Public education is the reason for property taxes; lose the property tax and the tax burden will just shift elsewhere (which I agree is still an improvement). The real problem is that most Americans have turned from individualists prior to the 1930s, toward collectivism; albeit at a slightly slower pace than our European counterparts. Most Americans today cannot imagine paying for their own children’s education. Of course this would be cheaper and higher quality, because everyone has skin in the game and is paying personally. I look at my Amish neighbors and their small schoolhouses (three within walking distance). On average, their kids are smarter than the public schooled kids in the area, yet their education costs are negligible. In nearby Maryland, the highest cost per capita schools have the worst performing students.
When will people wake up to the facts.
Tell me about it. My kids were educated here.
Our public school systems are ripe for a similar disruption.
The current annual cost of public schooling per student averaged around $20,000. The average annual salary of a school teacher is around $50,000. What we get in return is a very poor product and generations of mostly uneducated children.
This is all based on an antiquated business model of shoving 30 or so (mostly unruly) kids into a classroom with harried, underpaid teachers and out of date textbooks.
There is really no need for all that infrastructure and overhead in public education. Cut all of that out and go to virtual schooling, where children can get a customized lesson plan scaled to their abilities. There's no reason why many children cannot graduate "high school" when they are still 12 or 13 years old. The slower learners can continue up until they are 18, then they are on their own.
Public school buildings? Who needs them? Sell them and convert them to condos. Principals, vice-principals, and other non-teaching faculty? Who needs them? They can become virtual teachers.
Virtual teachers can now be paid much more, in fact, they can be paid incentive bonuses for every student that they are able to accelerate to a high school diploma ahead of schedule. Students will get one-on-one sessions with their teachers but mostly they will be given challenging assignments that they can complete on their own and at their own speed. Their teachers are now more or less guiding them through their personal learning journey.
This will bring the cost per child way, way down.
Kids can still play sports and socialize with each other. Only it will be done outside the school system. "Little League" sports will thrive, as will social clubs such as scouting.
The above is only an outline of what can be done but my point is that public schools as we know them today are antiquated and obsolete dinosarus.
Not sure if this is true or not, it isn't in my own family - all of us have paid for our kids' educations (whether worth it or not, some yes, some no).
I was able to use my home as leverage for the loans, which were better than student loans at that time - all paid off as quickly as possible.
My son does tell me, though, that he is the only one among his friends (all of them work in tech) who isn't burdened with huge student loans. My daughter's best friend is about to graduate from medical school with at least $400,000 worth of loans.
Even with a doctor's salary, that will be very difficult to get out from under.