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.
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.)