"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...

snip

I don't know where you are but in the US most of the the schools _are_
run by the state in the sense that "state"="government" rather than in
the sense that "state"="one of 50 specific political subunits". There
are schools that are not run by the government, in some cases those
are run by churches and in others are private profit-making
businesses, but for the most part they are run by the government.


That's not exactly right.
Here, in NY, the local "government", i.e. town/city officials, effective
handle only the school tax collection.
The school superintendant is NOT an officer within the local/city
government. That position
is controlled by a locally elected school board. The board's only
connection to the State government
is they're responsible for meeting the educational requirement the NYState
Department of Education set.
The intended roll for the school board is as a educational overseer, with
budgeting responsibilities.
The members get elected based on their abilities to meet the local
educational requirements within the state's guidelines.
The guidelines get more and more specific as the amount of state aide your
school system increases.
In current reality, school boards do little actual planning beyond how to
"maximize their state aide dollars".
Seems their primary budgeting role is now finding a way to get the next
levels "bigger pocket" to pay for local projects.

At no point can the local govenments be put into a position of choosing to
"raid" the school tax funds to pay the local street lighting bill. There is
no direct connection between town/city/county government and the school
board, beyond some sccountability for spending the school tax dollars
properly. (No home expansions for the school board member allowed. )

Private/church schools that provide the main stream education of children
are also held to the NY State Department of Education's curiculum guidlines
too. They get the lighter version due to their receipt of little to no
state aide.