City school barely passing their own test

It seems that students, parents, and even the staff in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System are less satisfied than they were 5 years ago. I can think of a lot of reasons why, but I'm wondering, what's the prescription to make it better (short of massively funding programs that benefit all the squeaky wheels).

School staff members, parents and students from the fourth to the 12th grade responded to the poll, rating issues on a 10-point scale. According to the report, which will be presented to the school board at its meeting Thursday night, there were a few areas with particularly low ratings this year: Secondary students gave their lowest-ever rating for principals and teachers, and other staff gave their lowest -ever rating for the superintendent and for involvement/decision making -- 6.3.
[...]
The district did have its highest-ever scores in some areas this year, including secondary students' rating of quality of teaching and parents' rating of computer technology.

Villwock said sometime this summer she'll work with the district Webmaster to get the electronic version of each school's poll results on the district's Web site.
- heraldsun.com: Schools family happiness decreases, 6/16/07

I look forward to getting more information about the survey results.

Issues: 

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In trying to compare the school funding level now with that paid by our parents and grandparents, I thought that relating county wide school operating expenses to county total personal income would be a useful gauge. I haven't been able to get much info on historical school budgets from OC or CHCCS yet so I can't tell what the story is here.

In Oregon, Benton County, our recent spending was just under 3% of total personal income, down from about 5.5% in 1970. If the picture is similar in Orange Co, how would this affect Gloria's perspective on spending?

I never did compare capital spending this way - would this help compare past and current school construction costs? Of course, it seems you'd have to account for the effects of increased litigation, disability act requirements, and other demands that we've placed on schools.

The following paragraph came from Ellie Kinnairds newsletter:

There has been a great deal of fervor from the homebuilders and realtors in opposing the transfer tax. The tax would be less than 1% on a sale of property and is currently levied in six counties. Counties are desperate for funds for schools, economic development, and infrastructure. Property taxes have been rising all over the state to pay for this. But in the six counties that passed a transfer tax, property taxes have gone down. Further, building and economic development has boomed and most importantly, because of the transfer tax, support for education has taken them from among the worst in the state to the top. (Ironically, voters turned it down and are in the lowest tier of schools and have a high property tax.) The counties with the transfer tax increased their school funding 84% without an increase in property taxes, whereas the rest of the state grew 52% while increasing their property taxes. The transfer tax also helped reduce funding disparities between property-rich/urban districts and property-poor/rural districts in these areas. In 1991, local per pupil capital expenditures ranged from $56 to $239.

I was opposed to the transfer tax before reading this. The facts make it hard to oppose, although I don't see how a one time tax solves all these problems. And I'm pretty sure that the tax raises the cost of housing even higher since we all know it will just be subsumed into sales prices. Realtors are certainly not going to accept a loss in their profits.

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