Rationalizing The Screwing Of Our Children & End Runs Around Taxes
A School District With Low Taxes and No Schools
When I lived in New Hampshire I met a lot of people that were dead set against paying for public schools because they no longer (or never did) had children attending school. They felt that, since school costs represented a majority of the expense for taxpayers, they had paid their share of taxes for schools and it was up to the parents of those children attending school in the present tense to pay for schools.
When I mentioned the idea that we all had a stake in assuring our children were educated and maintaining good quality schools for the sake of good citizenship, solid economics, a supportable enterprise within the community and the state, as well as providing a labor pool that would attract businesses with a goodly number of jobs... Well, let's just say the sparks flew and some of the words thrown my way were not for public consumption. Indeed I thought I was speaking to Mr. Potter from the movie, "It's A Wonderful Life." Perhaps it was even Ebenezer Scrooge before his epiphany and conversion by way of ghostly visits.
The conservative side of the political spectrum gives a fair share of knocks to our educational system because of the way we mismanage our schools and the manner in which we employ social experimentation in the curriculum. As an educator I understand these concerns. Some of the worst efforts in social science and social engineering have occurred in our nation under the umbrella of "education." In fact and in practice the efforts toward "whole language" approaches to teaching reading, phonics, spelling and language arts was an entire waste of time, money and energy that never produced quality results. A lot of curriculum fads have entered our school systems and produced a lot of poor quality results.
The entire approach to bilingual education has been poorly implemented. Instead of helping a student to maintain a balance and continue making progress in learning, which was the original intent of the bilingual approach, the bilingual programs began supporting a student for the duration of their school experience. Bilingual education was never intended, designed or focused on such an approach. Bilingual education was supposed to support a student until a reasonable mastery of English was established through an intensive remedial experience. This remedial approach had proven successful in the past through many waves of immigration in places like Hull House in Chicago, the Jewish community centers throughout the east coast (especially New York, Boston, Baltimore), and other grass roots efforts. But like a lot of things, once the governments began to see money via grants and funding formulas, plus a way to exert control and influence over a growing population, plus a manner in which to manipulate teaching jobs, things went awry.
We need a bilingual approach, just as we need special education approaches, in our schools. But we do not need either of these approaches in the form we have adopted and implemented.
But we also need every citizen and resident to support our public schools. This support must come not only in the form of paying taxes, but also through participation, feedback and direct input over what goes on in our schools. We need people to attend the school board and committee meetings and voice their views. We need parents to take time off from work and show up in the classrooms where their children sit 6-8 hours every school day. We need parents and community members to participate in parent-teacher and community activities. We need bankers, carpenters, accountants, social workers, firemen, boilermakers, dentists, doctors, garbage collectors, computer technologists, realtors and people from all walks of life--even if they do not have children in school--to show up at our schools and contribute.
But we have a very anti-education and anti-public school environment in our nation. That is illustrated by the NY Times article cited below. The very idea of manipulating the system to completely circumvent financial support of public schools--rather than trying to fix the fiscal management problems that existed to create the burdens they were protesting--is nothing less than morally bankrupt. We all hate to pay taxes when they burden us beyond what we see as being reasonable. We all hate to see our tax dollars mismanaged. But screwing the system--and screwing our children in the process--is not a moral or ethical way to go about it. But, there will be members of our society that will applaud this approach for its cleverness and ability to pull one over on the politicians and idiots that have screwed up our system from the gitgo... and that is a damn shame as well.
When I lived in New Hampshire I met a lot of people that were dead set against paying for public schools because they no longer (or never did) had children attending school. They felt that, since school costs represented a majority of the expense for taxpayers, they had paid their share of taxes for schools and it was up to the parents of those children attending school in the present tense to pay for schools.
When I mentioned the idea that we all had a stake in assuring our children were educated and maintaining good quality schools for the sake of good citizenship, solid economics, a supportable enterprise within the community and the state, as well as providing a labor pool that would attract businesses with a goodly number of jobs... Well, let's just say the sparks flew and some of the words thrown my way were not for public consumption. Indeed I thought I was speaking to Mr. Potter from the movie, "It's A Wonderful Life." Perhaps it was even Ebenezer Scrooge before his epiphany and conversion by way of ghostly visits.
The conservative side of the political spectrum gives a fair share of knocks to our educational system because of the way we mismanage our schools and the manner in which we employ social experimentation in the curriculum. As an educator I understand these concerns. Some of the worst efforts in social science and social engineering have occurred in our nation under the umbrella of "education." In fact and in practice the efforts toward "whole language" approaches to teaching reading, phonics, spelling and language arts was an entire waste of time, money and energy that never produced quality results. A lot of curriculum fads have entered our school systems and produced a lot of poor quality results.
The entire approach to bilingual education has been poorly implemented. Instead of helping a student to maintain a balance and continue making progress in learning, which was the original intent of the bilingual approach, the bilingual programs began supporting a student for the duration of their school experience. Bilingual education was never intended, designed or focused on such an approach. Bilingual education was supposed to support a student until a reasonable mastery of English was established through an intensive remedial experience. This remedial approach had proven successful in the past through many waves of immigration in places like Hull House in Chicago, the Jewish community centers throughout the east coast (especially New York, Boston, Baltimore), and other grass roots efforts. But like a lot of things, once the governments began to see money via grants and funding formulas, plus a way to exert control and influence over a growing population, plus a manner in which to manipulate teaching jobs, things went awry.
We need a bilingual approach, just as we need special education approaches, in our schools. But we do not need either of these approaches in the form we have adopted and implemented.
But we also need every citizen and resident to support our public schools. This support must come not only in the form of paying taxes, but also through participation, feedback and direct input over what goes on in our schools. We need people to attend the school board and committee meetings and voice their views. We need parents to take time off from work and show up in the classrooms where their children sit 6-8 hours every school day. We need parents and community members to participate in parent-teacher and community activities. We need bankers, carpenters, accountants, social workers, firemen, boilermakers, dentists, doctors, garbage collectors, computer technologists, realtors and people from all walks of life--even if they do not have children in school--to show up at our schools and contribute.
But we have a very anti-education and anti-public school environment in our nation. That is illustrated by the NY Times article cited below. The very idea of manipulating the system to completely circumvent financial support of public schools--rather than trying to fix the fiscal management problems that existed to create the burdens they were protesting--is nothing less than morally bankrupt. We all hate to pay taxes when they burden us beyond what we see as being reasonable. We all hate to see our tax dollars mismanaged. But screwing the system--and screwing our children in the process--is not a moral or ethical way to go about it. But, there will be members of our society that will applaud this approach for its cleverness and ability to pull one over on the politicians and idiots that have screwed up our system from the gitgo... and that is a damn shame as well.
Just to be clear, Patrick Flynn says he loves public education. He just does not like the idea of paying for it.
So when it came time last November for the expanding, unincorporated desert community of Troon to choose between joining a nearby school district, and paying higher property taxes to help finance it, or starting its own, Mr. Flynn led the movement that created the Christopher Verde School District.
Not that the Christopher Verde district will have any schools, teachers or, apparently, students.
The children of Troon will continue to attend nearby schools. And thanks to a loophole in Arizona law, the grown-ups of Troon will continue to avoid paying property taxes in those districts, which makes officials in the districts less than mirthful.
“The whole purpose of this was to avoid taxes on their million-dollar homes,” said State Senator Linda Gray, a Republican who has sponsored a bill to prevent the formation of a school district without schools. (Ms. Gray conceded that there was at least one Flynn supporter who had “a half-million-dollar home.”)
Beginning in the next school year, Troon students will now pay tuition to the school district they attend, and that money will come from part of the property taxes collected by the new Christopher Verde district.
posted by Jim Downey at 5:17 AM
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