Free Republic

Audits of 12 school districts has state Auditor General Timothy DeFoor believing school boards are playing a “shell game” with taxpayer funds by moving money into reserve accounts to allow them to make a case for raising property tax rates. State laws limit how much school districts can raise property taxes and sets limits on those increases but allows for exceptions to be granted in one of two ways: ask voters’ permission through a referendum or ask the state Department of Education for a referendum exception. “These 12 districts collectively raised taxes 37 times during the four years we reviewed...

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Tuesday proposed overhauling the state’s education funding formula to provide all public school districts with a flat rate of $6,599 per student. Calling it his “Fairness Formula” in policy statements on Tuesday, Christie said aid for special needs students would continue even with any potential formula change. Schools are funded through property taxes, which in New Jersey are some of the highest in the nation because of the state’s “unaffordable and broken school funding formula propped up by special interests and misguided Supreme Court precedent,” Christie said in a statement. …

FORKS TOWNSHIP, Easton Pa., - A Pennsylvania man who homeschools his children said he paid his $7,143 school tax in $1 bills to protest funding public education. Rob Fernandes videotaped himself delivering the 7,143 $1 bills, along with 54 cents change, to the Forks Township municipal building and explaining his reasoning to tax collector Anne Bennett-Morse, Philly.com reported Friday. "I'm not doing this to make anybody's life more difficult," Fernandes can be seen telling Bennett-Morse in the video. Fernandes said he sees the money taken for school taxes as "stolen." "We homeschool our kids, so we don't even use the...

827 Seattle students informed they will be freshmen again... Nearly one in four Seattle Public Schools sophomores is missing required credits and has been reclassified as a freshman, potentially delaying graduation. The move, effective this semester, was part of a package of changes the district announced in October to help better prepare high school students to pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning and graduate. Under district policy, high school students have to complete five credits a year to advance to the next grade. At some schools, the rate was far higher than one in four students. At Rainier Beach...