“No” on school budgets? We vote with our wallets every day
In New Jersey, times are desperate for the public schools. Well, you say, things are tough all over. There’s just no money, you say. You’re broke. We’re all broke. So when those budgets come up for vote — because in Jersey the only budget you get to vote directly for is your local public school budget — you’re voting ’em down.
Sure. I want you to tell me the one again about the crisis we’re facing supporting and financing public schools in our culture. Tell me how we’re all stretched and suffering and we have to vote “no” on these budgets.
We can start our pecuniary plotting in a few months while taking a ride to a Phillies game in your $50 thousand car, which does everything a $30 thousand car does with a little more leather and some extra buttons.
We can continue venting our fiscal frustrations when we arrive at that game, where — forget the overpriced tickets — one round of beer for me, you, and your two friends costs $29.
We can share our monetary malaise while we watch, say, the recent Tron movie (which has grossed over $165 million so far) in a 3D iMax theater. We’ll take three kids with us, so we’ll pay nearly $80 for tickets, and then whisper about the problem over $5 popcorns and a couple $4 sodas. The kids can eat their $5 candies a few rows behind us.
As the financial frothing really peaks, we can continue ranting after we plunk down $50 for a Pay-Per-View sporting event that we watch in front of your $1,500 widescreen HDTV.
We can reach finality with the budgetary bashing, deciding at last to vote “no” over our daily coffee (two on Sundays!), an indulgence for which we ring up a total over $1,000 a year each.
Vote how you will for your local school budget, but vote honestly. Let’s stop pretending that when it comes to our schools we’re overstretched, finished, financially defeated.
The money spent on beer at one Phillies game could bail out many small New Jersey school districts. One person’s coffee expenses could save an after-school activity. With the car price differential, some schools could spare their entire extracurricular programs this year. If the money we spend on Tron and other movies went toward education… well, now I’m really creating my own sci-fi world of fantastical imagination.
You may not like the public school tenure system. You may not like the way teachers’ benefits are managed. But there is a loud, real conversation going on about these issues right now. Things seem likely to change.
Just don’t use your vote to direct your ire at individual schools and individual teachers. Just don’t frame them — these people who spend eight hours a day working hard with our children — as trying to take what you claim you don’t have. Just be honest and say you’d rather spend your money elsewhere. Crummy 3D movies not art classes. Pro athletes not teachers. Shiny cars not school computers.
You may get angry at these statements. But the figures above are not made up. They reflect a collective will in our culture to direct our money in massive, astonishing quantities toward certain goods and services. And it is America, so we do indeed have every right to do that.
But I just ask for a little collective honesty. Don’t vote against schools and teachers out of the feeling that you don’t control where your money goes. Why? Because it just wouldn’t be true. When it comes to money in our culture, we vote with our wallets every day.
This is a longer version of a letter I wrote to my local newspaper last year. Some people didn’t like it. One person even said I had a Goldman-Sachs mentality. With the budget season creeping up, I thought it still might be relevant, although I’m not hoping for a warmer reception this year.
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I live in California. The schools out here are failing. They are overrun with illegal aliens and social programs. There is a 60% drop out rate in most L.A. area schools. The kids are forced to take free lunches which are then thrown in the trash. How do I know? My sister in law is a teacher, my neighbor is a teacher and my kid went to California schools until she was 12. In Cali schools she had to hold back her learning so the teachers could coddle illegal alien kids that did not speak English. My daughter went to kindergarten already reading simple words and writing her name, among other words. Now that she is going to school in IIlinois, she has been distinguished as being in the top 10% of Illinos high school scholars and she was accepted to a good college. In Cali she was labeled as smart so that meant the teacher did not have to spend alot of time with her, she could pass the tests. The teachers unions out here blindly support every social Idea the legislature can come up with. They give their huge pile of money to agendas that keep taking and taking from lawful, tax paying citizens of this state. So yes, I vote against ANYTHING that will give more money to this loser of a political machine beause that is all the school system is out here, a political money hungry monster that only exists to further its own interests, and the kids of Americans be damned. And who are you to tell me how to spend my money? I drive a 12 year old truck, I do not drink coffee and I have not been on a real vacation in 15 years. My home is modest and I buy my clothes at Wal Mart…. but I vote and until the dirt that carpets the school system is swept out (incompetent tenured teachers, over paid administrators, unions funding politicians etc etc) I will continue to vote against anything the teachers union wants. The teachers union always backs the politico’s that further the illegal alien agenda in California…… They have created their own mess , they can clean it up.
Well said, Scott!
My nearly overwhelming urge to post a sarcastic response regarding spending habits in general has my fingers quivering on the keyboard. But alas, it will not get typed.
I couldn’t agree more. I have no problem at all admitting that I spend “unwisely” on some things, but I like to think I have a very rational outlook about what is truly important. The populace in general has very personal views about what really is important, and that’s OK as long as what is bitched about doesn’t directly contradict that view. Don’t tell me you care about conserving the environment from the open window of your H3 while the AC pumps with the windows down so you can feel the wind in your hair.
When people lie to themselves about priorities it makes any rational argument almost impossible, so I’ll not try to make a bigger one here. Suffice it to say that Mr. Goldman-Sach’s commentary is a great one, and that we all need to do a little soul searching before exploding when it comes time to pony up a couple shekels to contribute to the greater good. Like it or not, it will effect you one way or the other eventually.
Just buy her the phone!
One thing I know is that just about every non-educator has the wrong perspective on what goes on in schools, what it is like to run schools and why certain choices are made with money, resources and staffing. Then, they vote down school budgets based on this partial and generally incorrect information, every element of which is tainted by biased personal experience. (“This happened to my kid, so the district can go to hell.”) When in doubt (and you should always be if you aren’t up on educational practice and theory) err on the side of giving the kids and teachers the resources they need. If you think they are going to be misused, keep your eye on it — go to board meetings; meet with the administration — and then raise a stink.
Hmmm…
I remember a recent post by said author where he eviscerated his young daughter’s flawed logic concerning a cellphone upgrade.
But now the rhetorician wants to party? Heh heh.
Rebuttal #1 (equally cherry picked ‘evidence’):
Let’s imagine a small school district…not really a ‘district’ at all, in most people’s understanding of the word. One school. 250 students. What salary might we expect the leader of said school receive? As a comparison, my kids go to an independent school of a similar size, that is run by the faculty. There is no ‘principal’ or ‘superintendent.’
Would $125k seem a lot? Fairly modest by NJ standards, where the Gov has moved to cap Superintendent salaries at $175k (same as the Gov’s salary). The proposed cap, actually, for a 250 student district is $135, so this particular Super has some headroom!
I don’t begrudge a senior person the right to make $125k – unless BOTH spouses make that kind of money, it’s hard to make even one baseball game a year (maybe one beer each) living in NJ.
Rebuttal #2:
Isn’t there an opportunity to share the $125k Super’s expertise over a broader constituency?
And if we start looking at larger districts, like the massive 1,000 student Rumson-Fair Haven Regional, we might be truly surprised to see a $202k salary for the Super…
It would seem that there is opportunity for efficiency here, and unfortunately nothing short of all out war will get the parties to the table to reevaluate many of the assumptions underlying public education. GM went bankrupt and, with some very savvy reinventing AND some good work that had already been done, has emerged much stronger than anyone would have imagined in 2008.
Public education, particularly in NJ, CA and similar high cost states, is in a similar situation and only massive involvement from the stakeholders (not just more real estate taxes) will get everyone to the table to create a solution. Giving up a baseball game, or leasing a $40k car instead of a $60k car, won’t solve any of the underlying problems that leave so many underserved by their educational systems.
Maybe we could have a follow up debating how cheap Zuckerburg is for only giving $100m to Newark…since he’s worth $4B (who knows), a 2.5% gift seems sort of underwhelming when he could have skipped a couple of million Chai Lattes and given 3.5%.
Guess the people of Wisconsin are as fed up with the teachers union as I am……… We can only hope it snowballs.
… and if 500 fathers passed on a $20 lap dance, that money could fund the stipend for a cheerleader coach or a wrestling coach.
In regard to Zuckerburg, his $100M is a challenge donation that requires Newark to raise $100M. In other words, Zuckerburg gets to go on Oprah and say how great he is with a very low likelihood of ever sending one dime to Newark. Moreover, seeing that Newark already spends $22K per student, twice what Riverton spends, I’m not sure whether pouring in an extra $200M will solve any of their problems but it will pay for a lot of lap dances.