Your "penalty tax" is called "property tax" in most localities in the US.

I pay around 7% of my upper-middle-class income each year in property tax. The vast majority of that money goes to my local public school district. 3 of my 5 children are home schooled. In effect, I pay both for the private education of my own children as well as the public education of others. Sure feels like a penalty to me.

This is what makes the GP comment so off-base. There's no "salt lake" effect from a funding perspective. This is the whole point of the recent political rumblings to institute voucher systems that let parents take their tax dollars and spend them on alternative schooling options.