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 [1], 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 [2] — 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 [3]) 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. [4]
We can reach finality with the budgetary bashing, deciding at last to vote “no” over our daily coffee [5](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.
- Author Bio [6]
- Latest Posts [7]
[8]Scott Warnock [9]
[8]Latest posts by Scott Warnock (Posts [10])
- An Eagle’s farewell: Nothing artificial about it [11] - March 29, 2024
- Friends of all ages [12] - March 6, 2024
- AI overlord inevitability?: My fantasy team says no [13] - January 19, 2024
- Three-volley salute–and fathers and sons [14] - December 18, 2023
- Trains do not keep a rollin’ [15] - October 21, 2023