School Fun(ding)

Public Education Matters

1-16-10 School Fun(ding)

Yesterday the Indiana State Board of Education sent out a memorandum to Indiana’s Superintendents, School Board Members, Principals and Indiana Educators. Ok, the memo says they sent this out to Indiana Educators. However, I’m an Indiana Educator and they didn’t send one to me. No other teacher I know was sent one either.

So how did I get this? Well I was sent it by a member of the press. So apparently the memo was sent to the press but not to me. Hmm. What do I think about that? Hmm. I better keep that to myself.

The memo itself touts the “formally adopted Citizens’ Checklist to be utilized by local school communities as they move to make adjustments to respond to lower state tuition support funding as a result of the State’s declining revenues.”

Wow, that’s quite a mouthful, yes? It’s a lot of nice words for suggestions of ways to cut and slash a school district’s budget. The memo is also careful to explain that "school boards, the district’s leadership team and teachers associations will retain the flexibility and autonomy to make monetary, programmatic, administrative and other decisions based on the district’s and school’s fiscal position but in the best interests of its students.” It says I can contact Lance Rhodes at 317-232-9139 if I have any questions.

Something tells me that it’s probably best that I not call good old Lance right now. It’s best to wait until I can sputter out something besides “Hey Lance, How much money is the state paying for its marketing strategist here?” Or “Hey Lance, does this smack to you as a thinly veiled attack on the state’s teacher’s union that Mitch Daniels hates because he can’t control?”

The memo says “By distributing the Citizens’ Checklist throughout the local community, it is the intent of the State Board and the Department of Education to stimulate meaningful and transparent dialogue that will be held in an open forum so that positive action can be taken and obstructions to solutions can be identified and addressed. Conducting open forums will allow local communities to find adjustments that do not affect student learning.” (I’ll save for another time, my thoughts on the last part of that last sentence.)

Or, the C’ checklist may just incite lynch mobs. Villagers with torches. Why do I think this? Well think about it; we have a depressed economy. We have real people losing their jobs or working fulltime at jobs that pay below the poverty level. We have people who cannot get healthcare. We have families struggling to survive. We have people losing their homes. We have a national educational agenda (Race to the Top) that dangles a competition between states for an uncertain amount of money to entice them to buy into a set of criteria that no one really defines and only some states will win. (The long way of saying we have no idea how much money will come from the federal government, if any.) We have a very foolish, irresponsible, and vote seeking state legislature who promoted putting caps on property taxes and took away a stable avenue of funding for schools among other things. So what do you think the public response is going to be to the 22 items of “adjustments and considerations that reduce the cost of staff?”

My guess is they are going to say “YEAHHHHH! CUT AND SLASH! BURN AND PILLAGE!”

It’s not that the 22 items each one are not worthy considerations, even if some of them in my eyes are not at all wise and some of them appalling. It’s not that it’s not always a great thing to review how money is going to be spent or how money might be saved. But part of the problem with this checklist going out to the public like this is that the public is not likely to make decisions with the education of children in mind. They are going to make decisions based on their pocketbooks, based on the panic they feel every time they reach in and feel no pocket change down there.

The other part of the problem is I have a great fear that the “leaders” (and I use that term very loosely here) of our state will take the public opinion they get from this checklist and promote it as a mandate from the public. They’ll say “Hey aren’t we great? We LISTENED to you, the small little people! Aren’t we awesome big people! Vote for us AGAIN!” And they’ll have a scapegoat for when it all comes crashing down when the effects of the cuts actually start to mean something in the communities of the little people. They’ll say “Hey, we were only listening to what YOU wanted. YOU asked for this!”

Last I looked we lived in a Republic- which means we elect leaders to make our decisions for us. The theory is that we will elect wise people who will make wise and informed positions for us. There is an element of trust given to these people to look a little deeper into considerations, than say what any one of us “little people” can or will or would. There is an element of trust that they will dig deep enough to understand the ramifications of their decisions. There is an element of trust that they will do what is right without regard to whether or not it gets them elected again. (By the way, I learned about republics in the public school way back when. And sometimes I that is perhaps one reason why public schools are under attack today.)

And you can blame the citizenry for not electing wisely. But I, personally, won’t take the heat on this one. I did not vote for Mitch Daniels and I certainly didn’t vote for Tony Bennett to be our state’s educational “leader” and Mitch’s puppet. There was an intelligent, articulate choice offered in Richard Wood who also ran for the position of our State School Superintendent. But Mr. Daniels and Mr. Bennett, rather than looking at what would truly be beneficial for our state’s educational system and our state’s most valuable resource (our children) only looked to what would get them elected and would reinforce Mr. Daniel’s economic policies and his presidential aspirations (whether he admits them or not.) They are the result of a massive and effective marketing campaign to manipulate the public and so assure their elections.

I believe this Citizens’ Checklist with its accompanying memo is just more of the same.