Ending School Taxes Is Necessary--and Feasible

Objections Notwithstanding, These Taxes Must Go

One common argument against tax repeal is that such a plan is logistically unfeasible, no matter how attractive superficially. Essentially, this argument rests on the notion that without the tax, the service stops, leaving society in peril or at least worse off.

For example, take the income tax, which is used to fund all manner of programs from the military to road maintenance. Proponents argue that without income taxes for funding, the programs would cease to exist and thus harm society as a whole because their absence would create “service gaps.”

I am at least sympathetic to this logistical argument against wholesale tax repeal, even if I believe that such repeal is the only moral option. However, there is one tax for which the above objections are easily answered and that would present few problems even if immediately repealed: the school tax. Government schools, unlike some other state services, already have non-tax funding mechanisms available and a robust network of alternative options that already exist and perform exactly the same function each day.

First, state schools already have an exemplar for funding outside of taxes—namely, tuition. Any government school can immediately begin charging tuition tomorrow with few logistical issues. Indeed, the school district already has a record of each child who uses the school each day and his or her parents/guardians, so we would have no worries about free riders. The school district also already sends out tax bills to all residents, so the only change would be that such bills would be sent only to parents of enrolled students. Such a system would mean fewer envelopes for the district and fewer bills for non-users of the schools who each would immediately keep thousands of dollars that otherwise would go to a service they unarguably do not use.

Furthermore, ending school taxation would not necessarily end the government schools as entities; on the contrary, parents who are supportive of their children’s state schools and teachers now could continue to be so—just for full price and without forced subsidies from their neighbors. Essentially, all schools would simply be schools, without “government” and “private” labels.

Any parent who is dissatisfied with a formerly government school (or its true cost) for any reason would then be free to apply for enrollment for his or her child at any other school, to homeschool, or even to start a new school or local education pod. The options would be as varied as students’ needs, and even more creative entrepreneurs would seek to meet those needs once the default option of subsidized state school ended. Moreover, parents would be free to spread their education dollars however they wished—perhaps for a tutor three days a week, for a microschool four mornings per week, and for an online curriculum to supplement those in-person options. Unlike the current system, parents could choose an education program that best meets their children’s needs without having to change an entire district’s curriculum by pleading with school board members.

Naturally, though, all changes to the status quo—especially when that status quo involves huge subsidies to millions of people—will encounter objections, so hereafter I want to deal with several of the most common and salient of those.

Objection 1: Without taxpayer subsidies, education will be too costly for many people, especially the poor, so the gap between rich and poor will continue to grow.

First, ethically, such an argument typifies a dependence mindset. In essence, it says, “Why, these people will never be able to accomplish anything without their government saviors’ help.” Such a mindset destroys the social fabric and weakens personal dignity and pride and value in one’s work. So, I do not subscribe to such a mindset and know that, with proper incentives, people can and will care for themselves, their children, and others around them.

Secondly, economically, this argument ignores funding options outside of forced taxation, which, unfortunately, is a common occurrence that seems to suggest that two options exist for paying for services: You pay for something on your own, or the government steals from your neighbors (and you) to pay for part or all of that something.

Thankfully, reality offers additional options, such as charity via scholarships, grants, and financial aid. But, please, do not simply take my word for it; let us take a moment to examine a few private options in comparison to government schools to see how this argument fares when exposed to the harsh light of facts.

To set our baseline, we will use average per-pupil spending in the United States for 2023, which was $16,080. (Interestingly, average private school tuition [2021] was $12,350 and was lower in 42 states than public school costs per pupil.) I think it is important to compare actual costs per pupil across education options, but, for a less mathematically fair but more personal comparison, I encourage you to use your school tax bill to compare with the options I discuss below. For example, I pay roughly $5,000 per year in school taxes.

Most of the following examples I discovered through the work of Kerry McDonald, an educational researcher, author, and podcaster. I highly recommend her work to learn more about the amazing variety of educational options cropping up each day:

• In Los Angeles, Alcove microschool “uses a ‘pay-what-you-can’ tuition model, with some families paying nothing while others pay the full $1,600 monthly rate. The average Alcove family pays between $500 and $600 a month.” (emphasis added)

• In New York City, there are over 200 private schools with an average annual tuition of just $6,065, and organizations such as the Children’s Scholarship Fund (CSF), “a nonprofit that provides low-income families with scholarships to attend these schools,” help families to meet these costs.

• In Utah, Pinyon Montessori uses an income-based tuition model and offers scholarships while Telos Classical Academy works with the FACTS system to award financial aid of up to $9,000 per year that can offset 70% of tuition.

• In eastern Pennsylvania, Immaculate Conception School, which just added another kindergarten class due to demand, charges a maximum of $3,190 per child with multiple scholarship and financial-aid options available.

Those examples are a tiny fraction of what is available, but notice that each treats parents and students as valued customers and works with them to find ways for them to afford a quality education, as defined by parents, not bureaucrats. Many of these options serve far fewer students than most government schools do, too, so any increase in cost brings with it the added benefits of greater educational freedom, more individual attention, and increased focus on students’ specific needs. For example, many microschools enroll fewer than 30 students and often maintain student-to-teacher ratios of roughly 5:1.

It is also important to remember that these are the varied, creative options available already despite school taxation’s still lurking in the background. Imagine the diversity of educational possibilities—and the price competition—without $16,080 per pupil per year siphoned by force for government schools.

On a final note, this objection seems to equate educational quality with spending, which has little basis in reality. Before I delve into any statistics, just ask yourself if learning to read or to count really costs $16,080 per year. Is it also reasonable to assume that spending $20,000 per year would lead to better reading and counting or that spending only $10,000 per year would lead to suboptimal reading and counting?

Let us consider some data, though. According to Robert Peterson’s “Education in Colonial America,” “A study conducted in 1800 by DuPont de Nemours revealed that only four in a thousand Americans were unable to read and write legibly.” Even among black Americans, illiteracy declined from over 70% in 1870 to less than half by 1900. In contrast, a 2019 study of literacy in the United States found that 21% of adults lacked basic literacy skills.

Likewise, Edwin West noted that in Britain, by “1880, when national compulsion was enacted, over 95 percent of fifteen-year-olds were literate. This should be compared to the fact that over a century later 40 percent of 21-year-olds in the United Kingdom admit to difficulties with writing and spelling.”

Can we attribute these results to the extreme personal wealth of the time? What are we to make of the fact that literacy rates in both Britain and the United States are still lacking despite increased spending and huge bureaucracies devoted to education? Furthermore, what are we to make of school districts that spend far more than the average per pupil yet have worse results?

For instance, in 2016, the Camden, New Jersey, school district spent $23,000 per student, roughly twice the national average at the time, yet 90% of high school students therein were not proficient in language arts or math, and one third of seniors did not graduate on time. (To be clear, I do not put much stock in standardized test results or graduation statistics, but these are the government’s own chosen metrics.) Are we to believe that if only the district had pilfered $30,000 or $40,000 per pupil from the taxpayers, then all students would have been proficient and graduated?

Of course, any fair assessment of human reality reveals that there is far more to education than spending, so simply assuming that “the rich” will attend more expensive schools than will “the poor” and thus will receive better educations ignores the fact that learning has at least as much to do with the learner and the approach to learning and teaching as it does with the school’s resources. Thus, a lower-cost microschool with 20 students that specializes in attention issues is likely to provide a far better education for a student with such issues than will a $50,000-per-year private school that follows the traditional school model.

Objection 2: These “teachers” could be teaching anything; how will we know children are learning?

To begin with this objection, I ask: What is learning? Is it test-taking skill? Is it memorization? Is it applying a skill to a novel problem? Something else? A combination of these? So, immediately, we see that “learning” is not an objective goal but rather a subjective one. Too often, people equate learning with test scores, as if there is some magic connection between the two. Yet, how many examples do we need of people who did not necessarily test well or get the best grades to convince us that perhaps measuring learning in such a narrow way is foolhardy?

On a side note, in my time as a teacher, I encountered numerous students who scored well on unit exams but later could not remember, let alone apply, that same information. So, how much learning actually occurred in those situations? On the other hand, I met many other students who rarely tested well but were remarkably creative and able to apply all manner of skills to accomplish tasks even though their report cards were not stellar. Were those students not learning?

Furthermore, why should I, or “we,” be the judges of student learning? This feeling that we are entitled to some tangible evidence of other people’s learning naturally stems from the school tax itself—it’s my money, after all; show me some results. But if we remove that coercion, I no longer have any logical or legal or ethical role in other people’s education.

To be fair, though, the answer to this objection is fairly simple: Students and parents judge for themselves. When schools compete for students, they are remarkably open about their curricula, values, and expectations, so parents and students know going in what to expect; plus, they can then judge results in any way or ways they see fit. One family may be thrilled when their child simply comes out of his shell as a result of a smaller, more caring classroom environment while another family might expect precise improvements in their daughter’s SAT scores as a result of a rigorous, college-prep curriculum. The point is that “learning” and “quality” are subjective. Each parent and student decides for him or herself whether that educational option succeeded or failed.

Without school taxes, though, failures would not require moving to a new neighborhood or being declared a domestic terrorist when remonstrating with school board members. Parents could simply find a better option for their children and enroll them there, without any worry about financial or legal requirements of a home school district.

Objection 3: Good government schools raise property values, so everyone should pay because everyone benefits from them in some way.

Empirically, this claim is difficult if not impossible to prove because property values are affected by numerous factors, so even if schools in an area do positively affect those values in some part, we can never know what fraction of a property value’s increase is due to school quality. Moreover, other factors demonstrably have greater impacts on property values than does school quality as proven by any comparison between property values where I live and those in Los Angeles. Based on state and national test scores and college admissions data (two criteria in which I do not put much stock but that are commonly used to compare districts), the schools in my district are far superior to those in Los Angeles, yet property in Los Angeles regularly sells for more than twice the price per square foot of properties near me.

So, people must value property in Los Angeles for reasons beyond simply school quality. Of course, this trend holds true in many areas, and we can underscore this fact with a simple thought experiment. Imagine that the “best” schools are located somewhere wherein the weather is antithetical to your preferences, perhaps Bismarck, North Dakota, or Death Valley, California. Would you move your family there? Or what if the best schools were located in an area wherein everyone held vehemently contrary social and moral views to your own? Would you move your family there?

I therefore argue that we all consider far more than perceived school quality when we value property, so the argument that school taxes are ethical because we all benefit from local schools is as logical as arguing that I should be able to tax you to pay for my pool or an addition to my home; after all, don’t nicer homes in a neighborhood raise property values, perhaps even more so than school quality does?

Conclusion

School taxes, though an inveterate part of the state and many people’s lives today, are inherently unethical and undermine the myriad voluntary educational options that can better serve our children. Despite common objections, school taxes serve only to subsidize government-approved schools and thus increase the cost of alternatives while promoting a narrow definition of learning that many government schools even fail to meet. Thanks to the ingenuity and dedication of those around us, however, it need not be this way. Thousands of voluntary schools already exist in the United States and cater to all manner of student needs and interests—often at a significantly lower cost than do government schools.

By abolishing school taxes, we can free parents and all taxpayers to support only those schools and curricula they choose and thus ensure that whatever form learning may take, it is selected and assessed by those directly involved in it: parents and students. Learning, whether in a traditional school building or outdoors at an educational camp, does not require coercion; let us excise that force from education by ending school taxes now.

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