U.S. Supreme Court finds a way in 1973 Rodriguez decision on school funding?

Maybe as a side thread.

However, in my main ATL, I want the Supreme Court to tell the States, you’ve got to have equal education within your state. In most cases, the Court could give the state legislature a chance to act. If the state doesn’t play ball, the appropriate District Court might appoint a special master or something of that sort.

And this might be the system for about twenty years, say, from the mid-‘70s to the mid-‘90s.

And then we might see how different New York is from Arkansas is from California is from New Mexico is from New Hampshire is from Hawaii, etc.

Then you're liable to see states where this is a major issue (IE those with high regional/group income disparties) go the route of cutting public education down mostly to the lower region of the common denominators while the upper income regions lean heavier on private schools. Again, it comes down to funding capacity: poor districts will need substantial state government subsidies to get up to the funding of higher property value and pro-local levee communities, which can't be paid without substantial tax increases (education is the biggest budget item in many states) which would be political suicide... and that's if you are measuring equality by funding input rather than results. Far easier to just slash funding to the better monied districts. Its a simple matter of budgetary constraints and basic electoral calculus
 
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Then you're liable to see states where this is a major issue (IE those with high regional/group income disparties) go the route of cutting public education down mostly to the lower region of the common denominators . . .
This is the challenge. While I hope you’re wrong, I’m honest enough to admit you may not be.

I peg the date as Bush going back on “Read my lips, No new taxes” in 1990.

But to show that I really do try to show full spectrum of facts, I’m going to try to pull a picture of California’s Prop 13 from 1978. Now, it was a June election, so you’re typically going to have less turnout and a more conservative turnout. But I understand it comfortably passed and became kind of a third rail of California politics until maybe very recently. Even though I would argue that property tax is not that logical a tax because it’s not that closely connected to ability to pay.
 
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I peg the date as Bush going back on “Read my lips, No new taxes” in 1990.

Which came back to bite him in the buttoks as it cost him the support or his party and speed bumped the rest of his agenda, as well as whacking him over the head in his relection bid as a result of being basically forced to accept a democratic ultimatium and not get a grip on the defecit. And fun fact: states virtually all require balanced budgets and so can't solve revenue raising problems by kicking the can down the road. At best, you can do a bond issue, but that usually dosen't work well for large recurring expenditures as they need to be passed and repassed constantly (so say goodbye the second power shifts in the legislature).


Even though I would argue that property tax is not that logical a tax because it’s not that closely connected to ability to pay

It's the only type of tax school districts can run levees for (and they have no unilateral taxation authority) and in the vast majority of cases work at a substantial rate on a town-sized level as it's alot harder to move houses (and prior to the proliferation of open enrollment that could easily make you kid ineligible for that school district) than to shop one town over to dodge the new sales tax bump. Your only possability is a state wide tax increase, probably a sales tax, which I can gurantee will sell like a lead balloon to voters
 
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kp...25/birth-californias-taxpayer-revolt/?amp=amp

‘ . . . On June 6, 1978, Prop. 13 passed with the support of nearly two-thirds of California voters. . . ’
And this was and is a big deal.
 
If they aren't paying for schools anymore would property taxes go down? Maybe things even out.

No. They still are paying for the schools (and to meet the OP requirement, paying more). It's just shifting the funding burden to the State government (which is also liable to take the authority from locally elected school boards to State appointed bureaucrats, or add a major layer of employees related to compliance at minimum even if by some miracle they power dosen't move with the money). They still have to collect the same amount of money, just via a different (and less stable) mechanism of a continuous sales tax.
 
If property taxes are still paying for schools wouldn't the simplest method be that property taxes now go to the state?

In the US, property taxes are also used to fund other parts of local government, such as firefighting or law enforcement.

But states can use other methods such as the sales tax evoked by others, raising income tax, using lottery funds or even using an endowment fund, though, in the last part, it is to be set on the long-term.
 
. . . And fun fact: states virtually all require balanced budgets and so can't solve revenue raising problems by kicking the can down the road. At best, you can do a bond issue, but that usually dosen't work well for large recurring expenditures as they need to be passed and repassed constantly . . .
I'm a Keynesian.

Which means I aim to be counter-cyclical to the economic cycle. In particular, I think it's irresponsible for a state or local government to do lay-offs (redundancies in UK terms) during a down economic period, for this would simply add to the downward spiral.

And I don't think my state of Texas hardwires in a balanced budget, which is great to aim for most years, but not during a down period.
 
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I'm a Keynesian.

Which means I aim to be counter-cyclical to the economic cycle. In particular, I think it's irresponsible for a state or local government to do lay-offs (redundancies in UK terms) during a down economic period, for this would simply add to a downward spiral.

And I don't think my state of Texas hardwires in a balanced budget, which is great to aim for most years, but not during a down period.

What you are is irrelevent to the current question, as we are discussing what likely would happen (a question of fact), not what ought to have been done (a question of principal). To be blunt, US states more or less have to cut expenses during economic downturns because their revenues drop, available capital investment for bonds drop, and they have no independent monetary policy to rectify the problem via quanative easing (Unless you have a rainy day fund, as my own state does) and carrying large debts will over time quickly cripple their ability to do the same thing next economic downturn. "Fiscal Responsability" in the balanced budget sense is a much more salient issue on state level politics than national for that reason.

From a politiking standpoint, Fiscal Conservatives exist and vote,and will be liable to not want to raise their taxes and keep them high, and sales tax .increases vs property taxes will just hit the poor population harder and the state as a whole more broadly (especially since property taxes fall heavily on commercial establishments). You can't get around the fact more money for everyone means more taxes on everyone and with it a demand by said taxpayers the money is being spent responsably, so states are going to have to set up a complience Beuracracy and take power from districts to meet the mandate they all provide equiatable education. Maybe that's worth it, maybe not (I'm a big fan of education spending personally. It keeps both my parents and two of my siblings employed) but the cost is a reality as is the fact not everybody likes bigger government, especially as you go fruther down the chain of command to state legislatures (which are rather heavily Republican)
 
If property taxes are still paying for schools wouldn't the simplest method be that property taxes now go to the state?
Yes, in my universe this is an improvement.

But . . .

We can oh-so easily come up with cases in which people would struggle with property taxes. For example, senior citizens who have paid off the mortgage. Not all seniors of course, for some are rich. Or a disabled person who has inherited a house or condo, or purchased it at a below-market price from a family member. Again, not all persons with a disability, for some are rich.

Or, and this is kind of my modal case for this whole thread, two parents who both have upper-middle-class jobs who have taken on a big mortgage in order to live in a "good" school district. The parents haven't made a mistake, they may have even made a good decision, but they are stretched thin. And with all schools in a state being good and being equally good, the big mortgage will be much more of a choice rather than a necessity.

There is disconnect, or there certainly can be disconnect, between receiving a property tax bill and the ability to pay.

A sales tax or income tax much more closely links the tax with ability to pay, and thus I conclude are more logical taxes.
 
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. . . You can't get around the fact more money for everyone means more taxes on everyone and with it a demand by said taxpayers the money is being spent responsably, so states are going to have to set up a complience Beuracracy and take power from districts . . .
What school districts now face in 2019 are unfunded mandates from both their state legislatures and from Congress. Plus, the mania for standardized testing, which people are starting to question, but which is still largely in place.

I would like to see how this plays out in the 1970s and '80s, before the mania for testing, and perhaps before some other things as well.

PS I quite agree with the general idea that he or she who pays the piper typically calls the tune, which is why in a different context I'm in favor of an investors' society version of Universal Income.
 
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What school districts now face in 2019 are unfunded mandates from both their state legislatures and from Congress

Oh Din yes... sorry, I'm from a family of educators (and administrators) so I've heard quite a bit on the details of this (albet from a biased perspective). But that's kind of the bind: unless you set said mandates to oblige states to meet a minimum requirement above the average they have pre-ruling (at least in services provided and money spent, rather than results which would be nightmarish in terms of enforcement) than I can only see states by and large drifting to a universal below that average level of funding. Unless you want to throw the bottom of the barrel under the floor (special Ed. provisions are so disproportionate it's not even funny), of what constitutes quality education which is liable to be the most likely solution if general student funding is to go up in general, which made include effectively demolishing underpreforming school districts which are liable to be in poor areas where the results are seen as not worth the investment. Particularly in poorer states with a general low taxculture ,(who can make up for it by drawing in folks educated in high tax states with the promise of a much higher standard of living on their income)
Plus, the mania for standardized

How do you plan on verifying the investments are producing results worth the cost, effectiveness of teaching tactics, ect without some kind of universal standard against which student preformance can be measured? Grades? Graduation rates? Non-standardized curriculumn and grade inflation possabilities would make these unreliable at best. Testing, though it has it's shortcomings, fills a nessicery role in a society with legal requirements and public interest standards on education that can really only be filled otherwise by outsourcing grading to some other beuracracy with a standard template or a proto-Common Core mandate
 
. . . I can only see states by and large drifting to a universal below that average level of funding. . .
(1) high trajectory States generally bring the poor districts up.

(2) interesting mixed For example, maybe earlier autism spectrum rights to help break the tyranny that all students must be well-rounded, and we thereby move in the direction of generally much smarter testing. Maybe.

(3) low trajectory States generally bring rich districts down.

(4) status quo Rich and upper middle-class basically withdraw from society living in ritzy neighborhoods (whether gated or not) with good schools.

Okay, I hear you saying that you think low trajectory is most likely. That’s fine. It’s an honest conclusion.

I myself think mixed is most likely. And perhaps the biggest AH challenge is to make high trajectory interesting, meaty, unexpected, etc.

In any case, we do need help and contributions with all the above! :)
 
we end up with 3 plus earlier common core/no moron left behind along with a massive expansion of the private school system

world tech level a decade behind OTL and US GDP 20% smaller plus even worse distributed.

The USSR is still a going concern, even if it had to permanently leave eastern europe and afghanistan during the "troubles' in the 90s.
 
(1) high trajectory States generally bring the poor districts up.

(2) interesting mixed For example, maybe earlier autism spectrum rights to help break the tyranny that all students must be well-rounded, and we thereby move in the direction of generally much smarter testing. Maybe.

(3) low trajectory States generally bring rich districts down.

(4) status quo Rich and upper middle-class basically withdraw from society living in ritzy neighborhoods (whether gated or not) with good schools.

Okay, I hear you saying that you think low trajectory is most likely. That’s fine. It’s an honest conclusion.

I myself think mixed is most likely. And perhaps the biggest AH challenge is to make high trajectory interesting, meaty, unexpected, etc.

In any case, we do need help and contributions with all the above! :)

It's more a mix of 3 and 4, to be honest. Not that i wouldent prefer a 2, mind you (Though being on the spectrum and a great test taker myself, the specifics aren't nessicerily what you propose. The trick is any major reforms of the educational structure requires getting the lay voters to trust it and teachers unions to go along. And as the successful in both areas are or were obviously benetifiaries of the system as is, that's an uphill battle). It's just I think mandated equity isent the solution to get growth due to the nature of the problem, unless you want to go whole hog and federalize/standardize the educational system (which could work, though I think the odds are against it). It naturally gets in the way of allowing the weakening of strict standardization (since telling weather two "Seperate" methiods are "Equal" is tricky, since the only way is to measure results where external factors play a huge role).
 
we end up with 3 plus earlier common core/no moron left behind along with a massive expansion of the private school system

world tech level a decade behind OTL and US GDP 20% smaller plus even worse distributed.

The USSR is still a going concern, even if it had to permanently leave eastern europe and afghanistan during the "troubles' in the 90s.
Okay, we can mention economist Joseph Stiglitz on the point that the level of inequality right now in the United States, besides people living less full lives, also is directly self-defeating in that it reduces GDP from what it otherwise could be.
 
Yeah. Just compare developed nations like Japan to third world states like the US and Brazil in things like quality of life.
 
. . . The trick is any major reforms of the educational structure requires getting the lay voters to trust it and teachers unions to go along. . .
I think that’s true in business, too. You ideally want your people to buy into the change, rather than trying to secretly sabotage it.

My sister in the early 1970s had some class periods in which two classes joined for an hour or so with 2 teachers and around 50 or 60 students. And from the ‘70s, I can remember speech therapy generally being lousy and crummy.

And by the way, I myself am probably on the spectrum, too, and I’m a good test-taker. Now at my age, I’m 56, I have not been diagnosed by a professional, and few people my age will have been.
 
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