The Stranger Arithmetic of Virginia Postrel
Ever wonder what a liberterian's take on school finance would read like? Yeah, me neither. But Virginia Postrel chooses to answer the question nobody asked anyways. Where oh where to begin. Let's try here ...
"When you have these districts that are being told, 'Your property value above a certain amount will never go to help your students - it will go to the state' - the property value of those districts will fall,'' Ms. Kuziemko explains. Homebuyers no longer get as much education for their taxes, so buyers will not pay as much for houses.
I choose this one to knock down because I get to rant on liberterians and conservatives for the price of one. Recall the rightist criticism that increased funds for education don't do any good for schools, parents, or basically all of mankind? Well, here we get the distilled "truth" that it most certainly does ... at least for rich kids. Or at least for test samples that make a convenient myth seem more factual for conservative economists/pundits. If homeowners do not "get as much education for their taxes" when money is taken away, how can it be that those on the receiving end do not get any more education? I have yet to ever receive a satisfactory answer for that from anyone who advocate that money fails to buy not only love but even "more education" that it would otherwise get if it were left in place in - say - Highland Park. This works out great if I believe that a new football stadium that a wealthy district might otherwise fund aided and abetted "more education," I suppose.
To read Virginia's take, Texas property values are in a "death spiral." Funny, when I listen to Harris County Tax Assessor Paul Bettencourt, I hear about "bracket creep" from rising property rates. So who's right? If we're in Virginia's death spiral, then the appraisals that Bettencourt notes are wildly off the mark in terms of market value. Were this the problem, I'd expect to see a massive clutter of appeals at appraisal district everywhere.
The one big issue missed here is the same point I've raised previously ... the money to boost the few truly needy districts schools to an acceptable level of education still takes money. And that money has to come from somewhere. One can rail against redistributionalism all they wish, but they cannot design a school finance system that does away with that alltogether.