Ed Savings Account

As a public school teacher, I am very much in support of public schools.  I have very strong personal convictions about it and about keeping my child in public schools.  I have friends that have their children in private schools for various reasons. That is their choice and many of them have no issue with their tax money being used to support public education.

I just wanted to throw a few numbers at you related to our tax dollars and public schools.  If you have read my previous post Prison, Potholes, and Public Education, you would remember that the schools receive roughly $3,000 per child in state aid to assist in educating each child.  This makes up roughly 60% of the funds schools receive.  The other 40% comes from local and county taxes and federal funds.  

The interesting thing about the state funding is that if you get too much from other sources, the state keeps part of the money in an effort to keep schools on equal footing. 

Another interesting fact is that about 35% of the state budget goes towards education. Sounds like an alarming number to some people, but there is a strong correlation between education and incarceration.  I would rather spend more on education so there are fewer incarcerated later. 

There is a law being proposed that plans to create educational savings accounts for parents to use towards paying for homeschool or private school expenses (about $2500). Depending on which audience they are in front of, the authors of the bill will say this law will help economic ly disadvantaged students or they will say that if I pay taxes for school and I want to send my child elsewhere I should get that money back. 

Let's look at the first argument. Have you ever priced private schools? Any of them only charge $2500 per year?  What poor family can afford to pay for a private school with just $2500 assistance?  None!  The only students that will be able to benefit from this will be the upper middle class students that can either afford it already or are just on the edge of being able to afford it.  This still leaves the low socioeconomic kids where they were. 

The other argument is the idea that it is my tax money, I should be able to spend it how I want.  Great thought, but let us look at that a little more closely. On average, Oklahoman's pay $590 in state income tax.  There are other taxes and fees associated with the state budget, but most people are looking at their income tax and trying to get it back. Also keep in mind that the $590 is an average, meaning many people pay more and many pay less.  

To make it easy, let's round that up to $600 and 35% of that is how much the state allocates toward education.  So the average amount of income tax devoted to education is $210 per taxpayer.  

Does that make any sense?  I am only paying $210 but I will get $2500 put in my savings account. Some people actually will not pay any state income tax, but under this law will get $2500 deposited in their Ed Savings Account. 

There are other issues associated with this argument.  What if I don't have a school age child? I should get that money back, too. I don't have any relatives in prison, so I should get that money back, too. 

Can you see why this legislation isn't a wise idea?