in my small rural town of 5,500 people. It has five computer labs, two gyms, a 636 seat auditorium, a woodworking shop, cause we still teach shop, 4 science labs, and from the folks I've talked to about the coolest building they've ever seen.
In the election where we voted 57% for McCain over Obama (and I live in Illinois) we voted 63% to raise our property taxes to build the high school. I do not live in a "liberal" district. Plus there was an article in the local paper the other day looking at property taxes (not related to the high school). The most expensive house in my city is valued at $237,000. I don't live in a "rich" town.
The school board in the run-up to the vote held town hall meetings. Sent out a DVD to all residents. Even went door to door asking if people had any questions. How they sold us voting for a tax increase in a middle class, rural, blue collar town was kind of amazing. Maybe a model that can be used someplace else.
I said in the intro I live in a town of 5,500 people. Those are 2000 Census numbers. In 2010 we had grown to 8,789. There are a lot of reasons for this. We now have bus service throughout the town to a Metro rail 5 miles away. The Metro line is at a community college that is changing to a four year school. For $436 you can take a three credit hour computer class, pottery, you name it.
Outside of Pizza Hut and Subway, we don't have a single "chain" store, yet local business is exploding. Business even in this economy is good. Heck this is the view outside my front door.
Just 2.5 blocks to the right we had a 24 hour health club that just opened, cause banks around me are still giving out loans to small businesses.
But the real sales pitch for the school was something else.
I've mentioned a few times I live in a rural town. Small family owned farms. Owned for generations. Well farming isn't as "cool" as it used to be and a lot of them are selling their land and houses are being built. I find this both sad and not sad at the same time.
As you drive by the developments you'll see signs noting they have a swimming pool, a daycare center, running path. But the first sign is always [insert the name of my town] school district. See it would appear a lot of folks that want to buy a new house have children or plan to have children and good schools are important.
My school district rocks!
In like a 50 mile radius the only high school with better standardized test scores is a private Catholic school. Cost is $12,500/year. They beat us by .1%. We pass those tests at a 97.8% rate. I don't follow other school districts throughout the country, but that seems like a pretty amazing number.
And that was the sales pitch for the new school.
More homes being built means construction jobs. People buying them means more taxes paid that can be used to improve the city. We had a multi-million dollar budget surplus last year. We added jobs, we didn't cut a single one! And more people means more money spent at local businesses. Just wins across the board.
In that election we voted in pretty large numbers for McCain over Obama. Well we also voted even more so to RAISE OUR OWN TAXES! Cause we saw it would be a win for the town, the children, local businesses, everybody.
I don't see why paying more for schools. Good teachers. You name it can't be used as a selling proposition for a town. For the community. But I've lived in a lot of places and never seen increased spending on schools sold in that manner.
Maybe I live in some "sane" vortex. I don't know, but I can't wait to go to the open house tomorrow. Oh BTW I will take a ton of pics. I also need to take pics of the parks in my town. I've mentioned a lot in the comments here 7 years ago we voted to raise our taxes again to built more parks. Yes parks. It is hard to walk 5-6 blocks and not run into a park. Some huge, massive. Others just with a shade tree and a bench.