Two days ago Education Secretary Duncan
was on the pan with reporters trying to explain about pink slips to
teachers.
It doesn't make any difference whether he called them pink
slips, job dissolution, or anything else. He was trying to hedge, in an effort
to make a political statement. More importantly, he really has nothing to do
with it. Local teaches are hired and fired by the school board and teachers at
military establishments are hired and fired by the military.
If he thinks
he has some power to hire and fire local teachers, he must be referring to his
control of of federal taxpayer fund allocations to local school districts.
However, even that is not a significant item. If you don't know who pays the
bulk of local teacher school salaries, take a look at your local real estate tax
bill. The biggest item by far is the school tax, payable if you own a property,
whether you have any children in school or not.
However, let's grant that
federal funding may make up 10% or even 20% of the local school budget. An
across-the-board cut based on the sequester might bring the funding down to say
1%, which is 5% of 20%. Remember that the sequester was supposed to apply
equally to spending cuts across the board.
Let's also grant that the
federal government finds a way to make spending cuts disproportionate for
political reasons, and that the reduction in funding might be 5%. Would that
make a real difference?
I believe most people would agree that public
schools are not run economically. They tend to have bloated payrolls, not
because the average teacher or even the best teachers are overpaid. Rather,
because the administrations and costs thereof have grown disproportionately to
the needs of the students. The teachers union has also arranged, as unions
usually do, to keep on the incompetent at high salaries based upon their length
of service.
With that said, what could be done by local school boards to
compensate for a 1% cut in revenue, based upon a 5% sequester cut or even a
straight 5% cut?
I have a few suggestions. First, weed out high paid
incompetent teachers. This may require facing a threat of a teacher strike, but
the threat should be faced. We may find that many teachers will continue to go
to work in spite of a union strike position.
Next, look at the
administration for each local school. It needs a principal, a
secretary/receptionist and a janitor. Other school maintenance, such as lawn,
building repair, and plumbing & electrical emergencies should be handled by
private contract in the same manner as we usually handle these items for our
homes.
For the remainder of the staff, a school nurse could be available
for one to two hours each morning, with teachers and parents handling any
emergency situations thereafter. Advanced therapy, such as psychiatrists, should
be eliminated. Parents can do their own psychoanalysis or pay for professionals
from their own pockets.
When I say the "remainder of the staff", I don't
mean only the staff of the individual schools but also the school administrative
offices in each municipality. Use an ax. We don't need pencil pushers there.
Individual principles and secretaries know how to do their jobs, without
overseeing by a barrage of "over the shoulder" lookers. A municipality the size
of Lubbock needs a Superintendent of Schools, his/her secretary, and perhaps 4
or 5 other people. Anything else is excessive.
Eliminate all free school
lunches. Maintain a lunchroom for students to eat their lunches brought from
home. Parents can each morning prepare sandwiches and add fruit to a paper sack,
with a bottle of water or milk for each lunch. If they have insufficient funds
to do this, they can buy the food with their food stamps. This also eliminates
the need for cooks, cleanup people, and the cost of food itself. The janitor can
handle the disposal of sandwich wrappers and paper bags.
If the school
system has a Head Start program, eliminate it. A recent federal government
report shows that students who have participated in a Head Start program are no
further advanced after several years than are students who have not been
involved. In fact, the Had Start students are somewhat behind. Obviously, Head
Start is not only a waste of money, it is detrimental to student
advancement.
If those suggestions are implemented, I am sure we can not
only continue to run a viable school program, perhaps more viable, to compensate
for any sequester or further cuts that may be coming along and we would still
likely be able to reduce our local school tax.
Before I forget it, there
is one item of considerable significance. That is students do not need a country
club atmosphere in order to learn. I lived in Italy for some years and found
that the Italian education was quite competent, even though students used
buildings which were in many cases perhaps 50 or 100 years old. We don't need
bond issues with interest being paid by taxpayers in order to replace buildings
every 10 or 20 years.
Finally, and of greatest importance, there is the
need to eliminate the Department of Education. It is another high cost item of
the federal government, which contributes nothing to the advantage of the
public. Any kind of organization necessary to consolidate school districts can
be done by state governments. We need to remember that the Constitution
delegated few responsibilities to a federal government. Everything not so
specified were reserved for control by the states.
