The person in the article provided proof in the form of a mortgage statement, which should establish that they pay tax to the district. Where they spend their time outside of school hours seems irrelevant.

> Are you talking about undemocratically forcing a restructuring all school financing everywhere in order to avoid license plate tracking? What is the principle that you're trying to uphold?

No, I'm talking about changing how schools are funded by making funds more evenly distributed across districts. Giving the kids in the "bad" areas the same opportunities as those in the "good" areas. Right now, if you can't afford that four-five-six-seven-hundred thousand dollar home, you aren't afforded the same level of public education as someone else who can. And doing so democratically, which is why I mentioned it'll never happen because no politician would be able to run on that. Their opponents would be outfunded by the top 10% to keep the status quo.

And this is coming from someone who own's a home in a "good" district. Where we got a total rebuilt elementary school 4 years ago, a new middle school actively being build, and a new high school that opened 3 years ago. Why should my kids have access to everything newer and better just because we can afford to live out in the suburbs, than someone else who isn't working in the cushy tech industry and instead is busting their ass only to live in poverty?

Uh what's undemocratic about the state legislature, which created the current system of small local districts, Changing how schools are funded and governed?

Small parroquial government entities that are funded inequitably are bad, actually. And the current system of schools districts is a legacy of segregation and white flight. Local government boundaries are entirely arbitrary, should the city let water or fire services suffer in one council district because it doesn't produce enough taxes to support it?

A child's academic opportunity shouldn't be determined by their zip code and parents income. Everyone should have access to free high quality public schools.

> They already have all kinds of data on you

So? My employer has my SSN, address, work history, etc. but I don't want them to know about where I go on the weekends. It's a fallacy to say that just because an entity knows a lot about you that it's OK if they know everything about you.

Then "school district fraud" shouldn't be a problem. If a parent is willing to committing a crime to get their kid into a good school, they're heavily engaged and involved.

"A lot of that comes from parental involvement and having a critical mass of engaged students and parents, not the dollar amount spent on each student."

FYI, parent engagement is also heavily proportional to parent income/property prices.

Very hard to be engaged at school with double/triple working class jobs.

Not OP, but IMO pretty much any funding mechanism other than local property taxes funding the local school is better.

All of the children get an education, but you have to divide up the attendance across the available schools.

A single child going to the incorrect school isn’t going to break the system, but when it starts happening at scale it starts diluting the per-student funding in a district, increasing class sizes (reducing the teacher to student ratio) and eventually puts the school over limits and forces nearby children who should be going there into schools that are farther away.

One or two students don't make a difference. But if a number of people lie, then that dilutes the experience of the legit students. So it's not just as simple as you make it sound.

Here's an extreme example. One boy I know went to a school from kindergarten. He was tall and expected to start on the basketball team. Suddenly,in his junior year, several great players showed up from out of nowhere. There were lots of rumors about whether they were legitimately allowed to enroll, but in the end several lifelong students were bumped from the team. The coach was happy. The principal loved the idea. The kids presumably enjoyed the new school. But there were several others who lost an opportunity.

There are downsides to open door policies like you're endorsing. Most of the time, they're not so visible. But when resources are finite, people get hurt.