I’ve also seen US teachers spending hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets to stock classrooms.
I spent a lot of time in European schools and I’ve never heard of teachers having to stock their own classrooms or fundraise for things like playgrounds, etc.
Funding for schools here vary from state to state, but while there may be some amount of funding provided by the State and Federal government, most of the budget comes from the local governments, through property taxes. Where I live, school budgets are proposed by the school board but have to be voted on in the district that is being taxed.
There are a large number of people who are against all property taxes and reflexively vote down any increases. To be fair, those increases can be hard on retirees or other people on fixed incomes; even those whose houses are paid off would have to pay the tax. But districts with a lot of families tend to vote those budgets through, particularly if the overall tax per family is much less than the cost of private school.
I’ve lived here for 25 years, and my mortgage is almost paid off. But what I pay in all property taxes (not just School Taxes) is almost 2/3 of my monthly mortgage payment. When the kids are out of school, we’ll probably move somewhere cheaper.
So you have to pay 2/3’s of a mortgage payment every year in taxes?
How much is your mortgage payment?
I know, crazy, huh? We bought the house quite a while ago, though. It’s almost tripled in value in that time. My mortgage is based on my purchase price (refinanced when rates were super low, to boot), while the property taxes are based on a recent assesment. If I were to sell now, the new owner would likely get a much bigger mortgage, so their taxes would be a smaller proportion of the larger amount.
(I should add this is New York State, where property taxes are super high.)