Finally, it's election day and this two year nightmare of campaigning will be over. As I was getting ready for work today, I saw the empty water jug into which I toss my spare change. About two months ago, I started wrapping some of the change. I got to about $130 and stopped because I got tired of wrapping it. I think I wrapped most of the quarters but I still have a lot of pennies, nickels, and dimes. I figure if I get the rest wrapped I may end up with $200 or so.
As I looked at the jug this morning I realized that this is change I can believe in. Real, tangible change. Not rhetoric or empty promises. Not plans without detail. Not unfunded mandates. Actual change that I can hold in my hand and that serves as legal tender in the United States. This is the only change that matters. No matter who wins the election tonight, my life is unlikely to be altered much. I'm a single, white, male with no dependents who makes a decent W-2 salary. The government loves people like me. We get no breaks and get hammered every tax season. Aside from my mortgage interest, I get no tax breaks. I make too much money to get any government benefits and too little money to have slick lawyers and accountants find me loopholes. I have no children so I don't get paid to procreate. I simply pay, and pay, and pay. Neither candidate is going to change this.
All that matters to me is the money I can hold in my hands and it's likely that whoever gets elected, somehow I'll be holding less of it.
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I'm listening to the news now,and while it looks like as Ohio goes so goes the nation, almost every single school levy in Northeast Ohio is failing, even the renewal levies, which would not raise taxes on folks unless their property values increased. So all the optimism in electing a new leader is going to be countered by services and activities being cut in educating the K through 12 crowd, putting America even further behind the rest of the world. All for a few pennies.
I should probably have a jar like that, but the patience that would be required to roll the change? Lord have mercy, just thinking about it, I feel like my head will explode.
I disagree about the education system. I do not think money is the answer. The U.S. spends more per pupil than most other inductrialized countries, even adjusting for our standard of living, and yet our kids are constantly outperformed. I think it is a fallacy that more money will fix the problem. We've been throwing money at education for years with no tangible results.
I believe it has much more to do with accountability. Take schools in England. Kids sit in their sits, don't talk back, and are expected to do work. Here, a lot of parents aren't involved, kids are on Ritalin, and teachers barely know more than their students. I know I'm painting with a broad brush but my point is that money will not solve the academic problems of the U.S.
I also don't agree that it's just a few pennies. Had the levy passed in Parma, my taxes would have gone up about $200 a year. That's about 2 months worth of gas for me. And what school boards keep forgetting when they accuse voters of being stingy or uncaring is that this isn't the only increase households are facing. If the only extra money I had to spend this year was for schools, maybe I'd consider it. But gasoline has gone up 100% in the last year. My grocery bill is up 40%. Columbia Gas wants to increase my delivery charge so it's going to cost more to heat my house. Cox Cable raised their rates again. Everything has become more expensive and my retirement and investments are worth less than ever.
Since the school funding method in Ohio is apparently unconstitutional, I think schools need to find some other source of money. You cannot keep going to homeowners time and time again to pay for everything in this country with corporation keep getting tax abatements. And unless schools can demonstrate some tangible gains from increased funding, I have no desire to pour any more of my money down the same well.
In Parma, they say that they have to cut a number of extracurriculars. I could care less about that. If someone wants to play football or be in band, they should pay for it (and my nephew is in band). All taxpayers should not be helping to pay for things that benefit only a small minority of students. The school's obligation is to teach English, Math, History and Science. Maybe if we could get back to doing these core things more effectively and stop distracting kids with other useless ancillary courses, we'd find our students better able to compete with the rest of the world. If we really want to compete, we should mandate coursework in these four core areas, along with a foreign language, from K-12. And we need to end grade inflation with so-called advanced placement classes and we need to actually fail kids who don't meet minimum standards.
Doing this would greatly streamline the education system and make it easier to vet qualified teachers. Of course, all this being said, you're still not going to be able to cure the problem of single parents who have no time to be involved, kids who are undernourished, etc. But the schools can't solve everything.
I do agree on the point that schools can't and shouldn't do it all. I think what I don't agree with is the notion that producing well rounded students who have both the opportunity to excel academically in the core subjects you mention, and who also have the opportunity to explore and excel at special talents whether it is sports or music or some other activity, is expendable. It absolutely is not. There have been countless studies on the impact of music instruction, for example, on math scores. Now that I have a high schooler and am trying to spend some time in the realm of physical fitness myself, I can understand the importance of athletics as an opportunity to learn teamwork skills, personal competitiveness, and goal setting. Not every kid is going to be a Midori or a Tiger Woods but there is nothing wrong with supporting the development of the complete person. My daughter just started gymnastics and it is evident already, with just a month under her leotard, that she will excel. She is only 8 but she loves it, she is proud of the things she is doing, and it increases her confidence. Yes, I had to go outside to get that opportunity for her but it's my guess that the kids I watch in the basketball clinics and in my son's cross-country team are developing similar relationships to discipline, self-confidence, and achievement.
And like the rest of us, kids need something to look forward to, and challenges that go beyond the classroom. These aren't just other people's kids; they are the future workforce and driver behind America's economy, and if we don't invest, we're all screwed.
There is no question that Ohio's system of education funding has been proven over and over again to be worthless. The system is horribly inequitable--Twinsburg is sitting pretty good but in other parts, urban and rural, very poorly. It's entirely unfair. Until it is a priority, right up there with gas prices and utility price fixing, we're going to go nowhere. I don't know what the solution is, but I don't think that punishing kids for fiscal misbehavior by taking away that things that make the experience of school even more meaningful is going to solve anything, either.
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