You can leave the district when it hits the fan in a month (or so) if you rent. If you own, you're stuck paying the "rent" aka prop tax or you eat the obvious capital loss. A owner is a sheep ready for the shearing...
The older the district, the worse the financial conditions, roughly. If you rent and move to an exurb that didn't exist in 2005, they can't by definition have employees retiring from the local school in 2015 with 30 years experience and 30 years of benefits to pay out. Also roughly speaking the older the community the more corrupt it is in general, which is expensive. This is before we get into infrastructure expenses.
In every state I have lived, school retirement and health plans were handled at the state level. Hoping districts isn't going to shield you from your state government. The school districts pay into state plans as directed by the state legislature. It's the state legislature that's on the hook for the unfunded liabilities, not the school districts. School districts only make the equivalent of social security payments.
And it's not like the employees aren't playing into the system the same way that private sector employees pay into Social Security. Many/most state employees are excluded from participating in Social Security--the States in their infinite wisdom decided long ago that they would rather roll their own rather than submit to the tyranny of federal control.
> Rent pays property tax, too. It's indirect, but it gets paid.
In California, due to Proposition 13, many many landlords pay 1970's level property taxes. It makes sense to rent these properties and split the savings with the landlord.
The bill is coming soon for a lot of school districts (especially those with strong unions) with the rapid costs of health care for retirees.
This is going to be our next crisis as we can see it playing out in Detroit.