Today, in our public schools, we are witnessing nothing less than the crumbling of American society.
The point was made ever more clear this week as San Luis Obispo County districts once again sent out pink slips notifying teachers and staff that their jobs were hanging in the balance.
It’s a simple abomination, what’s going on there, and if you don’t have kids, you probably have no idea just how bad things have gotten — and how quickly.
The cuts and layoffs over the last couple years will be compounded again with this latest round, a combined force of rot that has eaten a once-robust system down to its bones.
The relentless and merciless pressure to reach an ever-lowering bottom line has with stunning speed erased years of thought and work to improve the public school experience.
- Class-size reduction — the California standard that trimmed early elementary grades down to a 20-student limit — has been all but obliterated.
- Support staff to the core curricula — in the form of specialized teachers, counselors, aides, coaches and others — continues to erode as enriching programs in athletics and the arts are cast aside.
- And basic education — not only language and mathematics, but also science, social studies, foreign languages, etc. — is being reduced to an undeniably common common denominator.
In Cynthia Lambert’s story this week, county superintendent of school Julian Crocker summarized the sad state affairs well: “So what you have at the end of the day is probably a very vanilla program with basically classroom teachers and a large class, unfortunately.”
Great.
What a wonderful learning opportunity we’ve created for this generation of kids.
I have two in that generation.
A couple weeks ago, the 9-year-old participated in a choral concert at her school, before which it was announced that the program — along with band — would likely be eliminated next year.
Spectacular.
So we’ll cram 30-plus kids in every elementary school classroom and leave teachers little to no support as they focus nearly all their attention on reading and math while coaching students to the requirements of California’s standardized tests.
While we’re at it, why don’t we just go ahead and eliminate recess too?
Forget lunch, they don’t need to eat. We can’t subsidize these hot meals any longer.
Windows? Bah, costs too much to clean them. Plywood’s cheaper — er, better. Yeah.
Electricity? Well, we should keep that, because at this rate pretty soon all we’ll have left is a TV monitor in a boarded up room piping in mass lessons from a single teacher in Sacramento.
Like I said, an abomination.
Why? Because of ridiculously poor money management by our state government, which continues to outdo itself in its capacity for ineptitude.
The fact today is simple.
We cannot count on Sacramento.
Which leads me to my ultimate point: To save our public schools, we need to take personal financial responsibility for them.
That means raising taxes, and if any of you even dare squawk, you can just shut your beaks right now.
For any district that is enduring yet another round of debiliating cuts, it is time to pass a raised assessment on every local property to gather dollars that will be devoted exclusively to public education.
Yes, you heard me right: YOU AND ME AND ALL OF US NEED TO PAY MORE TAXES.
How much would it take? I don’t know. $100 a year? $200? $500?
Whatever it is, we find a way to afford it. If we have to amend Proposition 13, we begin considering ways to do that.
Jim Lynett, president of the Paso Robles Public Educators teachers union, wants to see the district request a $20-a-month parcel tax, an amount that would cost property owners $240 a year and raise $2 million for the district.
But, as he noted in a story earlier this month, “They haven’t even put that on the agenda to discuss it.”
Superintendent Kathy McNamara was cool to the idea, saying, “We want to be sensitive to the community.”
No, we don’t. We don’t need to be sensitive any longer.
We need to be strong and decisive and proactive in finding methods to generate — not reduce — money for public education.
We need leaders who are strong, decisive and proactive as well.
And we need our citizens to recognize this, step up and be supportive.
Anyone who can’t get behind this cause ought to be ashamed of themselves, because the other option — not investing in the lives of our next generation — is an affront to the standards we hold ourselves to and absolutely, unequivocally unacceptable.
What do you think? Share your thoughts here.
My kid graduates next year and then theoretically all the schools could fall apart.
Except for college, he’ll need that.
Then they can fall apart.
Oh but then, he may have kids, so we will need schools for them.
A well-educated population more likely to find good jobs, pay for their health care and stay out of prison. Taxpayers want to see their investment pay off with a benefit. This looks like a good cost/benefit equation.
But before the soreheads launch into the rant about public schools not providing a good education, a question:
Where have you volunteered to help? With the system doing less we will be more responsible than ever for filling in the cracks in our children’s education.
I recently had a blog post with a similar theme.
Joe, If I had the power to confer a doctorate of good sense on you, you’d be known as Dr. Joe by early next week. Seeing as how that’s never going to happen, how do we expand your thoughts into a drumbeat that resonates with the general public? Obviously your thoughts SHOULD hit home with parents of school-aged children, but what about members of the so-called “Greatest Generation” who choke on the very thought of their taxes being raised even an iota for something as critical as education?
There seems to be an ever-growing disconnect in understanding that if we don’t give our children the best education possible, we have collectively consigned ourselves to a dismal quality of life for all. The disconnect extends to not understanding that if we don’t front-load our culture with tax-supported education, we pay for that parsimony a hundredfold down the line when those kids fall behind, drop out of school, take to predatory methods of survival and end up as wards of the state in our juvenile and penal systems.
By not stepping up to the plate we’re consigning our children to an impoverished life, and, as Jean de La Bruyere noted: “If poverty is the mother of crime, stupidity is its father.” And that stupidity begins with the narcissism of those who don’t believe in supporting education because they may not have a child within a school system — although they may have done very well themselves by the education that was financed through taxes paid by those who came before them.
Ironically, it’s these selfish, unconscious “uber patriots” who bitch the most about crime, but haven’t the barest inkling that a dollar invested in education saves thousands of dollars — in tax-generated revenue — down the road.
One last thought. Governments (at least ours) have one main function: Looking out for the health and safety of its individuals. As Christian Dior once said, That’s pretty much the size of it. By “making the tough choices” of cutting back on education and programs that allow our elders and less fortunate to live lives with a measure of dignity, government isn’t making “tough choices” at all; it’s abrogating its responsibility to its citizenry; it is crippling our society and consigning future generations to mediocrity, thus sowing the seeds of eventual collapse. I’m just sayin’ …
Isn’t San Luis Coastal a basic aid district? Why is SL Coastal having to issue pink slips if it wasn’t getting money from the state in the first place?
Excellent comments touching on further reasons why we need to support public education with more of our own dollars. Meanwhile, however, in early voting, the poll is split 50-50. Those of you who voted no, explain yourselves! I want to hear your justification.
As a transplant from the Bay Area, the question that comes to my mind is do the school districts in this county have educational foundations as do pretty much all the districts up north? Those school foundations began years ago to keep and enhance the “extra” programs that go beyond the 3-Rs. They now raise many thousands of dollars for their districts, albeit with many hours of volunteer parent time. I was on the board of one such foundation for a few years and know just how many parents and friends pitched in to raise the money. If they exist here, I sure have not heard of them. If they don’t, they should, although it’s a big job to get them started.
Your statements have an added element of credibility because you and your wife volunteer WEEKLY in your children’s classrooms … and I know you both have jobs that you balance with your devotion to family.
All of us adults need to remember that schools, in most cases, offered a fuller education when we were children. How can we watch as today’s children receive less from a world that is demanding more of them as the future community members, workers, parents, and citizens of our country? We have never experienced change at the pace that it now moves and it is our children, not today’s batch of adults, who will direct the course of that change.
We need to PAY for our public schools. As community members, we need to pay. As California citizens, we need to demand that Sacramento amend or abolish Proposition 13 and raise taxes.
We can’t afford to be influenced by those who whine about taxes. Just get a piggy bank and put in the equivalent of the cost of one cup of coffee bought a mere three times weekly at a cafe, restaurant, gas station, or coffee shop. If you don’t drink coffee, put in the cost of three bottles weekly of those drinks that appear in every color as they stare at us through the walls of plastic bottles lining store shelves. Either way … do the math. Drink tap water three times a week instead of buying a drink and you have saved $312/year that can then go to a local parcel tax to support your community’s public schools. That’s about t he amount of an average parcel tax.
Then, get to work in your community and pass a parcel tax because the funding will be more immediate as you make the phone calls and go door-to-door and rally your community behind THE CHILDREN. And keep advocating for courageous leadership rather than partisan politics in Sacramento every time you vote or support a candidate for pubilc leadership.
Thank you, Joe, for caring enough about your country and its children.
Did you just give Adrienne’s dad a shout-out?
Totally, I agree with him 100 percent. I told Adrienne I was quoting him.
Hey Joe,
Right on article. It is very difficult to come up with and answer to the problem. I remember better days in this state when our schools were some of the best in the nation.
I was involved in cleaning up a very corrupt administration in a school in Northern California. Many of the problems stemmed from parents who were afraid of confronting staff and the teachers union that protected them. This was a school that in the 70’s had 100 plus students, to less than 20 today. That is why I agree with you that a new tax would help and parent involvement with a broad that understands it is responsible for their and your child’s quality of education.
Ken
Thanks Joe, Things are rotting fast. What once was an educational system to be envied is rapidly becoming a third world provider of factoids without feeling. I am a retired teacher and coach. We need to act soon or and entire generation of California’s finest will graduate without even knowing what they could have experienced.