Here We Go Again.

Yet again, schools in the Washington DC area are planning to, again, increase class size in the face of a tighter budget. Fairfax County,Virginia is planning to save $11 million. Loudoun County,Virginia is planning to save $7.3 dollars. The Maryland counties of Montgomery and Prince George’s: their planned savings has not been disclosed, are either seeking to combine smaller classes or cut support staff and teaching specialists.

Haven’t I seen this before last year?

Increasing pay for teachers would not solve another problem: purchasing supplies. Even with the cost of living increases they still have to buy school supplies that the school itself is supposed to buy.

As for the middle class families can transfer to a private or parochial schools, what about children of working class families? What about disabled children? What about those who speak English as a second language? If they remove the specialized staff, they will have a difficult time in school.

Again, this is easily solvable. Repeal the property tax. Implement a county income tax. Use general taxation to fund schools.

As for the class sizes: Reduce classes to 15 students, per class. From elementary to high school.

News Source: To Save Money, Some Schools In Region Plan Bigger Classes

Negative Consequences of Using Property Taxes as a Main Source of School Funding

To this day many school districts still use property taxes as a main source of funding for their schools. This is despite two caveats: They highlight inequality between wealthy areas and poor areas in the school system. (That is the first one.) Second, housing market can fluctuate: In this case, we are in a recession and the housing loan crisis this. As property values lower, school districts now suddenly forced to make sacrifices just to keep running. It seems like every year they just keep cutting and cutting budgets . Even worse, there's No (Rich) Child Left Behind they have to deal with.

There are other alternatives to this problem, that is by implementing a county income tax. The income tax would be similar to the federal income tax but smaller. Another idea would to limit property taxes to businesses and people who have more than two homes (so they can only tax the second or subsequent home). I would recommend that both of these ideas be implemented next year, if not this year.