Why Are the Taxes So High in This State? (Chicago: apartment, city hall)

[InformedConsent]

Originally Posted by Mathguy

So back to data analysis:

For your point to hold, each school district would need to be of comparable size.

You need to normalize for cost of living as it varies greatly within the state of IL.

You make the assumption that each area has no other socio-economic conditions that impact the test scores. ie) All areas are the same in terms of all the other factors that impact learning.

Have they normalized the school performances to account for external impacts of private schools in the area?

Don't get me wrong, I agree in general that throwing money at the situation doesn't solve everything as learning is a combination of school, parental involvement etc. and money only addresses a portion of the issue.

That post was a continuation of the discussion that had to do with Illinois property taxes being so high because of the duplication of services caused by the existence of too many individual school districts, which each have their own administrators whose salaries are completely unrelated to their districts' educational results.

I am making no assumptions. Socio-economic, size, and other factors impact virtually every district in the state, every state in the country, every country in the world. It is true that the cost of living is much higher in many other countries than in the U.S., but nearly all of them spend less money per student and achieve better results.

Private schools don't usually have residential boundaries. They are available to anyone who is willing to commute and pay private school tuition on top of their property tax bills. There are parochial, secular, Japanese, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, etc., and other private schools spread throughout Illinois. Those who attend private schools choose to do so for a variety of reasons, not just academic.

If private schools are draining a large enough portion of students away from a town's public school system so that it negatively impacts public school achievement results, that may indicate that residents do not have much confidence in their public school system.

[Mathguy]

Again, I don't neccessarily disagree with you but math is hard. ;-)

Follow me on this....I have two identical towns....A: one with all 500k houses and B with all 200k houses. You are telling me that the Town A is more efficient because they are only taxed 1% and have great schools....while Town B is inefficient....they pay 2.5%!

Does Fairfax has the same % of students taking the SAT as comparison schools? For example, where I went to school most took ACT and only a few (generally the top students) took both the ACT and SAT. So, our districts SAT's scores would have been A LOT higher than Farifax's. (Probably 90%tile or higher).

To do a fair comparison you can't cherry pick a single school district and hold it up as the shining example....there may be other reasons why Fairfax does so well.

How does IL compare vs. VA on average?

[InformedConsent]

The ACT is primarily taken in the Midwest. On the east and west coasts, the SAT is the test of choice. The only students who would also take the ACT in FCPS are the students who are applying to colleges that specifically request an ACT score - some colleges allow students to substitute the ACT for SAT II subject tests.

The reason FCPS is used as a comparison is because it is one school district, serving a very diverse large metropolitan area county with very good results. Why can't DuPage or Lake Counties do the same? Cook county could consolidate all their districts outside of the CPS.

Again, one of the biggest reasons we are all paying such high real estate tax bills in Illinois is because there is a huge duplication of school administration positions in our 900 individual school districts, the 2nd highest number of districts per state in the U.S. 200 of those districts have only one single school.

Illinois school administrator salaries cover a very broad range (individual differences run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars) and frequently have no relation to district size or student achievement.

Even the ISBE and Gov. Blagojevich have recognized that consolidating individual school districts will lower administrative costs, and improve administrative leadership, curriculum alignment, and course offerings. PA 94-1019 was enacted to facilitate school district consolidation in Illinois.

[bls5555]

Originally Posted by edward71355

I totally agree. Illinois is very corrupt, especially the city of Chicago.

Blagojevich 2008!! (or whenever he is up for re-election) Just kidding, what a disaster the democratic party is for the state of Illinois. Hell, we can all be thankful for the All-Kids insurance he has brought upon the state. Im self employed so I take advantage of it because it is cheaper for me than private health insurance (I pay premiums for my 2 kids though), but my god, this program has to be bankrupting this state.

In case anyone doesn't know what this is, I'll try to explain it. Income does not matter on this program. It is medicaid but if you make to much you just have to pay a premium. The problem is that you aren't paying anything when you use the services. I am not going to get into how much I pay (premium wise) but I will state that my oldest son uses some of the services and they are taking a huge loss just off that 1 son. He ONLY uses speech therapy also. I can't imagine the losses they are taking on kids who have major problems.

This is one of the reasons taxes are so high, and it is also one of the reasons I expect taxes to go even higher.

[Havasu]

Originally Posted by bls5555

Blagojevich 2008!! (or whenever he is up for re-election) Just kidding, what a disaster the democratic party is for the state of Illinois. Hell, we can all be thankful for the All-Kids insurance he has brought upon the state. Im self employed so I take advantage of it because it is cheaper for me than private health insurance (I pay premiums for my 2 kids though), but my god, this program has to be bankrupting this state.

In case anyone doesn't know what this is, I'll try to explain it. Income does not matter on this program. It is medicaid but if you make to much you just have to pay a premium. The problem is that you aren't paying anything when you use the services. I am not going to get into how much I pay (premium wise) but I will state that my oldest son uses some of the services and they are taking a huge loss just off that 1 son. He ONLY uses speech therapy also. I can't imagine the losses they are taking on kids who have major problems.

This is one of the reasons taxes are so high, and it is also one of the reasons I expect taxes to go even higher.

ALL OF THIS IS TRUE!!!!!!!!

[tcs1366]

Thanks for that link. It's amazing to see what our teachers make.

I do know that some have been around a long time, as I had them when i was there, and they all, but 1 were making well over 100k a year.

I have a lot of family who are retired from education, no wonder they are doing so well in retirement.

I for one am looking to leave IL due to the taxes once my kids are out of school and hopefully on their own.

Originally Posted by InformedConsent

Teaching is sometimes a low-paying career. But, look at what the Top 100 highest paid teachers in Illinois are making. Don't forget that when they retire, they generally earn a lifetime pension of about 75% of their highest working salary per year.

Our tax dollars are also going to support the Illinois Teacher's Retirement System.

Illinois Top 100 Teacher Salaries:
The Champion - Education Issues and School Reform (http://www.thechampion.org/teachers.asp?formAction=option&year=2006&string=En ter+Employee+Name&option=Top+100+Teacher+Salaries - broken link)

[Milliano]

Originally Posted by InformedConsent

I am making no assumptions. Socio-economic, size, and other factors impact virtually every district in the state, every state in the country, every country in the world. It is true that the cost of living is much higher in many other countries than in the U.S., but nearly all of them spend less money per student and achieve better results.

Socioeconomic factors vary in every state, every country. So do IQ scores... the variations can be massive. But some states do way better than others, and some of the demographic correlations are obvious (related to 'race' rather than things like income) when you look into it... becomes no surprise that Iowa does better than Illinois for example. Just look at their differing demographics.

[jcp123]

High taxes? Look at California. The taxes are what forced us out of the state.

[Don Vito]

California's problem is that they have to rely on the wealthy population to pay for the social welfare of their massive hispanic underclass. The middle class has been taxed out of California for about a decade now. You have the haves out there and the have nots, who rely on the welfare tax dollars of the haves (for free government medical care, college tuition, free school lunches, welfare checks etc.)

Illinois has different circumstances. Its largley rural and suburban area's forking over tax dollars to the behemoths of chicago and cook county.

[dogluver]

Originally Posted by gardener34

Yes Illinois property taxes are high. Gas taxes are high. Insurance is higher in metro areas. We do have more jobs than the surrounding states though. Thus the reason people still live here. Many people look to retire to another state though because of these high taxes.

That's the reason I am moving out of Illinois in a few months. Cost of living in the Chicago area is ridiculous!