Maybe, but I went to one of the worst funded schools in my state (MN at the time) and got a great education. We were a rural area with only a small tax base, but everyone cared that we got a good education and so the money was carefully spent to give us a good education with the limited money. In fact as a kid I commented that it didn't seem like we had poor funding as we had a lot of activities and great education. Then it was explained that the historical mining areas of the state had a much better tax base, as did the inner city schools (they got the taxes from expensive downtown properties), and even suburban districts had industrial areas to tax.