How should public schools in the United States be funded?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Should it be mostly on the local level, or mostly on the state level, or mostly on the federal level; or some combination? What type of taxes should be levied to support public schools (income, sales, property, other)?

This is not a subject that I know a great deal about, so I am curious as to what the pros and cons to the various ways to approach the funding of public education are.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Property tax has the advantage of being the method being most subject to local control.  But it has the disadvantage of being limited to the local wealth thus making it difficult for poor districts to give their children the same quality of education as richer districts.  States are generally large enough to help equalize the playing field between rich and poor districts and they have access to pretty much all forms of taxation except import duties, so there is no real need to have the Federal government pay for education except that unlike most state and local governments, the Feds can run a deficit so it's essentially free money as far the politicians are concerned.  But that free money isn't always spent wisely, sometimes because the locals don't care, but more often because it can only be spent for certain things and while it might be better spent elsewhere they can still get some use out of what the Feds decree it be spent on.

[Franzl]

Almost anything would be better than the way it's done now.

[H. Ross Peron]

Either equal funding on a federal level or equal funding by metropolitan area.

[Mopsus]

The current funding regime practically guarantees that the school districts that are least in need of funding receive the most of it, while the ones that are most in need receive the least support - a state of affairs that I consider borderline immoral.

Not only would I equalize school funding by shifting the burden away from individual school districts to the federal Department of Education, but I would also found a program that provides extra reimbursement to teachers who work with especially impoverished students.

[Del Tachi]

Direct federal funding and standards would seem to be the best option to me.

[sdu754]

I live in Ohio. When Ohio passed all the lottery & other gambling laws, they promised the money would go to fund the schools. Only a small part does. If all that money were taken and given to the schools, property taxes could be gotten rid of, which is an unfair system in many ways. In fact, the Ohio supreme court ruled it was unconstitutional. Federal funding (which is a large percentage now) would be good if it was granted back to the states, and the department of education was abolished.

[Mordecai]

Federal, but the Republicans made a pretty good argument against it with NCLB.

[bedstuy]

At all three levels:

Federally, to the extent necessary to bribe the states into meeting a set of of very basic standards. 

At the state level, to the point that every student has a chance to become minimally educated.  Obviously, you need some funding measure taking into account number of students, local expenses and such.

At the local level, if rich people want their local public school to have a rock climbing wall or a rum distillery, they can knock themselves out.

[TNF]

100 percent of the funds should come from the Feds, with equal funding for every school.

[DC Al Fine]

State level seems to be a fair compromise between equal funding and local control.

100 percent of the funds should come from the Feds, with equal funding for every school.

Is that adjusted for wage differentials, cost of living, etc?

[AggregateDemand]

State would be better than local. Local creates a segmented education system, and local administrators cannot manage the teachers union because they don't have control over the state pension funds.