Rachel Silber" <rachel@ontos.com> brings up the pending changes in some
state education funding schemes:
> Keith hypothesizes:
>
> 1) That education should be universal,
> 2) That "user pay" is not acceptable, and
> 3) That house tax is a surrogate for family size,
And leaves us with this:
>..As food for thought in this discussion, in at least two states there has
>been some progress toward non-property-tax based schemes for funding
>education.
I think it was suggested that property taxes only cover a portion of
education anyway, so it is not a complete surrogate in those places.
Certainly, this is the case for college education in North America. They
tend to be user pay with supplements from general tax revenues.
Interesting how we have mental models for such a well-known system that
are not universal. Most mental models are a simplification...
>....Property-tax based schemes favor the wealthy communities,
>leaving poorer communities able to provide less in the way of resources
>for each student.
Right on - so property taxes never did provide for universal access. The
rich communities had more tax dollars to spend on the same process and
often with fewer students. "Access" may have been universal but "quality"
may have varied significantly all along. I remember the riches of
Westchester County (north of NYC) schools as long age as the Sixties.
People commuted from Connecticut to avoid the taxes...
>...States which have legal mandates for equal educational
>opportunities are now looking for other methods.
I suppose any legislators that are required by law to provide universal
access to their education systems are in need of some systems thinkers to
help design a system that meets that legal requirement!
It's about time. Any takers? Is everyone comfortable with the meaning of
universal access? Does any country have a solution?....Keith
--Keith Cowan <72212.51@CompuServe.COM>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>