We are voting today. We start the process of selecting state and federal representatives. In California we also are voting on Superior Court judges. On my ballot there are also two attempts to increase taxes, one state wide and the other in our school district.
The state of California continues to live in a fantasy world. They refuse to cut spending and see the only answer is to raise taxes. They refuse to notice the sound of individuals and businesses leaving the state and shrinking the tax base.
Locally the school district wants to get more money. They claim it will not raise taxes. No. What it does is keep a tax going that would have died out. It increases the amount of money I will be paying out in the future. Lets see, it quacks. It waddles. It eats bugs. Yep, it sounds like a tax increase to me.
The state does not need more money, it needs more discipline. Schools do not need more money, they need more discipline. I say that as a teacher. I watch the waste and fraud. At our school we received a $3,000,000.00 federal grant (that is tax money for those of you from Oz). We shared it with five other schools. What was it for? To implement an anti-bullying curriculum and pay some social workers to come on campus two days a week to counsel students who were habitually tardy. At the same time we claim to have no money for books, are cutting back on custodians and shortening the school year because we don’t have any money.
I don’t know what is on your ballot but if it involves more money for those of us lined up at the public trough, vote “no.”
homo unius libri
Many of the generation that put us in space started their education in one-room schools. The generation NOW running the country was mostly educated in centralized, propagandized "modern" schools. Somehow, I don't think we took education the right direction.
ReplyDeleteIt is headed in the wrong direction and accelerating. I find I trust the opinions of the custodian who cleans my room more than the administrators who run my school.
DeleteGrace and peace.