America’s school funding is more progressive than many assume

IN 1647, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law mandating the establishment of publicly funded schools. Puritans were worried that otherwise children would fail to learn the Bible and become susceptible to the wiles of “that old deluder, Satan”. To pay for the schools, the colony levied a tax on local dwellings.

Although the aims of public schooling have changed since the 17th century, the critical role of property taxation in funding education has endured. The share of school funding that comes from local taxes such as levies on property is twice as high in America as in the rest of the OECD club of mostly rich countries. It is an approach with many critics, who argue that children who need the most help in school in fact receive the least, since they live in areas with cheap housing and correspondingly small tax takes. Arne Duncan, Barack Obama’s first education secretary, once said that the use of property taxes was the main cause of the country’s “inequitable school...Continue reading

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