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Centralize schools for equal education

One of the biggest problems noted in inequality in our state today is public education. We have tremendous inequities among communities. The richer the community, the better the school district and teaching environment. Education should be standard and equal across all schools. Any school funding for education, administration, and extracurricular activities should be distributed across school districts equally based on the number of students.

But that doesn't happen today. Some local school districts are able to assess taxes in order to fund better educational facilities for their students. The local community gets the benefit of the money and the residents and businesses get tax breaks; able to deduct those property tax assessments against both their state and federal income taxes. The richer the community, the more they can use to fund their school systems.

One major change would begin to level the playing field across all communities; abolish local school boards and have the funding for these school districts collected and redistributed at the state level. Generate and maintain state mandated curricula, course offerings, and extracurricular activities that must be offered and funded for all schools from the state.

This would provide a major step up for all the children who live in poverty and low-income communities. It would help lift future generations out of poverty as we all know a key to our general success as a people is good education. Conversely, to continue funding school districts at the local basis will further grow the wealth inequalities that keep the poor people poor and allow the rich to become richer.

Steven Stell

Bartlett

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