Tuesday, February 20, 2007

School funding story

The Strib had a piece today on school funding.

As we know out here in SD 18, the ACGC school levy failed for a third time now, this time by 110 votes.

Some bloggers think its a rejection of liberal school funding.

With 58% of school levy/bond requests failing this past election cycle, people are tired of paying higher property taxes.
The latest defeats "send a loud, clear message that we need more state funding rather than reliance on property taxes," said Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL-Roseville, chairwoman of the House K-12 Finance Division.

I bet if AAA did his research, he would find that the majority of places where these levys/bonds failed were in rural communities. Take a comparison of property tax rates in rural versus urban communities.

A one percent raise in property taxes in the Glencoe Silver Lake School District will raise just under $6. A one percent increase in property taxes in Wayzata will raise over $25.

What the people in many of our rural areas are asking for is an educational funding model that puts schools in rural areas on equal footing with places like Wayzata and Edina. We have had political leaders out here telling us for nearly 20 years that this is a top legislative priority, and yet they have never authored a bill to get it done.

It's not a rejection of education funding. It's a plea for our elected leaders to get off their asses and do what they told us they would do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Levy rejections are almost entirely about people getting pissed that the state isn't doing its part.

T-Paw has some good ideas about school reform, but his funding plans aren't up to par.

Here's a piece I did for mnpACT months ago about using the surplus: http://www.mnpact.org/sblog/blog.php?id=413