The Price of Education

Despite what you may read here from time to time (okay, perhaps more often than just ‘from time to time’) I have a great deal of regard for those who volunteer to serve on our Board of Education and on City Council especially this time of year when good intentions and fine words get reduced to a balance sheet as decisions are made, or left unmade, about budgets. 

We residents rely a lot on the decisions about structure and funding by a handful of dedicated people but then often become unhappy at the decisions they make, no matter what those decisions are. 

And nothing seems to bring out the passion like any and all decisions about public education funding, which in Norwich has two components: Norwich Free Academy, NFA, costs which are presented to the Board of Education (Norwich is one of their sending towns) as a bill that must be paid, an immovable object, that’s also included as part of the overall operating budget for Norwich Public Schools, whose bottom line is approved by the City Council, the irresistible force. 

The Board of Education’s budget generates a great deal of comment as well it should, not all of it kind and not all of it reasoned or reasonable, because of the number of dollars involved; but many of those dollars are for NFA over which the Board has no control or input.

When (not if) NFA costs increase annually those increases must be paid by the Board of Education; rarely does the Board's approved overall budget increase by even that same amount or percentage. Instead 'economies' are created impacting, directly and indirectly, the classroom experiences of all of our children at the grade-school level. This arithmetical sleight of hand has gone on for decades and we all feel bad about it and promise to do better next year. But don’t.  

I am a child of a schoolteacher, so I'm a little more intractable and implacable (and maybe irrational) when well-meaning and hard-working people, facing the toughest economic times since the Great Depression of 19129 coupled with the greatest public health threat since the Spanish Flu of 1918, attempt to persuade me that we can or should buy education for our children as if we were buying ground beef or bananas.  

I always hear 'in my day we didn't have...' computers, paraprofessionals, guidance counselors, (insert your favorite childhood memory here). We tend to forget the world we are giving our children is very different from the one we had. 

I was a Cold War Kid who drilled to duck under his desk and turn away from windows. Now we have Windows on computers in every classroom and more computers in our schools than NASA had for the Space Race. But we also have more metal detectors in schools than in penitentiaries. Each day our schools and teachers struggle to find a balance that’s being constantly redefined and refined. 

Every day our schools are, for many, surrogate parents, offering breakfast and lunch for hungry minds with stomachs to match. And many times, our schools are the venue for before and after school services desperately needed by stressed and distressed families across Norwich many of whom bear little resemblance to the Waltons or Cleavers. No one chose to have this happen, but it’s part of who we are now.

We choose to build a city reflecting our beliefs, values, and hopes for everyone in our community, and nowhere are all of those more present than in how we fund our schools. As parents we want our children to have roots and wings. Our schools help provide both. 

Frankly, education is not an expense; it is an investment we make in our own future. 

We are building a city that reflects our beliefs, values, and hopes for every one of us, and nowhere are all of those more present than in how we fund our schools. As parents we want our children to have roots and wings. Norwich schools help provide both. 
-bill kenny