subject: How State Tax Forms Help Pay For Public Education [print this page] State tax forms are needed to file state taxes - but exactly where is our tax money going? Taxes are used to support the government, but in a democracy the government is supposed to be "for the people," as a popular rumor has it. All the state tax forms filed year in, year out seem to have no effect on our local governments, which across the nation are a lot more likely than not operating at a deficit. How is this possible with all the money pouring into government coffers?
Most people simply file their state tax forms and leave it at that, too busy with their lives and some even hoping not to attract any government attention. But a growing number of our fellow citizens and residents are seriously concerned over where "their money" is going. Nearly everyone agrees with paying for firefighters, sanitation workers, and other civil servants, but even then there can be a lot of controversy over the details.
Take educators for example. Again, nearly everyone agrees that educators are needed. But how to compensate them with our tax dollars, exactly? Currently, numerous people across the nation are up in arms over teacher perks and salaries.
It's felt that teachers have things much too comfortable, and there are folks who would like to make the profession of teaching a job like any other, which in the United States means "hire and fire at will."
These people want to, they say, hold teachers more "accountable" for student performance, which is often proposed to be assessed by standardized test scores. But the other side of the argument believes that teaching isn't just a job like any other, that the training of minds and the inspiration of hearts isn't something which can be neatly measured on a quarterly or yearly basis like some corporate earnings report.
