Did I attend/join in Monday evening's City Hall rally in support of education prior to the second public hearing on the budget? No, because I didn't (and don't) think it changes anything and the hullaballoo and hurt feelings surrounding the rally, comments made by members of the City Council, and the continued perception of public education as a cost rather than an investment causes us to lose our focus on what I think is the heart of the matter.
For lack of a more elegant assessment, we have come to the place where the road and the sky collide in terms of how we local government goods and services. How we finance all of the things we say we want in the manner we want them is a challenge we're no longer successfully addressing so arguing at the top of our lungs about what one or the other item costs, in this case, public education, is missing the bigger flick.
If I had a dollar for every time in the twenty-seven years of budget deliberations and discussions I've followed that I've heard 'this is a tough budget year,' or 'what you're seeing is bare-bones,' or my personal favorite 'there's nothing left to cut,' I could fund all our municipal departments and have money left over.
Let's channel the anger and animus so many of us are feeling right, with more than good reason perhaps, into something more productive than marking up poster boards and name calling. Since we've spent years saying 'we need to find a better way' let's stop talking about it and find a better way.
Every election (and we have one coming up in November) we ask candidates seeking office ‘do you support education?’ as if anyone would answer ‘nope; gimme ignorance, it’s easier to fool dumb people.’ My point is what do we mean when we ask that?
When we say “I support education” I suspect some of us mean the industrial age model we have now and have had for decades, not the technology age we need and should have. Eisenhower isn’t the President, except in many of our history books (is it still called that?) and we need to look at the now and the next and prepare for them. We're not doing that so we're failing our children and ourselves and are digging a hole so deep we'll never get out.
I don't know what I don't know about creating 21st Century public education and paying for it. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone, especially after yet another bruising budget season, in believing we may not be asking the right questions (which could be why we don't seem to have any answers).
Two essays from the Center for American Progress worth considering are "Seven Great Education Policy Ideas" emphasizing today’s students need better preparation for jobs to support their families and allow their full participation in our economic growth and a "Fresh Look at School Funding," on how to pay for that transition
Why not a task force (no idea of how many members) from across the community to examine, evaluate and recommend new approaches on how we deliver public education to our children, to include the tow I just mentioned. The only rule for that conversation would be there are no rules.
My mom used to tell us as kids when you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. Based on current events, we aren't running out of time to test her theory; we are already there.
-bill kenny
No comments:
Post a Comment