Taxes
States
Despite Rhetoric, Businesses Eye Bottom Line
Second of two parts
In the tense weeks before Cleveland finally snagged the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the local school board objected to giving up some $800,000 a year in property taxes--a critical incentive to help build the music shrine.
States
Louisiana's Industrial Giants Skimp on Taxes for Schools
Louisiana, situated at the crowded shipping intersection of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, is home to some of the world's industrial giants.
States
Schools' Taxes Bartered Away To Garner Jobs
The Ralston Purina Co. recently shocked St. Louis officials with the news that it is considering leaving Checkerboard Square, the company's home for the past century, for greener pastures elsewhere.
Budget & Finance
Voters in L.A., Cleveland Face Key Questions
Voters in Los Angeles will decide next week whether to approve the largest-ever bond issue for school construction in a single district--$2.4 billion to pay for renovations at hundreds of the massive system's schools.
Equity & Diversity
Schools Courting Vote of Nation's Burgeoning Population of Seniors
As the number of Americans 65 and older continues to expand, the elderly are becoming an increasingly powerful political group. In states with large communities of retirees, schools are looking for inventive ways to interest senior citizens in supporting the public schools.
Budget & Finance
Finance Reform, Thought Doomed, Gets Airing in Ill.
School-finance reform, tagged as an impossible dream for Illinois lawmakers this year, is getting an extended run in the Republican-dominated legislature.
Budget & Finance
Budget Cuts Strike Sour Note for Music Educators
In recent years, supporters of the music program in Roselle (Ill.) School District No. 12 have gotten used to disappointment.
Budget & Finance
Calif. Educators Seek To Cash In On Good Times
The annual skirmish over California's budget has a new twist this year: The fight isn't over whose programs will get cut, but rather how to divvy up the spoils of the state's new economic prosperity.
Education Funding
By a 2-to-1 Ratio, Okla. Voters Reject Proposal To Revamp School Funding
Educators in Oklahoma breathed a sigh of relief last week after voters soundly defeated a ballot proposal that would have changed local school funding significantly.
Budget & Finance
Nebraska Lawmakers Near Accord on Finance Plan
Nebraska lawmakers stepped up their debate last week on major changes to both the amount state taxpayers spend on K-12 education and how that money is distributed among the state's 668 school districts.
Budget & Finance
Close Vote Predicted on Okla. Tax-Rollback Plan
A Super Tuesday squeaker is shaping up in Oklahoma next week, but it has nothing to do with the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Education Funding
Opinion
Education Cannot Afford Tuition Tax Credits
Occasionally, the argument for a tuition tax credit is presented in terms of high-minded altruism, as if it were designed primarily to get little ghetto children into the prestigious preparatory schools or to revolutionize somehow elementary and secondary education through a little competition.
Education Funding
Opinion
... And Embody 'Dangerous Palliatives' for the Public Schools
Supporters of tuition tax credits generally share several assumptions about the state of the world. In fact, their support for such proposals seems predicated more on acts of ideological faith than on any evaluation of the risks and potential benefits of tax credits themselves. These risks are not insignificant, especially if you do not share the rosy assumptions of the tax-credit supporters.
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
Accepting the Challenge of Tuition Tax Credits
October's election results in Washington, D.C., brought public education across the nation both a cause for celebration and a mandate for some essential nose-to-the-grindstone work.