My property taxes are around $550/month. It doesn't bother me because we have great schools and services. Great schools are very important to me, and not just for my own kids.
I always wonder why people think there's such a strong link between spending on schools and the quality of the school. For increased spending to improve educational outcomes, it would have to be true that either: (i) the current teachers are slacking, but paying them more would motivate them to work harder; (ii) there is a massive gap in the skills between the teachers hired at the lower wage and the teachers the school could hire at a higher wage, (iii) more or highly-paid administrators would improve educational outcomes, or (iv) the physical environment of the school is in such bad shape that it actually detracts from learning, and more money is needed to repair it.
Color me skeptical that any of these are true. The most likely to be true is (ii), but union rules would prevent a mass firing of current teachers in any case. Further, teachers in high property tax areas are usually already well-paid, when you factor in vacation time (25% -33% of the year off, with NO BLACKBERRY to check), gold-plated pensions that are available in one's late-50s, in addition to the decent pay relative to actual marketable skills.
It seems to me that when people talk about "great public schools," they mean "schools full of the well-adjusted and intelligent children of successful upper-middle-class people." But you could drop those kids into any of the "worst schools in the country" and they'd be fine. From my vantage point, I see lots of public schools wasting obscene amounts of money on unnecessary luxuries like new football stadiums, swimming pools, etc. The complaint about the old facilities is that they are old, as if that makes them unusable. The real impetus is that the administrators want to one-up their peers in neighboring communities, and also a very shady quid pro quo between government contractors and school district officials. What I care most about is the school's curriculum, and unfortunately for me, public schools usually have the worst curriculums (flavor of the month, progressive nonsense, new math, etc.).
BTW, this should not be construed as an attack on Pigeon. I think a big part of finding a "great school" for your children is just finding one that gives you a good feeling, that your kids like, and which has a curriculum you trust. If Pigeon has found that, I'm happy for her. But where I live, a significant portion of our outrageously high property taxes are wasted on educational spending.
