Inconvenient Truths about Government-School Funding (Part 1)
Spoiler alert: They don't need more
As is all too common in debates today, the discussion of school funding and taxation in general often devolves into an emotional argument about “helping the kids” and the supposed (compulsory) responsibilities of citizens to each other. Although it is important to discuss these issues and to deflate the faulty logic behind them, lost in such arguments are the actual facts that most people either ignore or never learn. In this article, I will lean on such facts to make the case that government-school funding is deeply flawed, immoral, and inefficient—and that private alternatives funded voluntarily through tuition and/or charity are the better option.
1. Subsidies for All
One crucial yet overlooked truth about school funding is that subsidies in the form of tax dollars go to nearly all parents, regardless of income, wealth, or ability to pay. These subsidies are provided mainly by those without any children in school (or any children at all), some of whom are far poorer than are the recipients of those subsidies. To be clear, any money extracted from someone against his will, regardless of net worth, is quite simply theft, but even those who argue for the necessity of compulsory school funding and who do not see taxation as theft should balk at forced distribution from poorer to wealthier families.
Let us take two examples from different areas of the country to illustrate this point, but first, note that throughout this article, I use total property tax bills rather than just the school-funding portions of those bills because such disaggregated data are difficult to obtain in many areas of the country. However, this method will actually understate my case because the subsidies for schools are then actually larger than those in my calculations. Furthermore, although home values are imperfect measures of wealth, income, or ability to pay, they are at least correlated with one’s wealth since roughly half of household net worth is housing wealth.
First, Marin County, California, has the highest median home value in the nation at $1,146,900. According to Zillow, a home assessed at $1,115,084, or roughly that median home value, in 2023 had a property tax bill of $15,362.
The Ross Valley School District serving Marin County spent $29.88 million in 2023-24 for 1,722 students, or $17,351 per student.
Thus, a family in that $1.1 million home will receive a subsidy of at least $1,989 for just one child. If the owners of that home have two children in public school, they receive $19,340. Three children? $36,691. You get the idea.
Likewise, a family living in a home assessed at $736,000, or a bit more than half of the median home value, pays $11,335 in taxes and thus receives at least $6,016 in subsidies for just one child or $23,367 for two children in public school.
(For comparison, a home assessed at $1.5 million had a property tax bill of $21,663 in 2023, roughly $4,000 more than school spending per student.)
However, to compound matters, only 28.3% of households in Marin County have children, so 72% of the households in the county are subsidizing that 28%, regardless of income, wealth, or ability to pay. For example, let’s assume a childless couple owns that home assessed at $736,000. That couple pays $11,335 in taxes, which indiscriminately subsidize the children of those in both more and less expensive homes.
To be fair, a childless couple in a more expensive home will pay taxes that partially subsidize the children of poorer families, too, but that does not negate the point above that those without children, some of them poorer than those with children, are subsidizing a much smaller portion of the population based on nothing more than the fact that they chose to have a child.
Our second example is suburban Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in which the average home value is $485,037. Again, according to Zillow, a home listed for $480,000, or roughly that average value, has a tax assessment of $4,557.
The Council Rock school district that serves that home’s area enrolls 10,520 students and has planned expenditures of roughly $280 million for 2024-25, or $26,616 per student.
Thus, a family in that $480,000 home receives a subsidy of $22,059 for their first child in public school and $48,675 if they have two children in public school.
Even a family in a $1.95 million home will receive a subsidy of $6,180 for their first child in public school and $32,796 if they have two children in public school.
However, only 31% of households in Bucks County have children. Consider that a childless couple in a home listed for $325,000 pays $3,305 in property taxes, roughly 75% of which goes towards school funding—again, indiscriminately subsidizing children of families both far wealthier and far poorer than that couple.
This issue of the large majority of taxpayers subsidizing a much smaller portion who have children, regardless of their ability to pay, is a nationwide problem, and in no state do the median real estate taxes paid exceed the public spending per student, as seen in the last column in the table below that shows the difference between median real estate taxes paid and public-school spending per student in each state:
2024 effective real-estate tax rates, median real estate taxes, public-school spending per student, and difference between median real estate taxes paid and public-school spending per student, by state
Indeed, consider your own situation and compare the amount you pay in school taxes to the actual per-pupil spending in your state and your home school district. Likely, most of us will find that our school taxes, as egregious and immoral as they are, still are nowhere near the actual spending per student in our areas—meaning vast subsidies for the rich and poor alike for simply having children (and a sober reminder of the inefficiencies inherent in a compulsory system that many still maddeningly refer to as “free education”).
Thus, the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of public-school families—regardless of their income, wealth, ability to pay, or even number of children—are subsidized to the tune of thousands of dollars each year by those who do not use the public-school system, those who are childless, and even those who have much less ability to pay.
Inconvenient, indeed, but unfortunately a feature, not a bug, of a compulsory system based on theft.
In next week’s article, I will cover two more inconvenient truths, so stay tuned, and thank you for reading and subscribing.
Imagine spending 20k+ per student and arriving at the results these states produce!
Some of the most rewarding and educational experiences a child can have are completely free, especially those self-directed activities that occur outside in nature.
Should your arguments be expanded to other municipal/state "services". I've never used the fire department, but a portion of my taxes fund them. I've never had to go to court, but a portion of my taxes fund the municipal court system, etc. If I need an ambulance, the city run ambulance department sends me a bill. Maybe the whole argument reduces to make all services fee for services provided. Those who decide to home school don't pay to subsidize someone else's children. Those with more children would pay more.