calculating the percent of income paid in property taxes.

    Here’s a quick snapshot of tax effort in Essex County by income level and in Monmouth county by income level. These data are taken from http://www.nj.com/news/bythenumbers/, and the data are generally from 2005. Most “Abbott” funding to school districts had scaled up between 1998 and 2005.

    Essex Tax Effort

    Hmmm… no systematic pattern here. Yep, some pretty big differences, but no systematic pattern between poorer and wealthier communities.

    Monmouth Tax Effort

    As it turns out, tax effort in Monmouth declines systematically as homeowner income increases. Perhaps this is the “urban tax scam” not suburban one?

    Yes, the property tax bill in an affluent suburban community is larger – because it is the tax bill on a more expensive home!  (should I really have to say that?) Yes, low property value, low income communities receive higher rates of state subsidy through the state aid formula for schools. That’s generally how aid equalization formulas work. And yes, New Jersey’s aid is targeted to higher need districts, above and beyond typical equalization (but only since 1998-2003).

    Let’s get this straight. If the idea of the funding formula was to send back to communities and school districts exactly the amount submitted to state coffers from residents of those communities – then why the heck would we be collecting it to begin with? This would be a particularly foolish exercise since it costs money to process the tax revenues and send them back. That’s how taxes work – whether collected at the municipal level, providing benefit to the people across the street whose house may be valued (taxable value) less than yours, and tax bill may be proportionately less, or across the state. For those who don’t quite understand this, I recommend the Schoolhouse Rock tune about the Taxman. Pretty good stuff!

    In a previous post, I also explain how local media in NJ has distorted comparisons of New Jersey property taxes with other states – https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/should-nj-really-try-to-be-like-de-md-mo-ga-wa/